BEFORE THE COCK FINISHES CROWING....

I wondered how long it would take for the cock to crow and Labour politicians to deny the invasion of Iraq. Ed Balls, for one, has recanted his support for the war, which no doubt he needed to do in order to stand any chance of winning the forthcoming Labour leadership contest - not a very principled stand you may say, but ambition tends to override such niceties. Principles in modern politics are, after all, considered quaint throwbacks to an earlier era where, for instance, a chancellor would resign if the budget, let alone a Queen's speech, was leaked to the press.

It would be unfair to tarnish all MPs with the same brush as Ed Balls, especially as we do not know how many of the new intake will be prepared to abandon personal ambition to stay loyal to the principles that brought them into politics. What we do know from the last parliament, is that there were such worthy holders of the office of MP - such as Frank Field and . These were two politicians from different parties who believed that personal ambition was a healthy aspect of human nature, but an aspect that is so easily abused for personal gain; and it would require constant vigilance from the individual if he or she wished to retire unblemished from Westminster's enticements; as so many failed to do during the last parliament.

I supported the war in Iraq, and still believe that it was necessary. Saddam Hussein exhausted the patience of the international community. He was given chance after chance to rehabilitate himself. But he refused any overture to reform his behaviour. Even if he did not have weapons of mass destruction, he used chemical and biological weapons against his own people, which, quite rightly,could have left any sane and rational man believing he had weapons of mass destruction: but the weapons issue was never to be an issue with me.

Under President Clinton, Saddam Hussein led the international community a merry dance. When, at the time, the international community imposed sanctions, Saddam became the puppet master. He protested that such sanctions were starving his people, this in turn led to demonstrations in the West against the West. Saddam laughed while the West turned in on itself.

Saddam was a monster, not in terms of scale, but in ambition, with Hitler. He, like Hitler, was bereft of any kind of moral compass as far as the value of human life was concerned. He used it for his own purpose. If his people were suffering because of international sanctions, he would proselytise the West's inhumanity to the Arab world. But if any of his people stepped out of line they were erased from the face of the earth without a squeak from the croakers in the West.

Saddam was the founder of a dynasty and he hoped that both his sons, Uday and Quasay Hussein, would continue on after him in the same cruel way he had himself invented for governance. But they were killed by American forces in the northern city of Mosul after the invasion and were not able to fulfill their father's expectation for them; they were both their father's sons in terms of their psychopathic behaviour toward both enemies and the Iraqi people.

If we had not taken the decision to invade, then what kind of country would Iraq be today? We would have Saddam in power, while waiting for his sons to take over from him - and what kind of future could the Iraqi people expect from such a duo? On top of which Saddam would have defeated the West and been seen among the people of the Arab world as the conqueror of the West.

Once we chose to overthrow Saddam, then we had to see it through. We made the right choice; and whatever the problems faced by the Iraqi people today after the West's intervention, their situation bares little comparison to the rule of the butcher of Baghdad.

Saddam had to be got rid of. To have kept him in power would have only enhanced his reputation within the Arab world. Which Egypt, Syria and the Lebanon, would have balked at allowing to happen. Saddam had to, in geopolitical terms, be defeated. Under such a weight Ed Balls' retraction seems somewhat pitiful.

The war in Iraq was necessary. It had to be fought and it had to be won. It was the right course to take and it is wholly defensible. If the politicians who supported it at the time of its happening, now wish to recant their earlier 'principled' stance, then it is up to them. But they are not to be trusted with any decision they make in the future.

The war in Iraq did not so much split the country but wholly outnumbered the minority to which I belong on the issue. I and those few who also believed, the whole episode was in the our nation's interest. It was in our nation's interest because having agreed to do the job we were given to do, we had to see it through. The war in Iraq needed to be fought. We could not have threatened any longer further sanctions - all that was left open to us was military action.