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Defence in the World

It is a pleasure to participate in the debate. My first question is whether ““Defence in the World”” is an appropriate title for such debates. As we have heard in all the contributions today, we must consider not simply what the military are doing in the corners of the globe, but exactly how their operations fit into the peacekeeping, nation building and growth of the communities involved. That is well beyond the remit of any military, and I therefore suggest that these debates be widened to include the work of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, so that we fully understand how the MOD operates in connection with those other organisations. For example, in Iraq, security remains bad, but is it the military's fault that not enough schools are built, that there are not enough hospitals and that we have not established the local and regional government structures that should have been put in place in the very early months when there was an element of peace? Today, five years after the invasion, Basra teeters on the brink of civil war and Anbar province—the biggest province—has been ethnically cleansed. In the social context, unemployment is rife, electricity is intermittent and petrol for transport remains sparse. Some 25 per cent. of Iraqis totally depend on food rations, according to the UN, and only 3,000 of the 15,000 schools destroyed or damaged have been repaired. According to UNICEF, up to 75 per cent. of children are not attending schools. Iraq's Ministry of Water says that only 32 per cent. of the population have access to drinking water and only 19 per cent. have access to good sewerage systems. Hon. Members might ask what that has to do with defence in the world. The point is that we are still in Iraq, and because these issues have not been solved, we continue to stay in Iraq. My argument is that other aspects of Cabinet Departments are not doing enough to support our military to ensure that once the umbrella of security is created, our military can leave, leaving behind a strong sense of governance and the building blocks for a nation to continue on its own. In my view, we cannot call what we see in Iraq a success story. It has been a costly failure in peacekeeping—a textbook example of how not to nation-build—resulting in a prolonged, testing and ultimately unwinnable task for our armed forces, which, after providing a small window of peace, are now hopelessly and totally abandoned by the FCO, and, indeed, by DFID. There was no plan, no strategy and no idea how to harness the euphoria of the fall of Saddam Hussein and to sow the seeds of governance. I do not wish to take away from the individual work and strengths of DFID and Foreign Office representatives, but those two Departments have totally failed the MOD and the military who are still stuck on Operation Telic many years after those other organisations have disappeared. DFID is no longer to be seen in any sense or form in Basra on the scale that should have been there when we first went in. We have moved from being liberators to being occupiers. I am afraid that our military have borne the brunt of that, and they get very little thanks for what they have managed to achieve. It could be argued that perhaps if Saddam Hussein had invaded somewhere, or done something proactive, we would have had to expedite a force to go out and rush in there. However, as memoirs are written and the information comes out of the system, we see that General Franks, who led the initial invasion, was approached, as the commander of US Central Command, back in November 2001 to start to create the plans of attack to invade Iraq. There was plenty of time to formulate a plan for what we would do after the invasion was complete. In May 2003, President Bush stood on top of the Abraham Lincoln, saying, ““Mission accomplished.”” We have failed in Iraq because we did not use that important window of opportunity. Rather than our being able to take advantage of the confusion, the power vacuum has been filled not by us, and not by good Iraqi governance, but by al-Qaeda, which was not there in the first place. That is what has led us to be seen not as liberators but as occupiers. We have lost the hearts of minds of the good people—the Iraqis—who wanted us to move forward. To confuse matters, we now talk about the militants in Basra. The situation is more complicated than that. The Fadhila party and the Mahdi army are two different operations. The Fadhila party has responsibility and the mayorship of Basra, but the Mahdi army wants that power. The conflict between the two militias is causing the friction, and the only thing that united all the militias in Basra was a hatred of the British. That forced us to move from Basra palace to the airport itself. I am saddened by how we were forced to withdraw. My battalion—the 4th Battalion, The Rifles—was part of that, and it did a fantastic job in trying to patrol in very difficult circumstances. However, we must ask whether it is correct for 750 soldiers to patrol a city of 1.5 million people if those soldiers do not have the support of