Yesterday British legislators voted down a parliamentary motion calling for launching an inquiry into Prime Minister Tony Blair's handling of Iraq war. The Scottish and Welsh national parties, as well as some MPs within the Labour party, tabled the motion for a parliamentary debate to look into "the way in which the responsibilities of government were discharged" during the March 2003 invasion.
The debate on the motion, which was supported by the official opposition Conservative Party- which favours the war but disagrees with Blair's government's handling of the war, was the first full British parliamentary discussion of the war in more than two years.
Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, argued that holding an inquiry now, while British troops are still in Iraq, would send "the wrong signal" and affect the soldiers' morale.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Mrs Beckett said: "I have no doubt that there will be a time when we want to learn lessons," urging MPs to remember that "our words... will be heard a very long way away. They can be heard by our troops who are already in great danger in Iraq".
Mrs Beckett rejected calls for a commitment to hold a probe when UK troops leave Iraq, arguing that four inquiries had already been launched into the war.
But speaking on the BBC's Newsnight programme, Labour MP Denis MacShane said: "I think it will take place... the full government inquiry, when we are out of Iraq and we can analyze in tranquility all the lessons that need to be learned."
This is edited highlights from the speech that Respect MP George Galloway was hoping to make.
"It's a very modest motion before the house - a call for a committee of inquiry comprising seven members of the Privy Council.
"It therefore speaks volumes that the government is opposing this attempt at the mildest of scrutiny into its conduct up to and including the outbreak of the disastrous war on Iraq.
"The House of Commons today has a chance to redeem itself. This House voted to take this country into George W. Bush's war on 18 March 2003.
"Those of us who voted against the war, who mobilised the greatest mass movement of our age to stop it are now being joined - admittedly largely privately - by others who say they were misled about the case for war.
"Those on the New Labour benches have the chance today to put the well being of people in this country and in Iraq above petty, sectional, party interest.
"They have a chance to put the future security of hundreds of millions above the political prospects of the prime minister.
"To those who claim that holding an inquiry will "demoralise" the armed forces: we got a pretty good estimation of the morale of the armed forces after the head of the British army spoke a truth that has so rarely been heard in this chamber, that the presence of British forces in Iraq is exacerbating the dangers this country faces.
"That was before the U.S. suffered over 100 dead this month; before the report in the Lancet said that the most likely number of people to have been killed in Iraq since the war is 655,000.
"The government's case against this motion is as flimsy and insubstantial as its case was for war. And the issue at stake in this debate is greater than the words on the order paper.
"It is whether we are going to extricate ourselves from a foreign policy disaster that dwarfs the Suez folly of half a century ago. And it is whether members of parliament are going to summon up the courage to represent the people on this question.
"If the answer to those questions is negative, the issue will be settled outside this chamber.
"Which way members vote will be remembered by the electorate and will count in their reckoning as the death toll mounts, and the flames of war and extremism lap around this country."
The British Prime Minister however is expected to face Commons questions later over whether there will be an inquiry into his Iraq war policies - despite seeing off a bid by MPs to launch such inquiry.
Defence Secretary Des Browne told the BBC there would be an inquiry "when the time is right".
However, a government source, who claimed that Mr Browne supported the government's Iraq policy, later stated that the suggestion was "slip of the tongue".
Blair will face further calls for launching an inquiry during prime minister's question time on Wednesday.
Source Agencies and Aljazeera
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