Former Conservative leader William
Hague has reiterated his call for a cross party, Privy Council inquiry on the
origins of the war in Iraq and conduct during the
war.
Speaking to Holyrood, he said that he did not regret
voting for the invasion of Iraq, but stressed that he thinks it was “grossly
mishandled afterwards” and that it didn’t have to turn out the way it
has.
“If there had been a right sort of
plan for the occupation and enough troops from the beginning, the story, I
think, would be very different over the last few years. So in my view, it was
not the invasion that was wrong, it was the handling of the
aftermath."
“Whether people supported or opposed
it, I think we should all be able to agree that there should be the most
thorough inquiry possible into the origins and conduct of the
war.”
He said it was important for the
inquiry to be cross party and also include non-party political people, so that
lessons could be learnt. “I hope the government is going to agree to that in the
course of this year. We will certainly press them very hard in the House of
Commons later this year to do so, if they haven’t agreed to [it] by
then.”
Hague added that he was concerned
that if an inquiry was not set up by the end of the year, memories will fade and
many of the crucial emails might not exist.
“It can’t be left that much longer
if it is going to be meaningful. And indeed, the Scottish Nationalists have
raised this a lot, as you know, and we supported them in their call for an
inquiry a few months ago. We will renew those ourselves in the next few
months.”
However, at the time, the Tories
were divided over support for the SNP’s motion, with Quentin Davies, who served
as a shadow minister under William Hague, saying he was “quite incredulous” when
he heard the party was supporting the motion.
“What the resolution said was that
there should be an inquiry now with an open, public inquiry conducted by seven
Privy Councillors into a military operation that’s still going on,” said
Davies.
“I think that’s an absolutely crazy
idea and I can’t understand that anybody responsibly would have wanted to go for
it.”
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