Downing Street Says

Asked why the Prime Minister was refusing to say “sorry” when Patricia Hewitt and Lord Falconer had both done so, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that whatever form of words were used, it was important to make a clear distinction between the mistakes in intelligence which the Prime Minister had acknowledged and for which he had accepted full responsibility in his response to the Butler Report, and apologising for the war which was something the Prime Minister was not prepared to do, despite the wish of his critics. Equally, it was important to recognise that the ISG had not only concluded that there were no WMD in Iraq. They had also stated that Saddam had been in multiple breach of UN Resolutions. The fundamental case for war, therefore, remained as valid today as it was at the time and was why the Prime Minister continued to believe that the conflict had been right.

Asked if Downing Street supported Lord Falconer’s comment this morning that the Prime Minister was “very sorry” for the intelligence failures, the PMOS drew journalists’ attention to the Prime Minister’s response to the Butler Report and his speech at Brighton in which he had drawn a distinction between acknowledging and accepting responsibility for mistakes that had been made, and not apologising for the war. The PMOS suggested that journalists might want to take a reality check at this point in the light of reports this morning about the discovery of a mass grave in Hatra, a Kurdish area in Northern Iraq which underlined the brutality of the regime that we had been dealing with. Contrary to the way it was being portrayed in some quarters, UN Resolution 1441 had never been meant to herald the start of a game of hide-and-seek with Iraq but had been supposed to present Saddam with a final chance to comply fully with previous UN Resolutions. Unfortunately, he had chosen to pass up that opportunity. Put to him that, though the world was a better place without Saddam, regime change had never been a basis for going to war, the PMOS said that he had never pretended otherwise. He was simply pointing out that the international community had believed that it had to take a very firm stand against Saddam because not only had he refused consistently to comply with UN Resolutions but he had also shown a disregard for human life both inside and outside Iraq. Of course it was right and proper to ask questions about the reasons for going to war. However, it was also important to set the issue in perspective in terms of the view of the Iraqi people themselves. Their chief concerns included not going back to the horrors of the past, as well as the security and infrastructure of their country. As recent events in Sadr City showed, progress was being made on the former issue, just as it was clearly being made on the latter.

Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned that saying “sorry” would make him look weak, the PMOS said the Prime Minister believed it was important for people to differentiate between admitting responsibility for mistakes and not apologising for the war. Put to him that the Prime Minister could explain that he was saying “sorry” for the mistakes that had been made but not for going to war, the PMOS said that as he had told journalists yesterday afternoon, our experience of the way that certain remarks had been treated in the past showed that we were right to be cognizant of the danger that some people would elide one issue with the other.

Asked who had been the final arbiter in deciding that Saddam’s non-compliance with Resolution 1441 had been sufficient to justify the military action taken by the Coalition, the PMOS said that as everyone had recognised at the time that 1441 had been passed, the Resolution had been meant to present Saddam with a final chance to comply with his international obligations. Since he had failed consistently to comply with existing UN Resolutions for twelve years, his actions should not have come as a surprise to anyone. The PMOS took the opportunity to draw journalists’ attention to the second volume of the ISG Report, and in particular page 71 of the Delivery Systems section which stated “The ISG has uncovered numerous examples of Iraq’s disregard for UN sanctions and Resolutions in an effort to improve its missile and unmanned aerial vehicle capabilities. These violations repeatedly breached UN Security Council Resolutions 687, 707, 715, 1051, 1284 and 1441”. In our view, that underlined the reasons why the Prime Minister believed that the case for war remained justified. Put to him that the final arbiter must have been either the UN Security Council or the UN Secretary General – neither of whom had supported the military action in Iraq, the PMOS said that as a spokesman for the UK Government all he could point to was the fact that the Attorney General had set out the legal position in this country.

Questioned as to whether the Prime Minister had asked the Attorney General to reassess whether the Iraq war had been legal in the light of the Foreign Secretary’s confirmation yesterday that the 45-minute claim had been withdrawn, the PMOS said that the central tenet of the Attorney General’s legal advice related to the fact that there had been multiple breaches of UN Resolutions – the final one of which had been the failure to comply with Resolution 1441. The ISG report did not in any way take away from that assessment. Put to him that the fundamental case for the war – that Saddam possessed either weapons or weapons programmes – had been undermined by the conclusions of the ISG report, the PMOS said that the ISG had stated clearly – and had provided evidence to show – that Saddam had intended to undermine the sanctions and resume production of WMD once they had been removed since he had retained the services of his scientists with that in mind. Put to him that of course Saddam had ‘retained’ his scientists because it wouldn’t have made any sense to kill them all off in the intervening period, the PMOS said that as the ISG report had noted, Saddam had actually raised their salaries during that time. That did not suggest that he had any intention of standing his WMD programmes down.

