It is sad, but not surprising that the Government has continued to focus on a few inaccuracies in Andrew Gilligan's reporting. Surely the real issue is how did this Government take us to war based on wrong information. Blair sold his case for war to the British public, on the fact that Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction posed "a current and serious threat to UK national interest" and that they could "be ready within 45 minutes." Can Blair really argue, as he did last week, that he didn't know that these weapons were only of battlefield range? His own Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, like Hans Blix, Chief UN Weapons Inspector, stated that these weapons were not a threat (let alone an imminent threat) to Britain or even Iraq's neighbours. It was also known that Iraq did not have nuclear technology. Sadly the Butler inquiry on Iraq is unlikely to provide answers. It has already been condemned as "an insiders' whitewash job". This is not surprising as in the past Lord Butler has consistently showed deference to those in power and the government has striven to place all political decisions on the Iraq war off limits to the inquiry. Butler notoriously defended Whitehall deceit during the Scott inquiry into covert arms sales to Iraq. At that time he said to a sceptical judge: "You have to be selective about the facts," arguing that government had been entitled to mislead about, for example, delicate negotiations with the IRA. The war has left more than 50 British soldiers, 500 other coalition soldiers and about 20,000 Iraqis dead. All three counts are still rising. We deserve some credible answers.

Philip Booth, Press Officer, Gloucestershire Green Party.