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Iraq

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, for giving us this opportunity. I agree very much with what the noble Baroness has just said. I hope that the Minister will send a message of condolence to Iraq from this debate, not only as a tribute to our troops in the field but in recognition of the thousands of deaths and injuries sustained every month by Iraqi civilians, whom we also mourn, and of the millions who are still suffering daily from the effects of civil war. Among so many atrocities, one of the saddest that I have read about this month concerns a baby girl called Shams, who has half a face. Some weeks ago, she was with her parents in Sadr City, the mainly Shia area of Baghdad, when three cars exploded. Her mother died and half the baby’s face was blown away, leaving her eyes buried under skin. "““Blood and destruction shall be so in use, And dreadful objects so familiar, That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quartered with the hands of war””." Those words from Mark Antony seem to me all too familiar today. I agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, that, sitting here, we can scarcely imagine the realities of war. I hope that over the past two weeks some noble Lords have seen the production of the Baghdad ““Richard III””, which I saw at Stratford. It was quite something. That little girl was lucky from one point of view: her father, Hisham, survived and they have been evacuated to the Red Cross hospital in Amman, where doctors from Médecins sans Frontières are trying to treat her with plastic surgery. She is, as we have heard, one of almost 4 million Iraqis who have left their homes. The total number in Jordan, Syria and other countries is approaching 2 million, but nearly as many are already displaced inside Iraq. The UN agencies and NGOs are preparing for even bigger numbers in what the International Rescue Committee calls, "““a refugee crisis of historic proportions””." I think that we underestimate what is happening. By the end of this year, at least another half a million people will have been internally displaced, making roughly one in five or six Iraqis who are on the move. Two out of five Iraqi Christians have already left the country. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, also mentioned the psychological effects. I have received an e-mail from an Iraqi friend about her mother-in-law. She says: "““The vibrant optimistic positive woman I knew has withdrawn into a shell of despair and total disbelief at how a life can change so drastically in one lifetime. She has lost almost everything she loves or cares for including a son who was killed by the Baathists … can you image the humiliation and the emotional state that helpless woman and thousands like her have to go through now as a normal state of affairs?””." Syria and Jordan have been the most welcoming of countries, but they have had little international assistance so far. Social services are stretched to breaking point. Iraqi refugees now have to apply for residence within a fortnight. They are only getting temporary visas, if that, and are asked to pay for their own healthcare. NGOs are finding that even their own staff are held up at borders. Offers of help from the UK to Syria and Jordan would now be timely, either direct to the non-governmental organisations or through the UNHCR. On the IDPs, the recent report that thousands of Shia in Kirkuk, resettled in Kurdish and Assyrian Christian areas under Saddam Hussein, may now officially return home will cause further ethnic tension. As for a referendum on the control of oil supplies in the north, the existing violence between Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen communities could easily worsen. One effect of migration into cities is that empty houses are not being reallocated. They are often taken over by armed groups trying to cleanse an area of another sect. Ethnic cleansing makes an area secure, but much more dangerous. Even the Red Crescent has recently suspended its operations owing to the kidnapping of eight of its staff. Doctors and their families have become a prime target of kidnappers. Most senior doctors have now left Iraq, and there is immense pressure on junior doctors. Hospitals have to suffer regular intrusion from militia or coalition forces, some of them demanding priority treatment. Even ambulances and medical conveys are being fired on. Fortunately, the informal networks have been coping when health services break down, but this situation cannot continue indefinitely. Everyone dreads a further deterioration. They know that a lot of aid has been wasted. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for pointing out our responsibility for not auditing all the funds that went through the coalition. The straight question before us is whether foreign occupation is making peace in Iraq or exacerbating the war, as suggested by General Dannatt last year. I agree with my noble friend Lord Jay that there must be more accountability to Parliament. I say to my noble friend Lord Thomas that it is going to require more than debates. I was a member of the Constitution Committee, which recommended a convention that would apply not just to Iraq, butto situations like the four-figure deployment of additional troops to Afghanistan without any reference to Parliament. General Dannatt’s comment must have leddirectly to the Prime Minister’s Statement yesterday, and leaves me wondering whether this latest announcement is not a feint to satisfy critics rather than a genuine withdrawal. I agree with those on the Liberal Benches who are looking for more clarity, difficult as it is, because that is what the public demand. Whatever our views on the invasion, no one doubts what our troops were there for, or that they have fought gallantly. We must not talk up collapse and fragmentation, but we must have doubts about our troops’ effectiveness in the long run. What I have read of the recent US national intelligence estimate and have since heard from NGOs suggests that security is deteriorating faster than ever and that political and diplomatic action, rather than troop deployment, is the only way to reverse this process. President Bush has drawn the opposite conclusion. He may have executive power, but he no longer carries enough weight in Congress. There is no longer a clear lead from the top. Inertia in diplomacy is dangerous for any state tied down in war, especially for a superpower, because of its consequences for us all. This is a different situation; there can be no comparison with 9/11 or 2003. The uncertainty surrounding the US Administration at present is in sharp contrast with the firmness of the original decision to invade four years ago. The coalition against terrorism included several European and Arab states whose presence has since melted away, leaving us high and dry. The Baker-Hamilton plan was encouraging and useful at the time, but I cannot see any actions arising from it. William Polk, the US analyst, was surely right when he said last month that it was naive to expect Iran and Syria to co-operate with the United States, which has been attacking and denouncing them for five or six years. We all hope that the latest security measures will work, at least for a time, and that they will contain some of the fighting, but history shows that they can only be temporary and cannot be regarded as a solution. I believe that our forces should be given a clear date for withdrawal, and we need to persuade the US of the same. There is a widespread view in the Middle East that, whatever the case was for invasion, there is no longer a case for occupation. By setting a timetable, we have a greater chance of reconnecting diplomatically with the neighbouring Arab states that should be our natural allies because of history and the record of the Foreign Office in this region. If we remember our debate on the Serious Fraud Office, we cannot simply expect automatic co-operation on intelligence from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt if we are not on their wavelength on the Iraq war. What efforts are being made to improve our contacts with the neighbouring Arab states and to revive the original coalition against terrorism of countries that had a shared objective after 9/11 and may still feel a responsibility for the ending of the war after the occupying forces have left? The Saudi Government, in particular, are taking considerable interest in a peaceful settlement throughout the region. What expectations does the Minister have of the Arab summit in Riyadh in March, which could see the launch of a strong initiative to reactivate the role of Arab states in Iraq? Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, has invited Iraq’s neighbours to a prior conference in Baghdad. These are surely opportunities to be seized by the UK, perhaps alongside the European Union this time, because if nothing else we are going to need to make more friends in the Middle East. Finally, there are the threats against Iran. The United States argues that they will reinforce sanctions, but I see them as a deliberate diversion away from Iraq. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who made a strong case against US rhetoric. Such threats belong to a dangerous foreign policy. They reopen the discredited axis of evil and provide more fuel for Arab and world criticism. It is an unrealistic course of action, which we should reject by speaking out clearly at once.