We were misled

I had switched off the computer during Question Time thinking that I had finished writing blogs for the day, but I had to switch it back when I heard Melanie Phillips talking about whether we were misled into going to war. Her position is that we were not misled. She still supports the war even knowing what she knows now. We weren't taken to war on a lie. Everyone thought that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction but this was not the cause for war, it was his failure to show that his WMD programmes had stopped.

The problem with this is that everyone was listening to the 45-minute risk of being attacked. If that is not being misled then I don't know what is. My MP says that she was misled, but the main evidence is the lack of WMD. Melanie Phillips may change goalposts but even with the move the answer should be that we were misled because we had to pull out the weapons inspectors.

Change the world

P.S. I was listening to Alan Johnson on the Andrew Marr show this morning. He tells us that Parliament was not misled and we should read Hansard. The issue was not about whether Iraq had WMD. Well I took up Mr Johnson's advice and here are the opening words of the debate,

That this House notes its decisions of 25th November 2002 and 26th February 2003 to endorse UN Security Council Resolution 1441; recognises that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles, and its continuing non-compliance with Security Council Resolutions, pose a threat to international peace and security...

Does it make you angry when politicians say something so obviously wrong but they appear to be telling the truth? If you are reading this Alan Johnson, please post a comment because now I can't believe a word you say.

P.P.S. Alastair Campbell is getting all emotional saying that the prime minister didn't mislead us. At least he has the decency to think that WMD are important. How he thinks that we weren't misled when there weren't any is beyond me.