UNITED KINGDOM: Government sees off attempt by opposition parties to force inquiry into Iraq war

Record ID: 593259

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Government sees off attempt by opposition parties to force inquiry into Iraq war
  • Date: 1st November 2006
  • Summary: (W3) BASRA, IRAQ (OCTOBER 30, 2006) (REUTERS) BRITISH ARMY TANK MOVING TOWARDS BURNT OUT CAR LOCAL RESIDENTS ON STREET SOLDIERS LOOKING AT CAR TANKS AND CAR
  • Embargoed: 16th November 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA1UGDL3XYW9AIVMZYRY0Q6YK2U
  • Story Text: British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government defeated an opposition call in parliament for a fresh inquiry into the Iraq war on Tuesday (October 31), sparing him embarrassment.
    Members voted 298 to 273 against an opposition motion calling for senior politicians to investigate the run-up to the 2003 conflict and its aftermath.
    Blair saw his parliamentary majority cut as some Labour members voted against the government.
    The Prime Minister averted what would have been a damaging defeat after Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett raised the possibility of an inquiry into the war once the fighting was over and British troops were home.
    "I believe that those who tabled this motion and those who are considering it have fallen into the same trap of ignoring what is the imperative of the present difficult situation in Iraq. I have no doubt that there will come a time when we want to look at the lessons learnt from our full experience in Iraq, just as we have from every other major conflict in the past but now I repeat is not that time," she said.
    Holding a probe now would send the wrong message to British soldiers in Iraq and to insurgents at a critical time when Iraq's fledgling government needed full support, she said.
    The main opposition Conservatives who backed the war supported an inquiry, although they insisted it need not be immediate.
    Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "All that we want the government to say is that in recognising the force of the arguments for an inquiry in due course that the relevant committee, based on the Franks model, would be established within the next year. We would consider such a response to be a proper one and if they gave it we would abstain from voting on this motion tonight. But if they are unwilling to say that, even though there are two significant points of difference between many of us and the proposals of the motion, we believe the House of Commons should send ministers a message that they must come up with their own proposals and in the absence of those proposals today all who believe in proper scrutiny of the executive should cast their votes accordingly."
    During an impassioned debate that lasted almost four hours the Welsh nationalist MP who had tabled the motion said thousands of lives had been lost unnecessarily in the conflict. Adam Price, MP for Plaid Cymru, said: "We fought this war because of an arsenal of weapons that proved to be non-existent. Many thousands of people have paid with their lives for that mistake."
    Outside the Houses of Parliament a group of several dozen anti-war protesters called for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
    Blair has said there will be no shift in his strategy of keeping British troops in Iraq until local forces are capable of ensuring security.
    Britain has held four inquiries into events linked to the Iraq war.
    A 2004 report cleared Blair of distorting intelligence assessments on Iraq but exposed faulty work. A second report cleared Blair of blame for the suicide of an Iraq weapons expert. Parliament has held two further probes.
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