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Defence in the World

I have made it perfectly clear that, as things stand today, we would not start to withdraw the troops overnight. Since we first articulated the need for Britain to commence a process of withdrawal 18 months ago, we have said that the process would take about six months to perform safely and that, in any case, before we commenced such a process, we would go through negotiations with the Iraqi authorities and with our allies, principally the Americans. Nothing has really changed in the way we view that, and my colleagues and I still believe that it should be our objective to commence a process of withdrawal and to get the troops out of Iraq as fast as can safely be considered. I stress, however, that no one has ever suggested that that could take place overnight. Last autumn, we were considering the spectre of the election that never was. Others might point the finger at us and say that we used the situation as a political football—I deny that—but the fact is that the Government were doing that. I cannot see that there is any certainty about even a clear end goal for our hard-pressed resources, let alone any exit strategy. The Government continue to listen very closely to our US allies, but I do not think that being there for our allies is, in the long term, a justification for continuing the critical overstretch suffered by our troops or for undermining the other operations in which we are engaged. It was said that we had trained Iraqi forces successfully, but we have delayed our drawdown and continue to be on so-called overwatch duties. As we know, Sunni elements recently surged forward, but in the middle east debate of 1 May the Minister for the Middle East said:"““In Iraq, we have seen significant progress…New democratic political structures are beginning to bear fruit. Local communities ""have turned against al-Qaeda…The Iraqi Government have taken tough action against armed groups and militias, regardless of their sect, and Iraqi security forces are delivering on their responsibilities.""In Basra…since handing over security responsibility…in December...we have seen strong evidence of the increasing capabilities of the Iraqi armed forces””.—[Official Report, 1 May 2008; Vol. 475, c. 458.]" We had more of that from the Secretary of State today and it was very welcome, but I and other hon. Members are concerned that there has been a significant change in British troops' overwatch activities. Before the end of last year, we were primarily responsible for security in Basra, whereas we are now there in a support role. I was worried by a newspaper report that a British brigadier had been ejected from meetings between the Iraqi Prime Minister and the Americans, and it is a matter of concern—to this House and to the general public—that we are asking our armed forces to put their lives at risk yet have less and less influence or say over their commitments and activities. When an oral statement was made to the House, various hon. Members shared my disquiet that we were continuing to put our troops at great risk yet had less say over it. We expected a drawdown of about 1,500 troops, but that has been delayed to help with the current situation. The definition of ““overwatch”” seems to have broadened considerably from what I at least expected at the outset. Given that what the Government told us last autumn clearly no longer obtains, I hope that Ministers will say what they think our future commitment will be. It is clear that all the hopes and expectations fuelled by the Prime Minister's announcements of last autumn are now a long way from the Government's thinking. The public, the armed forces and this House need a much clearer statement of what the Government think our involvement will comprise, both in the foreseeable future and—as it appears will be the case—for many years to come. In Afghanistan, the battle seems to be going round in a circle. In saying that, I do not intend to criticise our armed forces or Government in any way, but the coalition as a whole seems to lack a clear and overarching strategy. As a matter of fact, from the British point of view there is every indication that the three Departments involved are working together rather better than they did in the past, but the coalition as a whole needs to face up to the lack of an overarching strategy. I very much regret that Lord Ashdown was unable to take up the special envoy role, but let us hope that the gentleman who has stepped into the role is able to help the Afghan authorities and the coalition as a whole to develop a strategy. The danger is that we could be in a Catch-22 situation. People who have served in Afghanistan tell me that the conflict is in a vicious circle that will be very hard to break: our military objective is to stabilise the country so that reconstruction can take place, but the fact that it is not yet safe enough for that reconstruction is making it more difficult to stabilise the country. I accept that there are no easy solutions. We can win some hearts by erecting bridges and building schools, but minds can be hard to win in a part of the world that has had a very rough 30 years or so. Only if we can get on top of the situation militarily, and stay on top of it, will minds be won over in addition to hearts. There is no doubt that this is going to be a very long haul. I am, understandably, being pressed by both other parties about the Liberal Democrats not supporting a long haul in Iraq, but let me make it perfectly clear that we absolutely support the long haul in Afghanistan. We have no choice in the matter, as other Members have said. We went in there for the right reason, which was to prevent the country from being a safe haven for international terrorism, and we have no choice but to see it through and ensure that it does not become so again. It will not be possible for our troops to leave Afghanistan until they can do so absolutely confident that the country has been reconstructed to such an extent that there is no danger of the Taliban re-emerging as the authority and allowing al-Qaeda back. I echo the words of the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) and others—we will not win that battle unless other allies start pulling more weight and other NATO and European countries commit more troops with fewer caveats on their operations and send them into some of the toughest areas where we are most in need of additional feet on the ground. There is no doubt that the shortfalls in troop provision by NATO allies are making this considerably more difficult and much slower, and I fear that the visibly long-term nature of the conflict will begin to erode some of the public support for it in this country. I very much hope not. It is in the interests of everybody in this House to work together to ensure that that is not the case. We have to start to ask fairly fundamental questions about how our armed forces are configured and about some of the procurement decisions that follow from that. It can still be said that too much of our capability is geared towards state-on-state conflict rather than the ground-level insurgency that is the generation of warfare that we are involved in for the future, although that is not to say that we should ignore or close our minds to the dangers of state-on-state conflict in the medium to long term. It was certainly a premise of the 1988 strategic defence review that we did not face an imminent threat in terms of state-on-state warfare, and that probably remains as true today as it was then. In a fast-changing world, we must take it seriously in the medium to long term, but our armed forces do not seem to be adequately configured for the warfare that we know we will be engaged in for the short to medium term. Again, there are no easy solutions—no levers that one could quickly flick to change things. However, as I and others have said in the House before, there is now an overwhelming need for another strategic defence review, because the world has changed a great deal in the years since the previous one was carried out. Other countries, notably America, do this far more frequently than we do, and it is overdue. We cannot maintain operations at the current tempo without inflicting real and lasting damage on our capabilities. It cannot be emphasised enough that we need more helicopters. We also need more infantry on the ground and a greater ability to match the tactics of those who are not fighting us in planes or big tanks.