Blair's Iraq evidence shows a "total detachment from reality"

8.21.00am GMT Mon 1st Feb 2010

Dr Steve Goddard, Oxford East Liberal Democrats Parliamentary Candidate, has responded to Tony Blair's evidence to the Iraq inquiry.

Steve said "All of the key players are clearly engaged in some kind of mass self- deception. From Alistair Campbell's insistence that the 45 minute claim was not crucial to the case for war, to top aide Jonathon Powell claiming that the to much importance was being attached to the phrase claiming that it was "beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein had continued producing WMDs, it is crystal clear that the prosecutors of this illegal, unjustified and immoral war are totally detached from reality."

"Tony Blair's claim that as Iraq had WMDs a decade before the emphasis must be to believe they still had them shows a blatent disregard for the work of the UN weapons inspectors over the 1990s and Hans Blix's team in the run-up to the War. There is still no real answer as to why Bush and Blair did not allow the weapons inspectors to finish their search."

"The repeated claims throughout the inquiry that everyone thought he had WMDs is another exercise in self-deception - weapons inspector Scott Ritter said at the time he did not, and Blix has revealed that by the time of the war he believed that any remaining stocks had been destroyed. It was also clear that the bulk of the country were not convinced by two desperate and shameful dossiers - the first hyped up beyond belief by the very key phrases that are now being played down and the second a plagiarised student's thesis from ten years before."

"The most shocking thing of it all is Blair's assertion that he would do it again. After hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, hundreds of British troops dying, the rise of Iranian influence in the region, the total disintegration of Iraq and no weapons of mass destruction discovered how on earth can anyone with any grasp on reality claim this?"

"Once again I ask my New Labour opponent, a Cabinet Minister at the time of the war to explain why he voted repeatedly to launch military action and why he has used his vote 12 times to block the setting up and terms of reference of an inquiry into this illegal, immoral and unjustified war."

Andrew Smith's record on the invasion:

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Andrew_Smith&mpc=Oxford_East&house=commons&dmp=1049

Andrew Smith's record on an inquiry:

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Andrew_Smith&mpc=Oxford_East&house=commons&dmp=975