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Conservatives to call for Iraq inquiry

Britain's opposition Conservative Party was scheduled to call on parliament yesterday to back a formal inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq.

"We want the principle established that there must be an inquiry. It's about making sure we don't make the same mistakes again," Conservative Party Defense Spokesman Liam Fox said.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has ruled out an inquiry so long as British troops are deployed on active duty in Iraq.

The Conservative Party strongly supported Blair's decision to back the US-led invasion.

In a key House of Commons debate on March 18, 2003, shortly before the conflict began, 90 percent of Conservative members of parliament voted for the invasion.

Sixty-two percent of the members of Blair's Labour Party voted for the invasion.

All of the Liberal Democrats, the third-largest party in the House of Commons, voted no.

"Whether we were in favor of the invasion of Iraq, which I certainly was, or against it, we've got to all be in favor of learning from the invasion's successes and the failures," Conservative spokesman William Hague said.

"We've got to learn how the machinery of government in this country operates in making the decision to go to war; we've got to learn about the management of relations with the United States, about the coordination of government departments," Hague said.

Hague, who led the Conservative party from 1997 to 2001, spoke in favor of the invasion in the debate four years ago.

At that time, he said it was part of Britain's "national interest to act in concert with the United States of America in matters of world peace and stability."
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