International

Parliament today debated with Premier Jan-Peter Balkenende his announcement that the government would be establishing its own commission to investigate the background to the country's support for the Iraq war. If this is accepted by the governing coalition parties, including the Premier's assertion that any parliamentary questions put during the next nine months need not be answered, it would represent a serious obstruction to parliamentary democracy. So argued SP leader Agnes Kant, who continues to urge the establishment of a real enquiry, one conducted by the people's representatives in parliament.

“The old boys network must be planning to whitewash Balkenende,” concluded SP leader Agnes Kant following the Premier's declaration this afternoon, in which he announced that the government would be conducting its own enquiry into Iraq. The announcement follows moves in the Senate to open a parliamentary enquiry into the decision-making procedures which led to the Netherlands' 'political support' for the US-British invasion of Iraq in March, 2003. The cabinet, Kant said, is pushing the Parliament out of the way, which she described as 'completely unacceptable.'