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Defence Policy

I declare an interest in regard to what I wish to say later about Afghanistan. I have some sympathy with the problems of the Minister of State and the Ministry of Defence. I know as well as anyone that although the Ministry has what appear to be vast resources—£32 billion a year or whatever it is—that does not enable it to do more than a proportion of what it would like to achieve. The Ministry of Defence is always treated with a lot of jealousy by other home Departments. I recall Margaret Thatcher once saying to me that the problem with the Ministry of Defence is that it has no friends. I suggested that the Foreign Office was perhaps a friend, and she said, ““The Foreign Office? They’re not wet; they’re drenched!”” And so was the conversation brought to a premature end. I hope that the Minister of State will forgive me for saying that our discussion so far illustrates why the Leader of the House was quite wrong to suggest that a debate such as this one meets the Government’s responsibilities with regard to the House having an opportunity to debate Iraq or other fundamental issues of defence policy. We have just heard from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Flello) and from others about many important topics, and we cannot go through dozens relevant issues, which just happen to include Iraq and Afghanistan, and then say that the House of Commons has fulfilled its responsibilities and that Parliament has been able to agree or disagree with the Government’s policy. That is not acceptable. The United States Congress has had many opportunities to debate Iraq and Afghanistan, and I suggest to the Minister that his Department, and, I hope, the Foreign Office, will impress upon the Leader of the House, who ought to know better than most, why such a debate would be timely and necessary in the wider public interest if the Government wish to try to win back some support for their policy. I shall not detain the House long, but I want to make two kinds of comment. First, I shall deal with the argument that the Government try to make, either intentionally or subliminally, that the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan—the problems, opportunities and tasks—are broadly the same, and that they are pursuing a single strategy and should have the support of the House and the country. Secondly, I want to make specific comments about Afghanistan. I support what the Government are doing in Afghanistan; it is absolutely right. The starting point was quite different. Al-Qaeda may be present in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is in Iraq as a result of the British and American invasion of that country. Before then, there was a secular despot who had no more time for al-Qaeda than do the British Government. Al-Qaeda has identified a big vacuum in Iraq and is there in a big way, but the situation in Afghanistan is fundamentally different. The British, American and other Governments were right to intervene in that country. The second consideration is that the United States had genuine global support. A few years on, it is easy to forget how unanimous that support and sympathy was around the world; there was also recognition of the need to take swift action against the Taliban, because they were giving al-Qaeda practical support. Another consideration is that there is not the insurgency in Afghanistan that there is in Iraq. People express great pessimism about Afghanistan going the wrong way, and talk about mission creep and our being sucked into something insoluble. There are indeed major problems, but they are of a quite different order. For practical purposes, the whole of Iraq—certainly in the areas where the population is concentrated, in Baghdad, Basra and elsewhere—is convulsed by the insurgency. In Afghanistan the Government’s remit is relatively limited. However, that is not because there is general insurgency, but because warlords and others control individual provinces and deny respect for the central Government. The situation is not comparable. Furthermore, 40,000 Iraqis and others have died since the insurgency began. There have been fatalities in Afghanistan, but they are of a different order.