Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Alex Salmond

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond]

And those countries the hon. Gentleman mentions voted against the war in Iraq for very good reasons.

Rather than speculate on that, thanks to the Chilcot report we now know what evidence the Prime Minister had at his disposal from the Joint Intelligence Committee, which on 15 March 2002 stated:

“Intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction…and ballistic missile programmes is sporadic and patchy… We continue to judge that Iraq has an offensive chemical warfare (CW) programme, although there is very little intelligence relating to it. From the evidence available to us, we believe Iraq retains some production equipment, and some small stocks of CW agent precursors, and may have hidden small quantities of agents and weapons… There is no intelligence on any BW agent production facilities.”

That highly qualified assessment from the Joint Intelligence Committee was presented to the House of Commons as a certainty that Iraq possessed weapons that were an immediate danger to the United Kingdom.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that if we do nothing following the seven-year, £10 million inquiry and take no steps towards accountability for the clear evidence that the former Prime Minister was fixing the evidence around the policy to go to war, it will be almost impossible to begin to restore the faith that has been lost in our political system?

[Alex Salmond]

Yes. The loss of faith in the political system is another dramatic consequence of the disastrous events in Iraq.