In Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, John Baron MP challenged Gordon Brown over the Government’s failure to publish an early draft of the 2002 Iraq dossier written by FCO spin doctor John Williams, despite rulings from the Information Commissioner and an Information Tribunal (22nd January 2008) instructing this to happen.
John said:
Now that the Information Commissioner and an Information Tribunal have instructed the Government to release the John Williams draft of the 2002 Iraq dossier, saying that it could add to what we know about the role of spin doctors in presenting the case for war, and highlighting discrepancies in the evidence provided by the Foreign Office, will the Prime Minister now immediately release the document, and if not, why not?The Prime Minister said that a decision will be announced very soon.
Commenting afterwards, John said:
The Government has for too long withheld the truth about the role played by spin doctors in producing the Iraq Dossier. Now the Information Tribunal agrees that the Williams draft could have played a greater part in influencing the drafting of the dossier than the Government has so far admitted – even to the Hutton inquiry. The public deserves to decide for ourselves the importance of this document in the run up to war.
