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Defence in the World

I promise my hon. Friend that I will come back to him, but we are now 22 minutes into the debate and I have read only three paragraphs of my speech. I am more than happy to spend a lot of my time answering hon. Members’ questions instead of making a formal speech because I know how important these issues are, but I should make a little progress, if for no other reason than my duty of care to my civil servants, who have spent a lot of time preparing this stuff. The three paragraphs that I have read so far were actually written by me, so that does not help to bring my officials in. I was pointing out the balance of rights and responsibilities in the international community. Of course we can argue about the way in which those responsibilities are discharged, but these decisions are not easy. The decision about Kosovo was not easy, but on balance the House supported us going in there, even though the United Nations Security Council did not—there was a veto. However, the House felt that it had a morally compelling responsibility that superseded that veto. I suppose—and hope—that we are discharging such responsibilities by doing what we can in Darfur, too. Those rights and responsibilities form part of what has become a more complex security architecture because, as the world has become even more interdependent and changed in the post-cold-war period, the nature of the threats to our security have changed. It is accepted that we must address the political causes of problems, which is why at the G8 summit we will talk about not only aid and trade in Africa, but hopefully the middle east peace process. We must do that in addition to using what we would traditionally regard as the defence posture, or physical fighting power. We will debate today the broadest context of our interests and commitments throughout the world. I have already said something about Iraq. We said at the time that we were committed to the long-term reconstruction of Iraq and that is still true. It is why we are still there two years on and why we will remain there until we have helped the Iraqis to complete the transition to a secure democracy. As I said at the beginning of my speech, we will not be deflected from that commitment by today’s events. We are making steady progress in Iraq. The infrastructure was severely run down in the years before the war and has not been helped since by being the target of terrorists and insurgents. Investment in services such as electricity and water, which was minimal for 20 years or more, is now increasing. Despite all the difficulties in the country, we can point to areas of progress. Around 2,300 schools and about 1,000 hospitals have opened. Some 70 million textbooks have been distributed. I do not want to present a glowing picture of the situation in the country, as some politicians have, but steady progress is being made, especially on the political and security sides. We are now embarking on discussions to allow the Iraqi people, through their representatives, to provide themselves with a constitution. They will then go on to a referendum and the election of a Government at the end of the year and I hope that the time lines will be met. We remain committed to helping the Afghan people to restore security, stability and prosperity to Afghanistan. In the midst of the sombre situation in some parts of the country, let us remember that the presidential elections last October were an outstanding success, although that was unexpected in some quarters. The parliamentary elections this September will be a major step forward. About 1,000 personnel from all three services are deployed in Afghanistan, along with civilians. They are deployed as part of the NATO-led international security assistance force and also contribute to the US-led coalition. We are working alongside the Afghans and our allies to develop the capabilities and skills of the Afghan security forces, to help train the Afghan national army and to provide advice. Afghans and Afghanistan continue to need international military help. Elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban remain active there; we have not destroyed them completely. Opiates, drugs and narcotics remain a huge problem. I understand that something like 60 per cent. of the country’s gross domestic product is connected with the drugs trade, which makes it a formidable task to deal with. In my view, no country can develop a stable, sustainable and uncorrupt form of government unless and until that is dealt with. About 90 per cent. of the heroin in this country comes from opiates derived from Afghanistan. That position represents a threat both to Afghanistan and the United Kingdom. We have agreed that, next May, we will lead the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters, which has an essential part to play in dealing with Afghanistan. At that stage, we anticipate that international security assistance force control will move from its current location in the north and the west down to the south. We will play some part in that, in addition to our role in the headquarters of the ARRC. We will move down to Helmand province, but I cannot give the House further details at the moment for the simple reason that I have not yet decided. There will be a multinational presence there, but we are still reflecting further on the details, the costs and the allies that might be with us, but as soon as I have further details, I will present them to the House. As with all the other issues that I have discussed so far, in the face of a complex, multi-faceted security problem—not just the physical presence of an enemy with guns and tanks—we will attempt to achieve the same in Afghanistan as we hope to achieve elsewhere. We also need to address some of the roots of the problems, which touch on alternative livelihoods, economics, humanitarian aid, policing, judicial systems, the Foreign Office playing a major role in the politics, democratic control for the Afghans themselves and, in that context, the use of fighting power and force. If we do the one without the other, none of this works any more than will attempts to solve all the world’s problems by military intervention while ignoring the causal economic, social and political injustices responsible for the problems in the first place.