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Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford that we should be thinking about changing course. I would have preferred this debate to have taken place after the publication of the forthcoming Baker-Hamilton report. Nevertheless, I hope that we will have an opportunity to discuss that before long, when we have had time to read it. All my political life I have firmly supported the alliance between ourselves and the United States, but I am going to make some criticisms of United States policy in the areas we have been considering. I am encouraged to do so because the first thing my American friends ask me about is British public opinion on American policies in the Middle East. When he started the Iraq war, President Bush declared that he felt it would bring democracy to the Middle East. That was a pretty ambitious aim, and I think a lot of people were very sceptical about how far it was achievable. When the allied forces first arrived in Iraq, they had a rather lukewarm reception, and the attitude towards us has got worse. We are seen by many in the Middle East as self-interested and particularly interested in oil. The result has been increased hostility to the western powers. The Prime Minister said recently that terrorism has not been caused by the Iraq war because 9/11 occurred before the Iraq war began. That is not the point; the point is that terrorism is being enormously increased by what is going on now, not what happened on 9/11. If anybody is in any doubt, they need only ask Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, who talked recently about the effect of what is happening in the Middle East on terrorism. It is obvious that many more men—and women, too—are going in for terrorism. I believe that the terrorist campaign will be with us for many years to come. Historians will regard this war with incredulity. Another consequence of the war is Iran’s increased influence in the Middle East. One of the mistakes made by the Americans was not to prepare properly for the period after the war was over. It was pretty obvious that the war would be brief, and there should have been clear ideas about how we were going to manage affairs in Iraq after it was over. My noble friend Lord Jopling, whom I am sorry to see is not in his place today, made a powerful speech on 18 March 2003, just before the war began, in which he recounted the impression he had discovered in Washington, where he had just been: no one had thought seriously in any way about what was going to be done to manage the civilian problems after the war. Subsequent events showed that to be absolutely true. Because, to a large extent, of the lack of preparation for how internal affairs in Iraq were going to be managed, the war has released all the latent rivalries between Sunnis and Shias. I am puzzled by the lack of contact that there must have been between Her Majesty’s Government and the American Government about what was going to be done after the war. I do not know what the preparation was here, but surely it was possible for Her Majesty’s Government to find out from the Americans what was being done about this problem. I am not aware of any contact on that subject. If my noble friend Lord Jopling was able to make contact, surely the Government could have done so. Another error of the Americans was the decision by Mr Bremer, who was in charge of political affairs in Iraq soon after the end of the war, to abolish the Iraqi army and police force lock, stock and barrel. So they went away, many of them with their weapons, but without pay—a sure recipe for the sort of thing that has been happening most of the time since. Did Her Majesty’s Government know of Mr Bremer’s intentions? Were they consulted about making that extremely unsatisfactory move? Surely that was something we should have been discussing with the Americans. Mr Bremer’s decision explains to a large extent the recent casualties—the fighting, the assassinations, the bombs going off—partly because of the number of weapons in circulation, and partly because of the rivalry between the Shias and the Sunnis. Another factor that has made the situation worse is the lack of training on the part of the American forces in winning hearts and minds. The dogma of the Pentagon, as was explained to me by an American professor at Princeton, was that they would not go in for hearts and minds; that was for someone else to deal with, not the military forces. That has caused a lot of hostility to the Americans in Iraq. I am glad to see it reported that the American policy I have just referred to is now being reconsidered. Another mistake that we made was to commit ourselves to the Iraq war at the expense of our ability to pay enough attention to Afghanistan. We thought the Taliban had been safely put on one side, but here it is, reviving in very great strength. That is partly because our forces in Afghanistan are not as strong or numerous as they should have been. My criticism of the Government in this context is that the Prime Minister failed to manage relations with the United States in the way that he should have done. President Bush badly needed us. We were his best ally. The Prime Minister did not use the influence that he had with President Bush, whether we are talking of the time before the war and the United Nations negotiations, or of later events. The most interesting insight into the attitude of the Prime Minister toward the American president was the accidental broadcasting, after the St Petersburg conference, of a conversation between them in which the Prime Minister said, "““Why don’t you send Condoleezza to Iraq to do something, and I could go and just talk””." That sheds an interesting light on his attitude. Regarding Afghanistan, we were right to take on the Taliban but, after that, we failed by not finishing the job. There has been, and still is, a great overstretch of our forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban is now rich and strong; it looks as if it is going to give us a nasty time for quite a while. I found the statement by the Secretary of State for Defence at the time, John Reid, extraordinary. He said that the forces we were sending to southern Afghanistan might not hear a shot fired in anger. I do not know whether he had failed to read his brief, or whether that was his guesswork—or, more probably, whether it was the considered opinion of our best intelligence—but it was a great mis-statement. Our forces in Afghanistan are performing magnificently and I would say the same of the Canadians, who have taken proportionately more casualties. I must mention an interest in that I was at one time a Canadian soldier. The third area, which has as much potential for disaster as the first two that I have mentioned, is that of Israel and the Palestinians. That is causing as much terrorism in the world as either of the others, and the longer it goes on the more likely it is to worsen. The quartet seems not to have been very active recently, although it may have been doing things behind the scenes. I would like to see the Americans in particular being much more active in that context; in the last resort only they will be able to solve that problem, as somebody needs to put pressure on Israel. At the back of the problem is the Arab world’s belief that the Americans are favouring Israel. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester said, conditions in the Palestinian areas in Gaza and the West Bank are absolutely deplorable, as a result of Israeli policies. That is a particular reason for trying to solve that difficult situation as soon as possible. It is doubtful that the policies of Israel will benefit Israel in the long run. I think it is making a big mistake, since the force that it is using to get its will is shocking. It is still building the wall or fence, and thus still breaking international law—as they are elsewhere, by extending the settlements. I hope Israel will realise that, and adopt policies that are to the interest of the whole Middle East, to that of the Palestinians and to that of Israel itself.