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Mr. Malcolm Savidge (Aberdeen, North) (Lab): Butler indicates that there was some recent new evidence suggesting an increase in Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, though it suggests that that later proved to be unreliable. However, paragraphs 427 to 428 of the report indicate that any UK policy change did not come about as a result of a new development in the current intelligence on Iraq, and that other countries would have been of more concern from the intelligence. It suggests two reasons for the change of policy.

The first relates to 11 September and views Iraq in a wider international context. That is an argument to which I shall return. The second reason the report suggests is that we were influenced by the concerns of the US Government. That, surely, is the overriding truth. The decisions of the Bush Administration, as so clearly spelled out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), were the decisive factor.

The leadership of both main parties wanted to be close to the United States, partly for honourable reasons—that we should stand by the US after the atrocity of 9/11, and that we should support the US against terrorism and in the action in Afghanistan. I believe there were other factors as well. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), the then Leader of the Opposition, had close personal ties with members of the Bush Administration, and the Government have said repeatedly that they regard it as a major policy endeavour to stay close to the Bush Administration.

In the United States, after the war, Mr. Rumsfeld said that there was no new evidence really, but the Administration saw things differently through the prism of 9/11. I suspect that Condoleezza Rice told the truth rather more clearly when she told The New Yorker that after the atrocity she called together senior members of the national security council and said,

"'How do you capitalise on these opportunities to fundamentally change American doctrine and the shape of the world in the wake of September 11?'"

Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, Perle and the rest of the hawks had wanted a war with Iraq for years. Some of them had been arguing for it ever since they thought the first Gulf war had ended too early. That built up during the 1990s, with various reasons being given. It started to become part of the campaign to get rid of Bill Clinton, and it started to become an obsession and almost a shibboleth. It was the way one proved one was a good right-wing Republican. They gave many reasons, though human rights in Iraq was not one of them.
 
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Wolfowitz told us that they chose one—weapons of mass destruction—because they could all agree on that. Then they produced a lot of false information to support their case. One thinks of the suggestion that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 or that he was associated with al-Qaeda, or the lunatic suggestion that he had a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles carrying biological and chemical weapons with which he intended to attack the US. The Senate committee spelled out how false some of those claims were.

In the UK, as I said, there was a desire to be close to the Bush Administration. Hutton and Butler, in their own different ways, suggested that that desire influenced the desire for intelligence that would support a more aggressive policy. The September dossier the February "dodgy" dossier, debates, briefings and press conferences surely reflect what Butler said: the division was broken down between assessment and advocacy. Caveats and cautions were left out and risks were overstated.

In his speech on 18 March, the Prime Minister spelled out the reasons for war, including the breaching of UN resolutions. However, in response to the military threat, the inspectors had said that they were getting much more compliance, although Iraq was probably not, in the words of resolution 1441,

"co-operating actively, unconditionally and immediately".

Nevertheless, surely that co-operation was greater than that which we accepted in relation to decommissioning by the IRA, for example. The WMD threat was overestimated and insufficient weight was given to the inspectors' questioning of British intelligence evidence.

It was suggested that WMD could be given to terrorists. However, the JIC report of 27 November said that there was no intelligence to suggest that Saddam considered using chemical or biological weapons in terrorist attacks. Its report of 10 February said that that threat would only be heightened by an attack on Iraq. I believe that the threat of terrorism has increased as a result of the attack.

Llew Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab): My hon. Friend outlined some of the reasons that the Prime Minister used for going to war, including weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and the breaking of UN resolutions. Could not the same argument be used against Israel? It, too, has weapons of mass destruction. It, too, attacks its neighbours on a daily basis. It, too, is guilty of many humanitarian injustices. It, too, has broken UN resolutions—probably more than any other country in the world.

Mr. Savidge: I agree with my hon. Friend. The answer that people usually give is, "Ah, but Israel does not have chapter VII resolutions against them", but they never mention the fact that the United States has always vetoed any possibility of that occurring.

The UK is probably now much more likely to be a terrorist target. Iraq was a hideous tyranny, but it was not associated with al-Qaeda. There is a risk that it could degenerate into the sort of anarchy in which terrorism could thrive. There is a danger that we have increased the appearance that "the west" is against Islam. The pictures from Abu Ghraib could be recruiting posters for al-Qaeda. I fear that the US neo-conservatives have been Osama bin Laden's useful idiots.
 
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Last week, the Prime Minister said that Iraq is better off without Saddam. However, as the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) tellingly pointed out, the Prime Minister said in his speech on 18 March:

"I have never put the justification for action as regime change."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 772.]

There are lessons that should be learned. First and foremost, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston said, containment was working—better, probably, than any of us suspected—in relation to WMD and the prevention of aggression. The neo-conservative agenda is wrong and dangerous. In particular, the concept of pre-emptive war should not set a pattern for the 21st century. We should also learn the lesson that we need more collective and more informed Cabinet government.

I would say to the Prime Minister that although I respect his strong convictions and his good faith, he misled Parliament and the people into war. Last week, he said that he took full personal responsibility. I hope, for the sake of his reputation, for the sake of the Labour party and for the sake of the British Parliament and the British people, that he considers very carefully the full implications of his own words.

5.18 pm

Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell) (Con): I am delighted that the Foreign Secretary has returned to his place. I know that he is extremely busy, but I want to draw his attention to remarks made earlier by the Father of the House, who rightly said that this is a very important debate. It is a pity that no members of the Cabinet have been present for much of it, especially given that there have been outstanding speeches by Members on both sides of the House with deeply held views.

The debate is not only important, but overdue. We would not easily have been forgiven had we broken for the summer recess on Thursday without having a full-scale debate, addressed by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, that gave Parliament the opportunity to reflect not only on why we went to war, but on what is happening in Iraq and on the implications of our actions for what is happening in the middle east and elsewhere. I shall dwell briefly on all those matters.

Exactly like my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), I feel let down by the Prime Minister. I voted for the war and I spoke in the debate before that vote, but I now feel that Parliament and the people have been misled. Like many, I had grave doubts.

Tony Baldry: Is it not a fact that, if hon. Members had known then what they know now, the Prime Minister would have had great difficulty in getting the House's approval for war in the way in which he did?

Mr. Mackay: My hon. Friend, with his considerable experience both as a Minister and as the Chairman of the International Development Committee, is absolutely right. If I may, I shall come back to the issue that he raised in more detail in a moment.
 
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As I was saying, I had grave reservations about the war. In an earlier debate on the middle east, which took place on 16 April 2002, I said:

"But what has happened in the past two, three, six or nine months that requires military intervention to be considered that has not happened before? We are not told what weapons of mass destruction he has now that he did not have then."—[Official Report, 16 April 2002; Vol. 383, c. 506.]

Those questions were never satisfactorily answered. In my opening remarks in the debate of 18 March 2003, I said:

"This is also a very close call for many Members."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 803.]

Many of us entered the Chamber unsure of which way we were going to vote. We could see obvious merit in Saddam Hussein's regime falling; nothing would have pleased us more. Indeed, I do not think that any Member—with the possible exception of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvin (Mr. Galloway), whom we do not see these days—in any way supports Saddam Hussein or condones the dreadful things that he has done to his people.

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