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Iraq

For personal reasons that the House will well understand, this is the first time that I have contributed formally to a debate since stepping down as leader of the Liberal Democrats. Let me put on the parliamentary record the genuine gratitude of myself and my family to colleagues on both sides of the House, in all parties, for the expressions of goodwill and support that we have enjoyed and much appreciated over the course of the past few months. I am particularly grateful to be contributing to this debate, on this of all issues, which probably consumed more of my time as leader of the Liberal Democrats than just about any other, short of fighting general election campaigns. I have two brief backward-looking reflections that are central to the whole issue of having an inquiry now. First, during the build-up to the Iraq war, I repeatedly asked the Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s questions whether there were any circumstances—given that the Ministry of Defence must plan for all sorts of contingencies as regards any potential trouble spot anywhere in the world that might involve British forces—in which the British Government would not have backed the Americans had they decided to invade Iraq without the authority of the United Nations. That seemed a reasonable question, yet the Prime Minister never answered it. That creates the obvious suspicion that there was never a contingency in his mind that involved anything other than going in with the Americans—preferably with a second UN mandate, but if that was not forthcoming, then without it. We have subsequently read in Mr. Woodward’s book about assurances that the Prime Minister possibly gave, including when he met the President in Crawford at his ranch. That in itself merits a legitimate inquiry, because it has never been properly addressed by any of the inquiries that have taken place. Secondly, I recall the role played by the Conservatives. I do not want in any way to shatter the convoluted consensus that the former leader of the Conservative party, who is now its foreign affairs spokesman, sought to fashion earlier, but we should remember the time when Conservative Members were shouting out things like ““Charlie Chamberlain””—showing, I always felt, a paucity of knowledge of the history of their own parliamentary party—and failing to ask the pertinent questions about what became known as the dodgy dossier. I can tell the House—as I had my briefing in No. 10 a few minutes later—that the Prime Minister was as taken aback as anyone when the then Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), emerged from No. 10 Downing street and announced on its steps that war was now both inevitable and desirable, which was not even the official position of the Government at that point. The Conservatives have not exactly played their part in asking pertinent questions, which is why inquiries remain outstanding. When the Conservatives had the chance of the Butler inquiry, which we decided not to join because its remit was not sufficient, they gave their member of the committee a Privy Counsellorship so that he could join it. They then came out, but their member said that he was not coming out. He stayed in, I presume, as some kind of country club member. He continued with his Privy Counsellorship—and, of course, the Butler inquiry satisfied nobody. Worst of all, the Butler inquiry’s conclusions were dismissed by the Prime Minister in less than 60 seconds in a subsequent debate in the House. I wish the shadow Foreign Secretary well in building convoluted consensus, of which we have a little tonight. On that track record—who knows?—he might yet form the amorphous new European conservative parliamentary grouping in Brussels on which he seems to be working so hard. I want to address some points briefly. First, the Foreign Secretary has asked why we should request an inquiry now. The reason is that all the previous inquiries were insufficient. Does that undermine the troops? I remember going to the memorial service as party leader, and talking to parents and relatives of those who have lost their lives. Some supported the Government’s action in Iraq, and some opposed it. I asked each and every one whether it was right for me, and for us, to question the wisdom of the action. Whatever their view on the rights or wrongs of the war, they said, ““Our sons and daughters have given their lives in Iraq supposedly in the name of freedom and democracy. If you people back in Westminster cannot exercise and exhibit that freedom and democracy, what were they doing there in the first place?”” Secondly, we have heard about the debate taking place in the United States against the background of the mid-term Congressional elections. Mr. Baker is no soft touch. He was the Secretary of State for the first President George Bush who was told to tell Tariq Aziz across the table that if the Iraqis dared to use chemical or biological weapons against the allied forces after the invasion of Kuwait, the response would be, to use his word, ““disproportionate””. If, in the charged electoral context of the United States, somebody like that can play such a pivotal role, what on earth has the British House of Commons to fear from a sensible inquiry at this point? Finally, as the goalposts have kept moving throughout this tragic episode, the Prime Minister said at one point that there was a great moral case, and at another that the action was a strategic defence of our interests, as we were under a 45-minute threat of potential obliteration. But what did he say in the final debate in the House before the fateful decision was made? Even at that late stage—the record shows it—he said that Saddam and his sons could ““save their regime”” if they complied with the weapons inspectors. So much for the moral argument being put forward at the time. The truth will out one day. We will never know how many people lost their lives. On the political tombstone of this Prime Minister will be the word ““Iraq””. For hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians in that country there will never be a tombstone, and we will never know their names. More than a hundred soldiers from our country, although we do know their names, are lost. The same is true of thousands of soldiers from the United States. It has been a tragedy, and the House cannot shy away from it.