Monday, July 07, 2003

THE JURY'S STILL OUT

I haven't read the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee report - Decision to Go to War in Iraq. I hope to glance at it tomorrow.

In the meantime, I caught Channel 4 news tonight which naturally featured heavily on the report. It seems, as the tag line says, that the jury is still out. The Prime Minister's arch spinmeister, Alastair Campbell, has had his hands cleaned by the committee and must feel he has done his job in deflecting the public through the unseemly row with the BBC in which the Government has been shameful. The committee has vindicated the BBC reporter rubbished by Campbell.

Of greatest importance in the public eye, the committee says that the assertion that the Iraqis could deploy WMDs within 45 minutes was given too much prominence in the Government dossiers.

Former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House Robin Cook, interviewed on the programme, said in an interview in the Guardian today:

"there are no weapons of mass destruction, so the government got it wrong, and should now say so."

Cook did also say:

"I myself have never made the accusation that the government sexed up the dossier. The serious allegation is that they got it wrong, and they should not be allowed to get off answering that issue because Alastair has souped up this controversy."

...and that, politics aside, view it seems is shared by the committee. Cook now wants to see:

"...an independent judicial inquiry with access to all the papers and carried out by someone "who would have forensic training and skills" "

Cook is absolutely right. Such an inquiry is the only way we'll ever find out is the Government lied, bent the truth deliberately or used poor or incomplete intelligence to justify its decision to invade another sovereign nation. That lessens the legality of the campaign.

:: Posted by pete @ 16:23