Scottish Daily Mail

Blair ‘wasn’t straight with public on Iraq War’

That’s Chilcot’s verdict... but ex-PM claims BBC reporter Laura put words in his mouth

- By Ian Drury Home Affairs Editor

‘No falsifying of intelligen­ce’

‘ I think any prime minister taking a country into war has to be straight with the nation... I don’t believe that was the case in the Iraq instance.’ Sir John Chilcot

‘Persuasion is everything’

TONY Blair was not ‘straight with the public’ about his decisions in the run-up to the war in Iraq, Sir John Chilcot said yesterday.

The Iraq Inquiry chairman suggested the former prime minister had been ‘emotionall­y truthful’ in his account of how Britain rushed into the catastroph­ic conflict.

He said Mr Blair had relied on belief rather than fact to justify the 2003 invasion, which led to the deaths of 179 British servicemen and women.

It has been estimated that between 500,000 and 1million Iraqis died in or as a direct consequenc­e of the war.

Sir John’s comments came in a BBC interview to mark the first anniversar­y of the publicatio­n of his scathing £12million report into the disastrous war.

But Mr Blair reacted with fury to his comments. A spokesman for the former Labour leader, who has faced accusation­s of taking the country to war on a lie, accused BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg of ‘putting words in the mouth’ of Sir John.

The 2.6million-word Iraq Inquiry report condemned Mr Blair for rushing into the war on the back of suspect intelligen­ce amid questions over its legality, and for failing to equip troops properly or plan for the aftermath.

Sir John and his panel said the former prime minister acted unreasonab­ly when telling Parliament that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to Britain or that he could obtain nuclear missiles within months.

In her interview yesterday, Miss Kuenssberg asked: ‘Do you believe that Tony Blair was as straight with you and the public as he ought to have been?’

After a long pause, Sir John replied: ‘Can I slightly reword that to say I think any prime minister taking a country into war has got to be straight with the nation and carry it, so far as possible, with him or her. I don’t believe that was the case in the Iraq instance.’

He added: ‘Tony Blair is always and ever an advocate. He makes the most persuasive case he can – not departing from the truth, but persuasion is everything.’

Sir John said the former prime minister had not deliberate­ly lied about the threat posed by Saddam and declined to suggest that he ‘manipulate­d’ the evidence before it was presented to Parliament.

He accepted that on the eve of his crucial speech to Parliament in March 2003, Mr Blair genuinely believed Iraq had weapons of mass destructio­n because the Government’s Joint Intelligen­ce Committee had wrongly told him this.

But he said: ‘There is, I argued, the responsibi­lity on the leading politician of a government, both to make the case for the policy decision taken but also to balance that with realism about risks, downsides, counter-arguments. If you act simply as a one-sided advocate, you risk losing that. And I think that risk did come about.’

Sir John condemned Mr Blair’s ‘sofa’ style of government, in which ministers were not consulted on crucial decisions, as ‘damaging’.

Commenting on a note uncovered by the inquiry, sent by Mr Blair to US president George W Bush in 2002 in which he told him ‘I shall be with you whatever’, Sir John said his first reaction was that ‘you mustn’t say that… you’re making a binding commitment by one sovereign government to another which you can’t fulfil’.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said after the broadcast: ‘The BBC headline stems from words put into John Chilcot’s mouth by the interviewe­r. A full reading of the interview shows that Sir John makes clear that Mr Blair had not “departed from the truth”.

‘Sir John also makes clear that on the eve of the invasion, Mr Blair asked the then chair of the Joint Intelligen­ce Committee, “Can you tell me beyond any reasonable doubt that Saddam has weapons of mass destructio­n?”. To which the answer was, “Yes I can.” He was entitled to rely on that.

‘Five different inquiries have all shown the same thing – there was no falsifying of intelligen­ce.’

Lord Menzies Campbell, who opposed the war as foreign affairs spokesman of the Liberal Democrats during the run-up to military action, said: ‘No one should be surprised by Sir John Chilcot’s analysis today.

‘In truth, Mr Blair’s decision was fundamenta­lly wrong. A bad decision, even if made in good faith, is still a bad decision.’

 ??  ?? Fury: Tony Blair believes the BBC manipulate­d Sir John
Fury: Tony Blair believes the BBC manipulate­d Sir John
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom