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Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge) (LD): The hon. Gentleman has spoken eloquently on this subject a number of times and it is a pleasure to hear him speak again. Will he expand on where he believes the evidence did not stack up? People say that the intelligence evidence is now disproved, but we never believed it because when the weapons inspectors went to places identified by the intelligence officers as having weapons, there were none. That undermined the argument that there was any real evidence in the first place.

Mr. Kilfoyle: I could wax eloquent all night on those points, but let me put it simply. On the night of the great debate in the Chamber, I and others made the point that inspectors were in Iraq dismantling the weapons of war that had been found. Hon. Members may recall the
 
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Prime Minister referring to appeasement, as though those who were opposed to war were appeasers, akin to those in 1938—in fact, I think he actually referred to it in that way. I said that we did not have League of Nations inspectors dismantling the Panzers, but UN inspectors dismantling the weapons of mass destruction.

Anyone who knows anything about such things would wonder, as I did at the time, why we had spent so many years missing all the weapons of mass destruction when we had alleged precision-targeted bombing of every military installation in Iraq. Where were they? What about satellite reconnaissance and all the rest of it, which is supposed to tell us the location of a truck or, indeed, the man standing beside the truck? The case clearly needed more evidence than was available. We did not get that evidence and today certain views have been vindicated.

Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman says that the war was immoral. Is he saying that continual breach of United Nations resolutions, massive human rights violations against the people of Iraq and the desire to disable the regime responsible for the latter, could never constitute justification for intervention? If he is not saying that, in what circumstances would he countenance intervention?

Mr. Kilfoyle: I am not saying that at all. We are discussing an entirely separate set of circumstances. Nor do I agree, by the way, with some of my Back-Bench colleagues who would transpose the conditions raised by the hon. Gentleman into another set of geopolitical circumstances.

I am sure that I speak for most of those who were against the war when I say that we did not in any way condone either Saddam personally or the regime that he headed. However, those were not the explicit reasons for going to war. Regime change was never on offer, no matter how repulsive the regime might have been. To return to my theme about the British public, what was certainly on offer was the case that there was a clear and present danger—a threat—emanating from Saddam. That was demonstrably not the case then and is demonstrably not the case now.

Deciding to go to war will be a very difficult sin—to speak in my own terms—for us to eradicate as a party. We will be held to account as a party for this war whether we voted against it or for it. The morality of the case was put eloquently by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) was more eloquent than I could ever hope to be about the damage that the war has done to my party. More importantly, however, is the damage that has been done to our position in Europe and the United Nations and to our relationships with the Muslim world. I hope that that damage is not irreparable, but it is very great indeed.

6.55 pm

Mrs. Patsy Calton (Cheadle) (LD): In following the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), I can only say how much I agree with everything he said.

The Butler report gives a useful overview of the use and role of intelligence, and I suspect that it is as much for the good of the House of Commons as it is for the
 
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Government and perhaps the Cabinet. In his overview of the use and role of intelligence, Butler talks about the limitations of intelligence and the various types of intelligence—human, imaging and signals—and says how important corroborative evidence is when human intelligence is involved. It is not enough to have a single source or a single source at third hand who cannot be traced afterwards, which seems to be the case with the Iraq intelligence. He stresses the importance of assessment, a stage that was apparently missed out in the case of the 45-minute claim, which came at a late stage.

Butler also makes the point that it is necessary to challenge at every level. The intelligence services must be challenged. The Joint Intelligence Committee must continue to challenge information. On a political level, both the Prime Minister and the Cabinet must be challenged. It is important that we take all four reports into account. When I looked at the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee, as I did soon after its report came out, I was astonished to find at paragraph 73 of page 24 that of the seven Departments that acknowledged they had received a copy of the first draft of the September dossier, only one, to its credit, made any comment. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was, apparently, not sent a draft. The private offices of some Secretaries of State decided that their masters did not need to see it. However, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Trade and Investment at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office both commented on it.

Some of those Secretaries of States, some of whom have since left the Government, have commented on how Cabinet work lacks overall Cabinet responsibility because one person makes the decisions, but they did not even look at the draft. If they made it clear to their outer office that they did not want to be troubled with the information, how on earth can they complain afterwards that they were not involved?

I have been fascinated over the past couple of years to watch the Prime Minister. I have been trying to understand why he climbed out further and further on a limb. He clearly genuinely believed what he told us. I could not believe that someone would go so far out on a limb on intelligence that at best had lots of ifs and buts about it. Careful reading of the information issued and the statements made revealed that deniability was written into much of the phrasing. When deniability is put into almost every line, one begins to wonder why that deniability exists.

Butler talks about the backdrop and gives four case studies, including North Korea and Iran. He mentions the creeping tide of terrorism and the concern that the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the JIC clearly had. In paragraph 285, the Prime Minister is reported as telling the Butler committee that

"the place to start was Iraq"

out of all the various threats across the world

"because you have the history of the United Nations Resolutions and you have the . . . fact that we'd taken action in respect of WMD in the aftermath of the Gulf War, then again in 1998".

The Prime Minister saw Iraq within a context. He did not see it as an isolated case, according to what he told Lord Butler. Yet he was telling the House of Commons something different—

It being Seven o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
 
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BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order. No. 15 (Exempted Business),

That, at this day's sitting, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House in the name of the Prime Minister may continue, though opposed, until eight o'clock and that the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, Energy Bill [Lords] and any Lords Messages and Amendments that may be received may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]

Question agreed to.

Iraq

Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]

Mrs. Calton: The Prime Minister lays great stress on the strengthening of the JIC assessments in 2002. Was he aware, when he made his decision, of the risks of "group think" to which Lord Butler draws attention in paragraph 57 of his report? In paragraph 58, Butler says:

"The assessment process must be informed by an understanding of policy-makers' requirements for information, but must avoid being so captured by policy objectives that it reports the world as policy makers would wish it to be rather than as it is."

The Government have set up machinery whereby everyone from teachers to doctors, policemen and civil servants know that they must see the world as the Government see it or they are out. If they step out of line they pay the price, so naturally the JIC produced the reports that the Government wanted. Commenting on the first draft of the dossier to the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Defence Secretary said that it was "insufficiently dramatic", as if that were its most important feature. It is almost impossible to believe that that comment would not have seeped out.

Today, the Prime Minister quoted selectively from Butler's conclusions, and omitted the conclusion that Iraq did not

"have significant—if any—stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment, or developed plans for using them."

The Prime Minister made it clear that he believed that Iraq continued to produce biological weapons and their means of delivery.

As I am running out of time, I shall conclude. As a citizen of this country and a Member of Parliament, I expect people with access to material used in the build-up to war to take individual and collective responsibility for it. It is simply not good enough to be left in a position where we do not know whether anybody has asked any questions. There is a sense of public outrage about the war. Governments cannot slide into war using dodgy, unchecked information—

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