Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Iraq and Employment Figures.
Iraq
Asked if he would agree with the suggestion that if Saddam had complied with UN Resolution 1441, as the Prime Minister had said that he wanted him to do, Saddam would still be in power today, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that in his speech in Glasgow in February 2003, the Prime Minister had said that "The time is the time necessary to make a judgment: is Saddam prepared to co-operate fully or not? If he is, the inspectors can take as much time as they want. If he is not, if this is a repeat of the 1990s - and I believe it is - then let us be under no doubt what is at stake…..The moral case against war has a moral answer: it is the moral case for removing Saddam. It is not the reason we act. That must be according to the United Nations mandate on Weapons of Mass Destruction". As the Prime Minister had said at the time, the reason for going to war was because Saddam was in breach of UN Resolutions, and had been for over twelve years. Resolution 1441 had given him a final chance to comply. Had he done so, he would have still been there. However, he had not complied, and that was the important point. Asked why the Prime Minister had criticised the Leader of the Liberal Democrats in PMQs today for adopting a position that would have left Saddam in power in Iraq when the Prime Minister himself had been looking to do the same thing by getting Saddam to comply with Resolution 1441, the PMOS said that as a Civil Servant he was unable to get drawn into a debate along party political lines. That said, it was important for people to recognise that, as we had pointed out at the time, we would have seen a different kind of regime had Saddam complied fully with the UN - a regime which would no longer be sustained by the threat of WMD.
Put to him that the "hard evidence" required by the Attorney General from the Prime Minister for his legal opinion on going to war against Iraq, as referred to in Paragraph 379 of the Butler Report, no longer stood up to scrutiny since the withdrawal of the 45-minute claim, the PMOS said the hard evidence was that Saddam was failing to comply with UN Resolutions. It was also worth looking at paragraph 449/21 of the Butler Report which stated that "We have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable negligence". No doubt journalists would want to give that quote as much prominence in their articles tomorrow as the quote that had initially been put him.
Asked why the Prime Minister was so reluctant to make a corrective statement to the House, the PMOS pointed out that the Prime Minister had responded in full to the Butler Report on the floor of the House in July when he had acknowledged that mistakes had been made and that he accepted responsibility for them.
Employment Figures
Asked if the Government was concerned about the rise of economically inactive people of working age, the PMOS said he thought the main message arising from today’s employment figures was the fact that unemployment was continuing to fall. This was a consequence of an economy that had been well managed. The Government’s record on employment was there for all to see. He pointed out that there were a number of areas where the Government was continuing to work hard to encourage people back into work.
- Read the news story: UK labour market ’strong’
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