Iraq war 'increased threat to UK'

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The previous government knew that the invasion of Iraq would increase the terrorist threat to the UK but Labour insisted it did not, the former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller told the Chilcot inquiry.

In contrast to what the government was admitting at the time, she said: "Our involvement in Iraq, for want of a better word, radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam."

Manningham-Buller added that the intelligence justifying an invasion was flimsy and there was no evidence of any link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida and she said that by invading Iraq the UK and the USA "gave Osama bin Laden the Iraqi jihad".

The Chilcot inquiry then heard that Joint Intelligence Committee assessments had told ministers that an invasion would undoubtedly increase the threat to Britain and Manningham-Buller had personally warned Home Office ministers and other officials of the consequences of an invasion.

When asked what lessons had been learned from the invasion of Iraq, Manningham-Buller said: "The danger of over-reliance on fragmentary intelligence in deciding whether or not to go to war. Very few would argue that the intelligence was substantial enough to make that decision."

Her evidence was described by Tim Farron, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, as a shattering blow to Labour's insistence that the war didn't 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," he said. "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."