Labour misled Britain over Iraq role in terror threat

6.19.56pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 20th Jul 2010

Commenting on Eliza Manningham-Buller’s evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, in which she said the conflict in Iraq ‘substantially’ increased the threat to the UK from international terrorism, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Tim Farron said: “This is a shattering blow for Labour’s claim that the Iraq war did not 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. 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.”

Notes:

1. Appearing before the Chilcot Inquiry today, Eliza Manningham-Buller said:

“What Iraq did was produce a fresh impetus to people prepared to engage in terrorism.”

“Al Qaida had not focused on the UK. It attacked us abroad in 2003 but it became clear that its ambition was to attack us in the United Kingdom.”

2. When asked by Roderic Lyne, “To what extent did the conflict in Iraq exacerbate the overall threat your service and your fellow services were having to deal with from international terrorism?”, Manningham-Buller replied, “Substantially”.

3. Labour has long denied that the Iraq invasion led to an increased terrorist threat against the UK. In 2004, Jack Straw said: “No one should get the idea that somehow if you were a country which was opposed to the military action in Iraq, you are less of a target for al-Qaida.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/mar/16/uk.iraq1