Iraq: Future Strategic Relationship

I will answer it, but let me quote for the hon. Gentleman from a contribution by one right hon. and learned Gentleman in the run-up to war. He said:"““We can also agree that””" Saddam Hussein"““most certainly has chemical and biological weapons and is working towards a nuclear capability. The dossier contains confirmation of information that we either knew or most certainly should have been willing to assume.””—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 43.]" Those were the words of the previous leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has a strong track record on such issues. The reality is that Saddam was presented with a justifiable challenge, in resolution 1441, to comply with the international community and the weapons inspectors and demonstrate that he did not have that capacity. He chose not to do that, which was why we went to war. It is a reality, which I acknowledge, that those weapons of mass destruction were not found. In that sense our intelligence was not accurate, but we were not the only country in the world where that was the case. Even the intelligence agencies of those countries in the international community that took a different decision from the one that we took were telling them the same thing about what they believed to be the case about weapons of mass destruction.