International

On Tuesday the SP made the latest of its many attempts to force the government into the open over the Netherlands' support for the war in Iraq. SP Senator Arjan Vliegenthart, together with fellow opposition senators from the centrist party D66 and the Green Left, tabled thirty-nine questions concerning the government's decision-making process in relation to the war. "Unless we can reconstruct that process we will not be able to draw an lessons from what happened," said Senator Vliegenthart. "That would represent a risk for the future."

It was five years ago that the Americans and British invaded Iraq. The US policy has been conducted with growing support from the Netherlands. Given the results, a change of course is urgently needed, in the opinion of Harry van Bommel, MP.

Former ministers from the first government headed by current Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, which was in power at the time of the US-British invasion of Iraq in 2003, have recently declared their backing for an enquiry into the Netherlands' support for the attack – but anonymously. They should come out of the shadows and declare their support openly, according to a call endorsed by the whole of Parliament during a debate on the matter requested by SP foreign affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel, which took place on Wednesday. His request was provoked by a report from the United States which revealed that during the run-up to the war the US government lied on 935 occasions over the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Parliament will tomorrow debate, following a request from SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel, the reasons why the Netherlands supported the war against Iraq. “This war is a text book example of mismanagement concerning subjects of life and death, war and peace," said the SP's spokesman on foreign affairs. “A politician who tolerates such a thing is in my view not worth a damn."