The government came close to collapse during the row last week over prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s response to a report on the way the Netherlands came to support the invasion of Iraq, several newspapers report on Monday.

‘There were moments when I did not know if we would make it,’ Labour leader and finance minister Wouter Bos told tv programme Buitenhof on Sunday.
The Labour party was furious when Balkenende appeared to dismiss some of the report’s strongest criticisms and said he was speaking on behalf of the cabinet. Labour, which opposed the invasion, was not part of the government when the Netherlands decided to support the war politically but said it would not supply troops.
The report said UN resolutions on Iraq were not an adequate basis for the invasion, a point which Balkenende said in his initial reaction was ‘a difference of opinion’. Labour MPs were furious and called for a new statement.
‘There is no middle ground in international law,’ Bos told the show.
Conclusions

Ministers are now working on a joint reaction to all conclusions made by the Davids commission. That will be ‘quite a job’, Bos said.
In particular, it was worrying that the foreign affairs minister took just 45 minutes to reach his position on the Iraq war and rarely deviated from that standpoint, Bos said.
On Saturday, Labour’s parliamentary leader Mariëtte Hamer also hinted that the cabinet had been in trouble. She had led Labour’s attack on Balkenende.
And in Saturday’s NRC newspaper, the commission chairman Willibrord Davids said he was not completely happy with Balkenende’s reaction. It was not entirely straight of Balkenende to point to the possible doubts one of the seven-strong commission had had about the legality of the invasion, he told the paper.
Opinion polls
The row over Iraq does appear to have damaged Balkenende and the Christian Democrats in the opinion polls.
In a new Maurice de Hond poll out on Sunday, just 17% said they supported the prime minister’s initial statement on Iraq. Support for Balkenende has now slumped to its lowest level since 2002 and only 16% want to see him as prime minister in the next government.
The poll puts the CDA down two at 24 seats and says Geert Wilders anti-Islam PVV would emerge as the biggest party with 26 seats if there was an election tomorrow.