How Beckett's answers raise more questions on Iraq

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On the BBC's Today programme last week, John Humphrys issued a challenge to the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett. He complained that she had refused repeated requests to go on the programme, and called on her to give a proper interview. Yesterday, she did.

During the broadcast, however, she made a number of statements that seemed at odds with what had been said on previous occasions by ministers.

She found herself in particular trouble when responding to a six-page report by Britain's leading foreign affairs think-tank, Chatham House, that Tony Blair's legacy would be defined by the "terrible mistake" of the Iraq war.

Humphrys also pressed her about the testimony of Carne Ross, a former Foreign Office official. Mr Ross challenged Mr Blair's version of events in the run-up to the war in Iraq, primarily that Iraq posed a direct threat to the UK.



http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,1975682,00.html