Iraq (Attorney-General's Advice)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:56 pm on 9 March 2004.

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Photo of Dominic Grieve Dominic Grieve Shadow Attorney General 2:56, 9 March 2004

I had no reason to seek the publication of the Attorney-General's entire advice at the time, because the Government placed before the House a body of material that stated that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. However, two things have happened since then that have caused us to have this debate, which would not have happened otherwise. First, the weapons have not been found; and, secondly, evidence has emerged that calls into question the Government's competence in handling the intelligence material in relation to WMD. We know that because we discovered in the debate on Lord Hutton's report that the Secretary of State for Defence knew in March 2003 knew that the term "WMD" referred to battlefield weapons only, but that the Prime Minister apparently did not.