Asked to explain why the UK had been seeking a second UN Resolution if 1441 was supposed to have given Saddam one last chance to comply with his international obligations, the PMOS said that of course it would have been preferable had there been a general consensus about the direction in which we were going at the time. However, 1441 had set the criteria. Unfortunately, Saddam had chosen not to comply with its directives. Asked on what evidence we were stating that Saddam had refused to comply, the PMOS said that Saddam had refused to co-operate fully as he had been requested to do. He had also failed specifically to provide the information that Resolution 1441 had demanded of him.

Asked if the Prime Minister would still have gone to war against Iraq if he had known that there were no WMD or WMD programmes, the PMOS said that as Donald Anderson had made clear this morning, the central point was the fact that Saddam had remained in defiance of UN Resolutions. The person who could have clarified everything was Saddam himself. He had not taken advantage of the various opportunities presented to him to do so. Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned that some of the intelligence we now knew to be wrong was being used to detain people indefinitely on the charge that they had links to Al Qaida or other terrorist groups, the PMOS said that it wasn’t our practice to comment on individual cases which were being investigated. In general terms, however, there were, of course, lessons to be learned, as we had acknowledged at the time of the Butler Report. However, we continued to believe that the intelligence services provided a very useful – and vital – service for this country. That was particularly the case at a time when there was a real threat. A careful reading of the ISG report underlined just how serious that threat was.

Asked why Beverley Hughes had had to resign as Home Office Minister earlier this year for inadvertently misleading the House whereas the Prime Minister had no intention of even appearing before Parliament to make a corrective Statement, the PMOS said that he was not going to go over old ground with regard to Beverley Hughes. He would simply remind journalists that the Hutton Inquiry, Butler Inquiry, FAC Inquiry and ISC Inquiry had all concluded that no one had acted in bad faith. Put to him that Parliamentary protocol required anyone who had misled the House to make a corrective Statement, something which the Prime Minister had not done, the PMOS pointed out that the Prime Minister had given his full response to the Butler Report in the House. Put to him that the Butler Inquiry had dealt only with the dossier on WMD, not speeches or Statements that had been made, the PMOS repeated that the Prime Minister had explained to the House, in response to the Butler Inquiry, why he had said what he had said based on the information he had at the time. Asked if there was any chance of a Prime Ministerial Statement on this issue at some point in the near future, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister believed, rightly, that these matters had already been aired. Put to him that the Foreign Secretary’s announcement yesterday had moved the issue forward and that he owed the House a further explanation of what had happened, the PMOS said that the Foreign Secretary had simply been taking the opportunity to formalise the situation as set out at the time of the Butler Inquiry.

Asked for a reaction to reports that the German Defence Minister had said that Germany could send troops to Iraq at some point in the future, the PMOS said that he was a spokesman for the British Government, not the German Government. As such, it wasn’t his job to intervene in German politics. Asked if the UK would support a call for an international Summit on Iraq, the PMOS said that he would also decline the invitation to get involved in US domestic politics. Both issues, in any event, were hypothetical and therefore did not warrant a comment from him.

Asked if the Prime Minister recognised that, far from Iraq being an obsession of the Lobby, it was an issue that would simply not go away and would dominate the next General Election whenever it was held, the PMOS said that the issue of Iraq was not going to go away because the country was actually changing for the better. For example, elections were expected in January and the lives of ordinary Iraqi citizens, though difficult, were improving. Consequently, far from wanting the issue of Iraq to go away, the Prime Minister wanted to see it continue to improve. The domestic policy agenda, however, was a completely separate issue. It went without saying that the Prime Minister wanted to see improvements in our public services. We believed that the British public, unlike some other people, were intelligent enough to recognise that it was possible both to see improvements at home, as well as in Iraq.

1 Comment »

Surely the war was justified after Saddam’s failure to comply with UN resoluitions. Given the intelligence into the WMD which were suspected of being in Iraq, does a president or prime minister have any other real option in their heart of hearts with it warning Saddam was a threat to their country
Comment by Graeme — 23 Jun 2005 on 2:18 pm | Link

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» Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Iraq

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