Blair tells aides: find a way I can apologise for dossier

by Alison Hardie

Key points
• Blair looks for way to say sorry over dossier• Aim is to apologise for errors without saying war was wrong• Opponents still question PM's 'personal integrity'
Key quote
"I think he should have come clean with the people. I think he should have told them exactly what the intelligence was. The evidence is that he didn’t do that, that he misled the country." - Tory leader, Michael Howard

Story in full TONY Blair has ordered his closest aides to find a way for him to apologise for the dossier on Iraq after he bowed to pressure yesterday to lead a crucial debate on the war in parliament.

Downing Street strategists had hoped the Prime Minister’s statement on Wednesday, when he said he took "full responsibility for any mistakes made", would go far enough to see off his critics.

But last night, Mr Blair personally instructed his inner circle to "find a form of words" that would let him say sorry for the errors identified by Lord Butler in his report without saying the war that removed Saddam Hussein was wrong.

The way was paved for Mr Blair yesterday by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who said he did not regret the publication of the controversial dossier, but admitted that intelligence-service doubts should have been left in it.

Mr Straw said: "I don’t regret it. I don’t regret we produced it. We produced it as part of greater openness. There were huge demands to produce what became known as ‘the dossier’. We thought it entirely reasonable to do so. Would we do so again, produce a synopsis of the case? I think so. But question its contents."

Mr Straw repeated the government’s assertion that Britain and George Bush, the president of the United States, would have accepted co-operation from Saddam as the United Nations sought to force him to comply with resolutions on weapons of mass destruction. He stressed: "I happen to know that President Bush would have taken yes for an answer."

That was not enough to convince Michael Howard, the Tory leader, who stepped up his attack on Mr Blair, calling into question his personal integrity.

He repeated his claim that Mr Blair had "misled" the country over the Iraq intelligence.

Mr Howard told BBC Radio 2: "When you have such a contrast, such a yawning gap, between the words used by the Prime Minister and the actual intelligence on which his words were meant to be based, then there is a very legitimate question to be asked.

"I think he should have come clean with the people. I think he should have told them exactly what the intelligence was. The evidence is that he didn’t do that, that he misled the country."

The Butler Report said intelligence was "seriously flawed" and "open to doubt", and that MI6 reservations about leaks from Iraq were not included in the September 2002 dossier presented by Mr Blair as he made the case for war. Downing Street repeatedly declined yesterday to be drawn on whether Mr Blair would apologise, although the Prime Minister’s official spokesman conceded that there were lessons to be learned from the Butler Report, which also criticised Mr Blair’s informal style of government.

The spokesman said: "Obviously, there are implications within the Butler Report which we will have to reflect on, and the wider system will have to reflect on."

Alison Hardie is the political correspondent The Scotsman newspaper

URL:http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=811752004