Kennedy: Need for full inquiry into Iraq war

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy today said he was not surprised by Lord Butler’s findings and called for a full public inquiry into the run-up to the Iraq war.

Mr Kennedy said: “We are not terribly surprised by Lord Butler’s conclusions.

“He was asked to look at systems and institutions rather than to look at the judgments of individual political players and the interface between those players and the intelligence services – and that’s what he did.

“It’s these political relationships which remain the unopened Pandora’s box in the middle of all this, and that continues to underline the need for a proper public inquiry into the political judgments made about this war and how they were arrived at.”