Blair must feel personal shame on Iraq
July 20, 2004 12:00 AM
Charles Kennedy MP, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, has lambasted the Prime Minister in a debate on the war in Iraq.
Speaking in the House of Commons following the publication of the Butler Report, Kennedy said : "The dossier - the crucial case of the direct threat to the United Kingdom from weapons of mass destruction came to underpin the subsequent case for war - was subject to undue political input.
"A description was placed before the public to maximize the persuasiveness of the later argument mounted by the government to pursue that war. When it came to the debate here, and the vote in this House of Commons we were not aware at that point then of that entire background."
"Today, given what we do now know, surely it becomes increasingly likely that the government would have been hard pushed, if not found it mission impossible to have persuaded a majority in this House for war, at that time. The overwhelming mood would have been to allow the authorized weapons inspectors the further period of time which they had sought."
Kennedy then turned to Tony Blair's role in the decision to go to war :
"I don't think he quite gets it - what the people in the country think about all of this. He's got to demonstrate genuine contrition for the misjudgements over which he has presided which undoubtedly have taken place. The public have to have some sense of confidence restored in the process of government - and the lessons to be learned from this entire sequence of events."
"In his statement last week the Prime Minister spoke of his pride over what has been achieved in Iraq. Well we can all feel pride in the courage and the professionalism of our armed forces, particularly when asked by Parliament to carry out such a difficult and dangerous task."
"But we certainly don't feel pride, I have to say, in what they were instructed to do - at the behest of the government and increasingly not in the name of our country."
"We feel ashamed over these events. And I do hope that in the years to come in his most private moments when he reflects on all of this, the well-documented litany of failings and the political misjudgements that went with them, I do hope the Prime Minister might acknowledge a sense of personal shame."
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