DOWNING Street was engaged last night on a trawl through Government
records to establish whether there was any personal involvement of John
Major, as Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the sale of
arms and defence equipment to Iraq.
Mr Paddy Ashdown has asked whether the Prime Minister was aware in
December 1990, when he assured the Liberal Democrat leader that the
guidelines on sales were being observed, that they were in fact being
breached.
This was not a matter for the judicial inquiry Mr Major announced into
the arms sales yesterday, wrote Mr Ashdown, ''it is a matter for you''.
It was ''an urgent and personal question''.
Downing Street sources said Mr Major hoped to make a substantive reply
to the letter, perhaps today.
The opposition parties' determination not to relax pressure on
Ministers because of the inquiry was strengthened by the acquisition by
Mr Robin Cook, Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary, of previously secret
Government documents about the sales.
He said they provided ''very damning evidence of the extent to which
Britain sold hundreds of millions of pounds worth of defence equipment
to Saddam Hussein within two to three years of the Gulf war.''
The documents were admitted by the Judge in the trial of three former
executives of the engineering equipment firm Matrix Churchill,
prosecuted for breaching arms sanctions against Iraq, which then
collapsed.
Mr Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for Linlithgow, speaking at Exeter
University last night, claimed the question of Mr Major's involvement
was answered by one of the documents.
A memo in June 1990 from Mr Martin Stanley, principal private
secretary to Mr Nicholas Ridley, then Trade and Industry Secretary, to
Customs made clear that their proposed action against Matrix would be
discussed by the then Prime Minister, Lady Thatcher, and her Ministers.
The letter was copied to Mr Major then Chancellor.
''Did not his conscience smite him when he was addressing British
troops during his visit to the Gulf?'' asked Mr Dalyell.
Sir David Steel, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, wrote to
Lady Thatcher saying: ''There appears to have been a systematic
deception of Parliament and public over several years about the supply
of equipment to Iraq.''
He asked her to make clear that she would give evidence to the inquiry
to be carried out by Lord Scott and would encourage her former Ministers
to do so. ''All of these issues,'' said Sir David,'' go to the heart of
the reputation for integrity of your administration.''
Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Menzies Campbell said: ''It seems
clear that while Ministers were saying one thing in statements to the
House of Commons and in letters, they were in fact subverting the very
policy they were supposed to be pursuing.''
The problem for Ministers is whether they can convincingly claim that
while the guidelines laid down by Lord Howe, when Foreign Secretary, in
1985 may have been stretched, or in Civil Service jargon ''more
flexibly'' interpreted, they were not actually breached.
If they are successful, they can then defend themselves from the other
charge being pressed by the Opposition that Ministers who said the
guidelines were being observed, and these include both Mr Major and Lady
Thatcher, were not misleading the Commons, a resigning matter.
The Opposition is also digging to find out what went on at ministerial
meetings such as the one on July 19, 1990, chaired by the Foreign
Secretary, Mr Douglas Hurd, at which the guidelines were discussed and,
they believe, effectively altered in a more permissive direction.
Ministers have to take account of the fact that Mr Cook holds a file
of ministerial memos in which different departments display different
attitudes to the arms sales.
The Labour leader, Mr John Smith, said the public had a right to know
whether equipment was sold which could have been used against British
troops in the Gulf and whether Ministers had kept quiet about a change
of the rules on sales. ''These questions will not go away,'' he added.
He is awaiting a reply from Mr Major to a letter in which he calls for
a formal tribunal.
The Government produced court rulings which it said contradicted Mr
Cook's claim that immunity of Government papers had never been sought
before in a criminal as opposed to a civil trial.
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