Labour misled Britain over increase in terror threat caused by Iraq war (Wantage and Didcot Liberal Democrats)

Wantage and Didcot Liberal Democrats <info@wantagelibdems.org.uk>

Labour misled Britain over increase in terror threat caused by Iraq war

July 21, 2010 10:37 AM

Liberal Democrats at the London rally against war in Iraq.

Commenting on Baroness Manningham-Buller's evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, in which she said the conflict in Iraq 'substantially' increased the threat to the UK from international terrorism, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Tim Farron said: "This is a shattering blow for Labour's claim that the Iraq war did not increase the terrorist threat to Britain. We already knew that this was a disastrous war for our own brave service personnel and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

"Now we have the head of MI5 at the time saying it increased the threat to Britain - the precise opposite of what Labour claimed it would do. As Foreign Secretary in the last Government, David Miliband must come clean on why his administration misled the British people on this issue for so long."

In its report on the baroness's appearance before the Chilcot enquiry, The Guardian's correspondent writes: "Clearly on show at the Iraq inquiry this morning was the enigma at the heart of the Iraq war. The country was deeply sceptical. A whole political party, the Liberal Democrats, at great risk to themselves, refused to play ball. But official after official, general after general, spook after spook went along with the whole enterprise.

"Some have sought an answer in American influence. Certainly the Joint Intelligence Committee has a poor record of being sceptical about US intelligence. Others have sought the answer in the strange psychology of Blair himself. In my view, at least part of the blame lies with the officials at the summit of our administrative elite. To paraphrase Admiral Beatty's famous assessment of the battle of Jutland 'there's something wrong with our bloody officials today,."