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Foreign Affairs and Defence

It is appropriate and right at this time of year to remember the sacrifices made on our behalf by those brave men and women fighting for security and freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by those of previous generations. In two world wars, sacrifices were made that we can hardly begin to imagine today, so that we could enjoy the freedoms we have. Every one of us sitting in this democratic House of Commons has a particular debt to those who chose freedom over tyranny, whatever the cost to themselves. However much we might want peace, war is sometimes unavoidable if we are to protect what we believe to be right. There will continue to be disagreements about whether or not it was right to go to war in Iraq, but I still believe that the decision was correct. The reduction in violence and attacks on our forces in Basra is surely an optimistic sign that we might be on the slow path to the greater stability and democracy that so many Iraqis want to see, and for which so many brave Iraqi politicians have paid the ultimate price. We should salute their courage. We need to be clear, too, where things went wrong. Major mistakes and a lack of planning for the post-war period have made the conflict longer and the casualties probably greater than they might have been. That is why my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary called again today for an inquiry into the Iraq war. The main lesson must surely be that we cannot easily apply democracy to a country whose institutions are unable to support it—a country that lacks institutions such as a market economy, a fair rule of law and a concept of human rights—and expect those institutions to develop overnight. Those concepts took a long time to develop in this country, and they will take a long time to develop properly in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is therefore essential that we set realistic expectations for achieving our noble goals. Afghanistan remains a formidable challenge. We fully accept and support the strategic aims set out by the Government. It is essential that we create a stable Afghanistan and deny the territory to the Taliban and their allies in al-Qaeda, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) pointed out in his speech. There are those who believe that we should not be in Afghanistan at all, or that if we do not interfere, it will put us at less risk from terrorist attacks at home. That is just untrue: 9/11 came before the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. We cannot avoid confrontation with the forces of radical politicised terror groups such as al-Qaeda, because they have already chosen to confront us. Our resolve in tackling the threats that they pose to our values, freedoms and way of life can be no different from the resolve shown by previous generations in defeating the tyranny of Nazi Germany or the totalitarian menace of the Soviet Union in the cold war. I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will give us information on two specific issues this evening. The first relates to Nimrod and the second to Mastiff. There has been a great deal of anxiety as a result of the fatal Nimrod crash last year and the emergency involving another last week, particularly related to stories about fuel leaks. Can the Secretary of State tell us the latest position, and how we will balance the risk to our aircrews with the unavoidable need for aerial reconnaissance? In particular, what alternatives to reconnaissance are available from our NATO allies and what discussions have taken place? Mastiff has clearly been a great success, with improved safety for our forces on the ground. Another 140 Mastiffs are awaited. Can the Secretary of State tell us the time scale for the delivery? It would be unacceptable if we had a good solution that, yet again, arrived too late. While we are on the subject of procurement, perhaps the Secretary of State could clarify a point for the House. On 9 October, the Minister for the Armed Forces said on the subject of urgent operational requirements:"““Since 2003, we have spent more than £2 billion on UORs. All this money from the reserve is additional to the defence budget.””—[Official Report, 9 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 201.]" However, when one compares the figure given by the Minister with the UOR figure in the MOD annual report and accounts, there is a disparity of about £716 million. Will the Secretary of State explain the difference between those figures? Was the Minister using the figure of the total obligated UOR spending rather than the out-turn? If that was the case, will the Secretary of State explain why there was a good enough reason to obligate the money in the first place but not to spend it? How will his new arrangements with the Treasury operate, and what does he consider will be the effect of the new UOR system on the core MOD budget? In March of this year, the then Minister for the Armed Forces, the right hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr. Ingram), announced that the time was right to reassess the future of the international military presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to withdraw the last contingent of British troops from the country. EU Ministers had agreed to reduce EUFOR, which followed the NATO mission that had kept the peace in Bosnia since 1995, to turn its large dispersed force structure into a smaller, centralised one and to cut troop numbers from 6,000 to 2,500. At the time the Minister dismissed my sceptical response to the announcement. I was concerned, as we all were on the Conservative Benches, that both the foreign policy assumptions underpinning the decision and the military assessment were misguided and overly optimistic. In our view, 2007 was going to be a challenging year for the region and we needed to prepare for it properly, recognising that history has taught us that what happens in one part of that region invariably has ramifications in others. The grounds for instability were clear. The leader of the most popular political party in Serbia, the Serbian Radical party, was about to be put on trial at The Hague on charges of genocide and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica was presiding over a fractious coalition that rejected any notion of independence for Kosovo and the UN's efforts to resolve the province's status. In Bosnia, separatist forces in the entity of Republika Srpska were obstructing political reforms and calling for secession. Given all those problems, was it not complacent or at least premature of the Government to talk about the normality of the security situation in the region? Over the past few weeks those simmering tensions have started to surface. Right now we might be on the verge of the biggest crisis in the Balkans since the early 1990s. The negotiations over Kosovo will come to the crunch on 10 December, but the struggle over its future is already spilling out into the region. Serbian secessionists in Bosnia took to the streets last week in the entity of Republika Srpska to oppose the high representative's proposals to reform Bosnia's cumbersome decision-making process. The protestors brandished placards of the Russian President, President Putin. Serbia has rushed to support their cause. The senior US official in the office of the high representative told Congress last week that this was a ““vital moment”” in the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina and that its very survival could be determined in the next few months, if not the next few weeks. The commander of EU forces in Bosnia has sounded a stark warning, announcing that EUFOR was setting aside"““a minimum of forces for a possible intervention, in order to be sure that we can intervene again in the event of another outbreak of war””," and calling on the international community to"““pay full attention to the problems””" in the region. If history is anything to go by, there is cause for concern. The crisis in the Balkans in the early 1990s cruelly exposed a capabilities-expectations gap between the EU's rhetoric and its ability to act effectively. Europe's hour, as it was called, had come, but the EU, unable to keep a peace that did not exist and unwilling to involve itself in conflict, failed to live up to the challenge.