Straw says Iraq war 'still justified'

Teams of UN weapons inspectors were sent to Iraq before the war

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says the UK's decision to go to war against Iraq is "as justified today as it was" back in March.

In the face of fears that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction may never be found, he said fresh evidence was emerging daily of the extent of the Iraqi dictator's atrocities.

Mr Straw described the convening of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) at the weekend as a "significant development" on the road to setting up a sovereign Iraqi government.

The dead and the missing are the most painful reminder of Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship Jack Straw

The foreign secretary, updating MPs before their long summer break, said reconstruction work would move ahead more quickly were it not for attacks by "remnants of the old regime".

Mr Straw said all of Iraq's 240 hospitals were now operational and 98% of schools were open.

Mass graves

But on the central issue of the UK's decision to go to war, Mr Straw said: "I am in no doubt that the House's decision on March 18 (to go to war in Iraq) is as justified today as it was then."

It was not intelligence sources that led the coalition to go to war with Iraq, it was Saddam Hussein's breaches of countless UN resolutions, he said.

Turning to developments in Iraq, since the war, Mr Straw hailed the creation of the IGC, saying it "will govern by consent, not terror".

"It is the first time in living memory that the Shias - a majority in the country - have had a majority in any national governing body."

Blair is to visit the US

Mr Straw said the Red Cross had assessed that 300,000 Iraqis are "missing" and that tens of thousands of bodies had so far been unearthed in mass graves.

"The dead and the missing are the most painful reminder of Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship. They should also become the greatest symbol of our determination to give Iraq the future its people so richly deserve," he said.

During his House of Commons statement, Mr Straw referred to the allegation that Saddam was seeking to buy uranium from Niger - a claim used by the UK and the US as they built the case for going to war with Iraq.

He said the government had "no knowledge" that documents passed to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iraq's attempts to acquire uranium from Niger were forged until February 2003.

The CIA says the intelligence was based on false paperwork which American agents revealed as forgeries - but the UK insists it has separate evidence.

But Mr Straw said: "As I have made clear we had, and have, other separate information available to us."

Judicial inquiry

Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram accused the government of being responsible for "confusion, the charge and counter-charge" over weapons of mass destruction.

"It is damaging not only your reputation but the credibility of the government and of the intelligence itself."

He repeated his call for a judicial inquiry into the issue of intelligence on Iraq and said it was time the government "stopped this messing about".

The exchanges came after Tony Blair said the UK "should be proud" of what it has done to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein.

Pressure

The prime minister said nobody was in any doubt of the security threat the Iraqi dictator had posed, even though he accepted there "may be different ways of dealing with it".

Mr Blair, who is set to visit the United States later this week, also said he stood "entirely" by the intelligence ministers had shared with the public in the run up to the war.

At the weekend, the former chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, criticised the UK's claim in September last year that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

Mr Blix said Mr Blair was "fundamentally mistaken" over the claim.