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Iraq

My Lords, I too am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement made in the other place and for sending me an advance copy. The sympathy also of these Benches goes to the families of the British servicemen who have been killed and to the families of the many American servicemen who have died since we last discussed Iraq, in the summer. Nor would we wish to forget the increasingly large number of Iraqis killed and maimed in the continuing violence. We are now seeing 40 fatalities a day. We all agree that this is a key week for the Iraqi people as they are asked to vote on the draft constitution. I am pleased that a consistent definition of what ““voter”” will be in this referendum has been decided, as it looked as though that was going to cause yet more trouble. But on the Minister’s assertion that the political process is on track, can he assure us that he has a contingency plan in the event that the constitution is rejected, which must be one possible outcome? There remains the question of what the United Kingdom forces can achieve. The Minister listed his three objectives. From these Benches, we have on numerous occasions drawn attention to the need for a proper strategy which couples the security process to economic and political development. Yet the continuing cry in this Statement, as in previous ones, is that the Government’s strategy is to stay there for as long as the Iraqis want. Last week, I listened to President Talabani at Chatham House, and he said that he thought he would need us for one or two years. Vice-President Cheney seems to have a longer timescale in mind—he tends to talk in decades. Can the Minister say whether President Talabani confirmed his assessment of one to two years in his talks last week with the Prime Minister? If we lack a coherent strategy for the way forward, then our troops really will be in difficulty. Can the Minister tell us the relative priority in the tasking at the moment? How many of our 8,000 troops are tasked primarily with training security forces? How many are on border patrol? How many are on security duties with patrolling as their primary activity? How many are on infrastructure projects? Then, there is the issue of the operational tempo, about which we have all worried in the past. Can the Minister give us some idea of how the continuing strain of Iraq is affecting retention in the regular forces and in the reserves. The Chief of the Defence Staff was quoted in a newspaper interview this month as worrying about the effect of Iraq on recruiting. Does the Minister share that worry? Will deployments to Afghanistan be adjusted if the Iraq situation deteriorates? Are we doing everything possible to support our troops on these difficult tours? When repeating the Statement the Minister did not mention NATO. In the past we have heard that NATO was helping us in all of this. How is that going? The Statement dealt in some detail with the complex rotation plot for our troops, and we understand that there will be resulting small fluctuations in numbers. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, said, there are reports of a shortage of air transport aircraft to return those who are due to come back to the UK. It is intensely demoralising to be expecting to return and then to be left in a transit area for days because of aircraft unavailability or unserviceability. We cannot, of course, risk our troops in an aircraft where the defensive aids are not working, but has the MoD thought through alternatives such as organising land convoys to Kuwait and using civil aircraft from there? The progressive increase in the level of violence on all sides suggests that we do not have our strategy right. The UK forces will do their best, but there is a danger of escalation without end. After the freezing out of the United Kingdom from US planning during the Coalition Provisional Authority period, can the Minister assure your Lordships that the US is now listening to the United Kingdom’s advice? Can he offer some prospect that the different counter-insurgency doctrines of the various forces currently in Iraq will be harmonised to make for a more coherent approach. Finally, will the Minister ensure that the long-term viability of the British Armed Forces remains one of his key concerns in planning future operational tasks and the funding of the equipment programme?