DFID and the FCO. The problems manifested themselves in the uprising on 9 April. The Secretary of State said today that the grip of the militias had now been broken, but I beg to differ. As we heard from other interventions at the time, it is clear that the Iraqis could have contained the situation only with the support of the Americans. Indeed, Time magazine has reported this week that US and British planes had to be called in and that medical supplies and even bottles of water were needed to support the Iraqis. According to the Iraqi Government, many soldiers refused to fight. Many surrendered and many switched sides; 1,300 soldiers deserted. That is why UK and American special forces were needed to try to quell the uprising. The situation is not under control; it is very much teetering on the brink of civil war. We have walked away from the issue and it is less in the headlines than it has ever been before. However, there will be a period of uncertainty before there is any long-term peace in the south and in the Shi'ite sector. The scenario for the Sunnis in central Iraq is a different one. As I said, ethnic cleansing has taken place in Anbar province, and although there is relative peace there, that is because of the awakening project in which the Americans paid militias and gave them uniforms so that they could patrol their areas. That might have purchased a temporary peace, but what will happen when the Americans depart and that money dries up? On a visit to Iraq recently, the Iraqi Government made it clear that they would not continue to pay the militias for what they were doing. The militias are outside the structure of governance and there is a worry that they will turn their sights on the south and the Shi'ites. We will then have full-scale war. I hope that that will not happen, but it is certainly on the cards. The prospect of things heading that way is very worrying. I am saddened that we seem to be running away from Iraq with our tail between our legs after we had such an opportunity in the relative peace to do something positive. Unfortunately, we face a similar situation in Afghanistan. Again, a lack of co-ordination within the international community means that money and effort are not getting to the front line. The centralised model of governance means that we do not recognise or celebrate the mixture of tribes, alliances and allegiances that actually make up Afghanistan. The Americanised constitution that was imposed on Afghanistan ignores the Loya Jirgas that set up their own democratic structures, and we rushed into creating an elected system of governance that is limited to Kabul only. We need to look at recognising better the Pashtuns, the Tajiks, the Hazaras and the Uzbeks, and the differences that exist across the nation, and to take a much more federalist approach than the centralist model, which is clearly not working. Time is against me, and I must conclude. Kinetic activity is not the only thing that the Ministry of Defence needs to be concerned about. It is part of the fight to contain insurgency, but a wave of support must come in behind it. There must be reconstruction and redevelopment. If there is not, all we do is end up killing the bad guys; the good guys wait around for something to happen, and when it does not, they ask, ““What have we actually witnessed?”” That is the big difference between following through our commitment and leaving it to the military to create a peace of which no one ever takes advantage. It is clear that the Kabul Government are weak and that we are not harnessing the exports because there is not the infrastructure to do so. The international community needs to do more to get the road and railway systems working so that things can be exported. Afghanistan was one of the world leaders in exporting fruit, which was its main export before the Soviet invasion. Not only is the country now unable to grow fruit in any great measure because the irrigation system was not repaired properly after its destruction by the Soviets, but there is no method of getting it outside the country and linking up with world export markets. We have been there for a number of years, and even today no one is working on those things under the limited and fragile umbrella of security put together by the military. Fighting asymmetric battles is not just about shooting the bad guys, but about helping, and being seen to help, the good guys. ISAF, in its limited role, needs to expand what it does. I heard General Richards speak at an event last night. He was shocked to hear how much Royal Engineers were doing to repair our own barracks again and again, in and around the various Afghan towns and cities, rather than their being sent to do work outside where the civilian contractors refuse to go. We have the ability in NATO to do more for the reconstruction effort. We have a question mark over NATO's future. More can be done to expand the peacekeeping mission to include not just fighting, but a proactive approach to peacekeeping itself. Iraq and Afghanistan are our generation's war. My worry is that the lack of a plan in both cases means that we will be fighting it for much longer.