As Tim Montgomerie points out, it is a sad indictment of the Conservative party that the only time it seems to be able to get excited about Iraq is when it is calling for an inquiry into the war. Reading William Hague’s speech yesterday, one couldn’t help but notice the difference from his pre-war contributions, when his statements about WMD went far beyond what even the government was claiming and he was happy to throw around the term “appeasement”.
Take the intervention that Hague made on 24 September, 2002:
“Does the Prime Minister recollect that, in the half-century history of various states acquiring nuclear capabilities, in almost every case—from the Soviet Union in 1949 to Pakistan in 1998—their ability to do so has been greatly underestimated and understated by intelligence sources at the time? Estimates today of Iraq taking several years to acquire a nuclear device should be seen in that context, and within that margin of error.
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