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Iraq

My Lords, it is our custom to say that the debates we hold in your Lordships’ House are very timely, although we do not always mean it. However, if ever there was a debate which landed right on schedule, on the right runway at the right time, this is it. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Hurd for introducing it with such a superb presentation of his case, to which I will come in a minute. The debate has been greatly enhanced by the maiden speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker of Aldringham, who brought enormous expertise and wisdom to it. He reminded us of the crucial covenant between servicemen in the Armed Forces, the people of this country and the representatives of the people of this country, a covenant which must hold and must never be allowed to break. We obviously want to hear more of the noble and gallant Lord’s wisdom in the future. Time has passed since the debate in the other place on 31 October last year on a possible inquiry into the whole Iraq affair. Since it started, 132 British soldiers have died on active service in Iraq; between £4 and£5 billion has been spent, although it may be much more than that; and hundreds, if not thousands, more Iraqi lives continue to be lost in the unending bloodshed. On top of that, the number of deaths continues to rise in Afghanistan. I join others in offering condolences and expressing sadness at the death of the Royal Marine yesterday and send sympathy to his grieving family. Also, since the debate in the other place in October, there have been a number of crucial developments. The whole saga of Iraq and its associated problems is, in effect, entering an entirely new phase. First, as noble Lords have pointed out, there has been the Baker-Hamilton report, with its emphasis on diplomacy and on the need for regional co-operation. Many of us agreed with that report, even though to my mind it suffered from a big defect in that it contained the central belief that the USA still has the power to impose its template on the Middle East region and be the dominant power, and that it still has the capacity to extract itself from its own errors. I believe that is a flawed view and that America will need help from many others, not only Europe and the regional powers, including, I am afraid, Iran, but the rising Asian powers—although that raises broader issues. Secondly, the so-called surge strategy has begun to unfold, with 21,500 extra US troops now filing into Baghdad to somehow, we hope, pacify a situation that 130,000 troops could not pacify. Thirdly, there has been the UK decision, announced yesterday, to wind down troop levels, combined with what most people now recognise as a depressing loss of direction in policy. I cannot think of any better example of that than the simultaneous welcome for the Baker-Hamilton report, which urged talks not troops, and for the Bush initiative that followed it, which urged troops not talks. Both were ticked and supported by the British Government. Truly Britain’s reputation for clarity and purpose in international policy has never been weaker nor our influence more tarnished. We are told that this latest withdrawal is justified by improvements in Basra security. Indeed, the spin has been that it somehow fits with the concurrent American build-up of troops in Baghdad. As I mentioned yesterday, I hope and trust that this picture is accurate and that there is nothing artificial about this rather sudden judgment that Basra is peaceful and Iraqi forces can take over. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, also raised that question. It would be good to know how and when this decision was reached. Indeed, it would be good to know how any decisions have been reached over the past three years as we have found ourselves stuck deeper and deeper in the quagmire. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who aspires to be Prime Minister, keeps repeating to us, we must learn the lessons of Iraq. To learn the lessons, however, we need to know much more clearly than at present what went wrong and why. We need to examine the flawed assumptions, the misleading generalisations about the region, the warnings ignored, the situations misunderstood and the relationship with Washington in all its aspects. My noble friend Lord Hurd asked whether that would damage troop morale. On the contrary: as we enter this next phase, the ideal time is approaching for a clear redirection of purpose and objectives in this nation. We owe that to our dedicated, professional troops operating in, at the very least, atrocious conditions. How right the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, and others were to remind us of just what appalling conditions our troops have had to fight under. None of us can even imagine the business of going out and carrying a 50 kilos load in 50 degrees of heat, let alone having to fight and avoid an instant high risk of death. It keeps being said that we have had enough inquiries. There have been the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other place, the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Hutton investigation into the death of Dr Kelly and the inquiry of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, into intelligence failures. With all due respect to all those undertakings, however, a host of major questions remain unexamined. The first is the puzzle of Cabinet procedures and how these decisions came to be taken. Why, asked the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in a very thoughtful speech in this House on29 June last year, was there no war Cabinet to guide and shape policy as the hour of invasion approached? What part did we play in the timing of the invasion? I hope that I am not breaching confidences or secrets to say that when I was very kindly called to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the time of the invasion