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So now we know

Posted by Tom Bodden on April 16, 2007 3:05 PM | 

First Minister Rhodri Morgan got into a right pickle on BBC's Question Time in Aberystwyth last year when he tortuously circumnavigated a question about his personal support for the war in Iraq.
Today the BBC finally got the answer via presenter Richard Evans on BBC Radio Wales.
Well, against, probably.

Caller Keith from Cardiff: "Yes, well, but does Mr Morgan think Britain should have invaded Iraq in the first place?"
Presenter Richard Evans: "Should Britain have invaded Iraq in the first place?"
Rhodri Morgan: "Look, I asked Tony Blair when it did come up in one of our regular meetings afterwards, after it had happened, you know, about the weapons of mass destruction, and there’s no question in my mind he sincerely believed - wrongly as it turned out - that there were weapons of mass destruction there.
"Now, the question therefore is ‘is that sufficient justification for going without that second UN resolution, and if I had been an MP how would I have voted?’
"And it’s a very difficult question to answer if you’re not there.
"I know the agonies that my wife Julie went through. She voted against. Kevin Brennan, my successor, he voted against. And again probably I would have as well without the second UN resolution, but I don’t know because I wasn’t there and I know just how difficult these decisions are."
Richard Evans: "You would have voted against the war?"
Rhodri Morgan: "I don’t say that I would have.
"I think I probably would have but that’s all I can say, because if you’re not there you don’t know.
"Because all these decisions are knife-edge decisions.
"I know what agonies my wife went through and I know what agonies my successor Kevin went through before deciding in the end to vote against.
"But I think because those two voted against, they’re the ones who think most similar to me, that I would have done the same.
"But without being there you don’t know."


 

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Welcome to ‘Gog in the Bay’, the occasional diary of a political journalist. My name is Tom Bodden, the Welsh Affairs Correspondent of The Daily Post, which is North Wales’ best selling newspaper. I am based full-time at the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff Bay.

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