Iraq, Tony and the truth

BBC One, Sunday, 20 March 2005, 22:15 GMT

Tony Blair once said: "Most people who have dealt with me, think I'm a pretty straight sort of guy and I am." And he insists he played it straight over taking Britain to war with Iraq.

Last Summer the Prime Minister made an impassioned plea to draw a line under the Iraq issue, saying

"No one lied. No one made up the intelligence... Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty. That issue of good faith should now be at an end."

But allegations that Mr Blair misled the country persist. On the second anniversary of the Iraq war, Panorama reveals how several of the claims he made in public during the build up to the war - and afterwards - conflict with what we now know was going on behind the scenes, as evidenced for instance by government officials and documents.

"Most people who have dealt with me, think I'm a pretty straight sort of guy and I am"
Tony Blair, Prime Minister

These cover the Prime Minister's statements about the quality and quantity of intelligence that he said showed beyond doubt Saddam was continuing to make chemical and biological weapons; that he was confident of getting the explicit support of the UN Security Council for invasion, that he would be bound by the rule of international law; and that his stated objective was disarmament not overthrowing the Iraqi regime.

The programme is produced by the team that made the RTS award-winning "A Fight to the Death", on Lord Hutton's Inquiry into the death of the British Government scientist Dr David Kelly, and "A Failure of Intelligence", on the intelligence the Government relied on in making its case for war.

Production team
Reporter: John Ware
Producer: Mike Rudin
Assistant Producers: Fiona Blair, Kenneth Payne, Ben Limberg
Deputy Editors: Andrew Bell, Frank Simmonds
Editor: Mike Robinson