and was about to ask in a puzzled way, ““Why now?””, before I could speak the Minister in question—no names—turned to me and asked, ““Why now?”” That is where the question came from. From the start there was a feeling that policy was being made on the hoof and in response to events across the water in Washington. There was a feeling of what the Butler report described—my noble friend Lord Hurd reminded us of this—as the informality of policymaking. In response to that, the Prime Minister then dutifully promised, in the Government’s reply to the Butler report, that any small group brought together would in future operate formally as an ad hoc Cabinet committee. We have to ask: why was it not so operating from the start? Have things changed now? Are we sure these things are operating correctly now? We do not know. As the noble Lord, Lord Owen, and my noble friend Lord Hurd have reminded us, inquiries while operations are in progress have a substantial precedent, notably the inquiry into the Dardanelles fiasco while the First World War was still raging, but also the Falklands inquiry—well, that was after the Falklands, but there are other precedents. That is the reality we must face. Secondly, since the debate last autumn, a plethora of new evidence has been tumbling out in the United States, in books and inquiries, about the intelligence process and what went wrong. As the Butler report makes clear, SIS had a sorry tale to tell of unreliable sources, overworked staff, ill defined responsibilities and ineffective validation procedures—for which no one on this side of the Atlantic seems to have been held responsible, which is rather deplorable. Now it transpires that far too much weight was given to stories from a single agent called Curveball, whom German intelligence services knew to be a fabricator and an alcoholic, but whose information was regurgitated by our own intelligence services. The deeper that American inquiries, including congressional ones, go into these issues, the less confidence one has that we have learnt from our mistakes. There can be no confidence that the soothing official phrases about matters being attended to and procedures being reviewed or strengthened have been put into practice. If an inquiry diverts the attention of some of those who have been handling things so far, it is time their attention was diverted. Thirdly, the role of Iran in Iraq is emerging centre stage. Once again, we seem to be groping around for information on Iraq’s weapons capacities, its nuclear programme, its internal political dynamics and much more. We need much more airing of the expertise and differing views before we get dragged into the same mistakes again and the same ill judged actions as before. The Prime Minister said on the radio this morning that he is not aware of any military action for Iran. That in itself is ominous. Not only should we be aware but we should explain to our Washington allies the need for co-operation from Iran on several fronts and the limits of military power rather than attacking the Iranians. Fourthly, people simply want to know the truth about what went wrong. Why were there intelligence failures? Why did the PM say things he thought were true, but turned out to be untrue, about the Iraqi threat? Why did we let our American friends commit such mistakes? Why was the preparation for the post-invasion situation so poor? Why were the experts surprised when the blood-soaked split between the Sunnis and the Shias widened out? What input did we have in American decisions, many of which were appallingly misguided, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jay? Why could a Labour Prime Minister not learn from the wily Harold Wilson, who kept us carefully out of the Vietnam quagmire while none the less staying friendly with the Americans? Why could those lessons not be learnt? The questions go on and on but the answers stop short. We are now at the reduced stage where our foreign policy consists of a wish list of unlikely hopes. It may be that everything will suddenly change for the better in the Middle East. It may be that Israel and Palestine will find a modus vivendi. It may be that Iran will start playing a positive role in preventing nuclear proliferation. It may be that the bloody civil war in Iraq will come to a halt. It may be that Shia and Sunni will live in harmony. It may be that democracy in various guises will spread, and sweetness and light will spread throughout the region as kingdoms and emirates convert to parliamentary government. It may be that in Saudi Arabia, opposition to the House of Ibn Saud will evaporate and the terrorists and extremists will fold their tents and depart. It may be that peace will descend on battered Lebanon, Hezbollah go back to their villages and hills and Beirut will rise again. All that is noble and possible, devoutly to be wished for and worked for; but we know perfectly well that it is all highly unlikely. Even for the short distance ahead, we can see that it cannot be. For those in authority to assume that any of these things will come about and that the world can glide from here to there over the months and years immediately ahead would be a total dereliction of duty and responsibility. With our influence diminished, our resources stretched, our Armed Forces under almost impossible pressure, and with new dangers lurking just ahead, the British people are entitled to be let in on the scene in a frank and open way. We have asked, and we ask again, for a full inquiry, by privy counsellors, modelled on the Franks inquiry. We will keep asking for it. If the timing is not right at this second, it will be right soon. If the present Prime Minister will not agree to an inquiry, perhaps the next Prime Minister will; indeed, he may have already decided to set one up. Only then will we be able to say truly, as we should, that we have learnt no end of a lesson and it has done us no end of good. Until then, we live in hopes.