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Ministry of Defence

I never thought that I would follow the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) and have to confess to agreeing with a great deal of what he said. I begin by quite properly declaring an interest in a public company that does business in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I welcome the debate not only for the reasons that my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) mentioned, but because, in an extraordinary way, this is the first opportunity since the general election that hon. Members have had to debate Iraq and Afghanistan on the Floor of the House. The conflict has been the single greatest political disaster that the United Kingdom has faced since Suez—indeed, it is far worse than Suez because that was over in a few weeks with relatively few casualties—and here we are, three years into it. It is right that we address not only the financial costs, but the implications for British soldiers. I hope that there will be more opportunities for such debates. There is an important question of whether the House should give its approval before this country goes to war. It is equally important that once a war has happened and there are ongoing consequences, the House should have the right to scrutinise properly the way in which the policy evolves, but that has not happened until now. The background to the presence of British troops in Iraq is that the war was pre-emptive. The situation was unusual and we went into the war in unlikely circumstances. I do not automatically exclude the right to have a pre-emptive war. Of course, if one knows one is going to be attacked, one does not necessarily wait until that happens before taking action to stop it. If there is to be a right of pre-emption that leads to British troops going to a country such as Iraq, with massive costs and casualties, we should bear in mind two fundamental considerations for both this country and the United States. First, if the United States and Britain have the right to take pre-emptive action, so, too, does every other country in the world. Any country throughout the globe that thinks itself threatened can, according to Washington and the present British Government, initiate a war simply in order to prevent one. Secondly, if pre-emptive wars are contemplated, one needs at the very least not just theories, ideas and suspicions, but solid evidence that can be shared with the public—preferably before the war, but at the very least after it—for why the action is appropriate. Those criteria have not been justified. One recalls Bismarck’s remark in similar circumstances when he referred to the pre-emptive approach as being rather like committing suicide because of the fear of death. There are very serious consequences when starting a war in such circumstances, but they do not seem to have been taken into account.