The more I hear about how inaccurate the Government’s case for war with Iraq was, the less trust I have in Tony Blair and his Government. No matter how much the government is now saying that it wasn’t about a current threat of the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, it was! They are trying to move the goal posts and tell us that we invaded Iraq because Saddam would have become a bigger threat in the future and that his regime was bad. Those reasons may be good reasons and it may be good that Saddam is gone, but it wasn’t what we were sold prior to the war.

Intrestingly the call for an independant inquiry into the evidence presented to the House of Commons was defeated with a government majority of 98. The government pulled out all the stops to avoid defeat and 25% of the Labour backbenchers voted with the opposition! (the government’s majority is 170). So we now have two parlimentary committees looking into it. These are the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence Committee.

The Intelligence Committee is appointed by Tony Blair and meets in private. When it publishes its report, Tony Blair will have complete editorial control and has the right to remove any parts of the report that he wants to before the report is published. Therefore the investigation by this committee is a waste of time and effort as I certainly (and anyone else who can think) won’t believe its findings anyway. So that just leaves us with the Foreign Affairs committee that has to go cap in hand to the House of Commons everytime it wants to see something that the government doesn’t want it to. Remembering that the government has a 170 majority, we come to the conclusion that the Foreign Affairs committee is going to be hamstrung and no matter how committed they are to the truth, they will only be able to see what the government wants them to see.

Of course, I use the word “government” when I really mean “Tony Blair”. It’s quite clear that Claire Short is right when she says that he is autocratic and believes himself to be more like a president than a prime minister…

Sorry Tony, but I don’t believe a word you say anymore.