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Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman has done himself no service whatever by a shameful parody of the contents of the Hutton report. He knows very well what the conclusion of the Hutton inquiry was in respect of the so-called sexing-up of the dossier: that the allegations were completely unfounded.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester, Central) (Lab): One of the purposes of an inquiry is surely to restore confidence to a sceptical public who are anxious about, among other things, the competence of our intelligence and security services. My right hon. Friend is right to focus on that, but does he accept that the public still wants answers as to whether there was a clear threat to this country and to international security from Saddam at that time, and whether there was a legal basis for going to war? The inquiry does not seem to address those important questions.
Mr. Straw: It would be hard for any inquiry, however distinguished, to inquire into the state of mind not just of the Governments of the United Kingdom and of the United States, but the Governments of the 13 other members of the Security Council, each of whom, quite independently—and not only on the basis of their own intelligence, but on the basis of what they could see in front of their nose, as could their public—had come to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein and his regime posed a threat to international peace and security by reason of its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, its long-range missile systems and its defiance of the United Nations. That was the basis on which the UN made its decision about 1441 and it was also a fundamental part of the case for military action put before the House.
Ultimately, the United Nations Security Council has to accept responsibility for the decisions that it took in November 2002, which plainly cannot be the subject of an inquiry by a single Government. We as Ministers, and we as the House of Commons, have to accept our responsibilities before the high court of Parliament—better informed, wherever possible, by such inquiries.
Mr. William Cash (Stone) (Con): Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that it would not effectively have been possible for the Government to have gone to war without the opinion of the Attorney-General on the matter? The Foreign Secretary may recall that it was I who asked the Prime Minister to make available that opinion, and that that was done in a truncated form. Of course, the opinion must have been based on certain facts and the evaluation of intelligence questions. Will he make certain that it is made available to the committee?
Mr. Straw: It is for the inquiry to decide whether it wishes to see that opinion. The hon. Gentleman knows very well that, for extremely good reasons, it has been the practice of successive Governments that the detailed legal advice of Law Officers is not made public.
Mr. Doug Henderson (Newcastle upon Tyne, North) (Lab): I know that my right hon. Friend always has his
ear to the ground in terms of the questions that people are asking. At the moment, their question is: "Did the Government act properly when we went to war with Iraq?" In order to answer it, is it not necessary to examine not only what the intelligence was, but how the Government responded to it, and whether sufficient checks and balances and investigations took place before a judgment was reached?
Mr. Straw: One of the central issues before the Hutton inquiry was whether we acted properly in respect of the intelligence that was the subject of the Gilligan report of 29 May. To underline how unreliable was the ability of the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) to read Hutton, he says on page 321 of his report:
- "I consider that the allegation"—
- "was unfounded as it would have been understood by those who heard the broadcasts to mean that the dossier had been embellished with intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable, which was not the case."
- "any discrepancies between the intelligence gathered, evaluated and used by the Government before the conflict, and between that intelligence and what has been discovered by the Iraq Survey Group"
- "recommendations to the Prime Minister for the future on the gathering, evaluation and use of intelligence on WMD, in the light of the difficulties of operating in countries of concern."
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con): It hardly instils confidence in one when the right hon. Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor), who is to be part of the Butler committee, is making her own audible responses to questions.
The Foreign Secretary says that the UK inquiry will work closely with the American inquiry, but will the net be cast further afield, not least to Australia, where Andrew Wilkie of the Australian intelligence service resigned a week before the war commenced because of what he called the blatant exaggeration in the UK and United States Governments' use of their intelligence?
Mr. Straw: It is a matter for the committee to decide from whom it seeks evidence. The hon. Lady's suggestion is totally without foundation. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor), to the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates), and to all the members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, of all parties, for their
professionalism in the work that they do. Had it been possible, I would have hoped that the ISC would be able to conduct the inquiry, but following discussions with the usual channels, this inquiry, with its distinguished outsiders, has been established to do the job.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): As the public greeted Lord Hutton's inquiry with deep scepticism, despite its being conducted in a very open atmosphere, does my right hon. Friend honestly think that this inquiry will be anything more than an establishment stitch-up designed to protect the political judgments that told this House, the world and everybody else that the basis of the war was the existence of weapons of mass destruction? Does he not recognise that the public will accept only an open, public judicial inquiry, not one conducted largely in secret by the Privy Council?
Mr. Straw: I say with great affection to my hon. Friend that if we had the Archangel Gabriel running the inquiry and sitting in public, he would pour cold water on it and say that it was an establishment stitch-up if he disagreed with its findings.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): The Foreign Secretary noted that other countries had access to similar intelligence and concluded that there were concerns to be addressed. However, as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) suggested, the public want an inquiry that investigates why this country alone, with America, chose to take the action that it did, instead of listening to Hans Blix and taking the time to ensure that the case for war had been made?
Mr. Straw: We were far from alone in the decision that we took. A very large number of countries, in addition to the UK and the US—half the member states of the European Union and many other countries around the world—supported the military action on which we were embarked, and many participated in it.
As for Dr. Blix, he never had the role of telling the Security Council what to do—he laid evidence before it. The evidence that Dr. Blix laid before the Security Council confirmed me in my opinion that we had to take action against Saddam.
Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op): I welcome the Foreign Secretary's statement, and I am glad to see the end of Saddam's brutal and genocidal regime. However, can he tell us how the inquiry can link up with intelligence information that is available to other countries, as it was not this country alone, or even with the USA, which decided that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but the general view throughout the United Nations and Europe?
Mr. Straw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is a matter on which the Butler committee will seek co-operation from the United States Government and other intelligence partners. To underline my hon. Friend's final point, Dr. Kay pointed out that President Chirac believed, even as late as March last year, that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction—a belief that was reflected by German intelligence.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): May I press the Foreign Secretary further on the point made by
my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) and many others? Before we reach the end of these exchanges, it is right that the inquiry's terms of reference should be made absolutely explicit. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that members of the committee will be in charge of their own work, and that they will therefore not be required narrowly to consider what intelligence was delivered up by MI6 to the Government, but will be able to examine the relationship between civil servants and Ministers and how Ministers evaluated that intelligence?
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