WMD Intelligence Review Committee

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:30 pm on 3 February 2004.

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Photo of Jack Straw Jack Straw Foreign Secretary 12:30, 3 February 2004

I do not accept the basis of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said. The case for military action was well rehearsed before the House. It is not a question of whether the House endorsed the decision, because the House made the decision by a substantial majority of all parties on 18 March last year. It did so based on the argument in the motion before the House and the arguments that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I then advanced, as well as the arguments that I and colleagues like Secretary Colin Powell of the United States advanced in repeated Security Council hearings in the weeks leading up to 18 March. Those arguments were about the fact that the whole world—not just President Bush in his closet—had declared Saddam Hussein to be in clear material breach of his obligations. The whole world in November 2002 said that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to international peace and security by reason of Iraq's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missile systems and its defiance of the United Nations, and that Saddam Hussein had refused to put himself into compliance with the UN.

There was an issue, which my right hon. Friend Mr. Cook raised, as to whether it was the right time to take military action. Of course that was an issue. However, what I have described was the heart of the argument. My argument then—and it is still my argument—was that had we, in the middle of March, simply walked away, which was essentially what was on offer from the French, the Russians, the Chinese and others, with just a slap on the wrist for Iraq, the world would have become a far more dangerous place. That is also the view of Dr. David Kay.