UN AMBASSADOR QUESTIONS LEGITIMACY OF WAR IN IRAQ

UN AMBASSADOR QUESTIONS LEGITIMACY OF WAR IN IRAQ

‘CHILCOT MUST DIG DEEP TO UNCOVER THE TRUTH’

SNP Westminster Leader and Defence Spokesperson Angus Robertson MP has seized on comments made Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK's ambassador to the UN in 2003 who today (Friday) cast doubt over the legitimacy of the Iraq invasion.

Sir Jeremy said "whole saga", in terms of UK policy, was driven by the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. On Wednesday, the inquiry heard that UK Ministers had been informed Iraq’s nuclear weapons had been dismantled.

Giving evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, Sir Jeremy said:

"I regarded our participation in the military action against Iraq in March 2003 as legal but of questionable legitimacy in that it did not have the democratically observable backing of a great majority of member states or even perhaps of a majority of people inside the UK.”

Commenting, Mr Robertson said:

“The Chilcot inquiry is showing no one can trust a word Labour says about anything. With every evidence session, the UK Government’s case for the war collapses further.

“The people of Scotland were opposed to the invasion of Iraq and opposed the US/UK occupation, yet we were dragged into an illegal war on a false premise.

“With senior UK diplomats are expressing serious doubts, the case for Gordon Brown to appear before the committee is becoming more pressing by the day.

“Sir John Chilcot will have to dig deep to uncover the truth about the decisions which led to the biggest foreign policy disaster in modern times.”