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Defence Policy

I start by echoing the words of tribute to the men and women of our armed services at every level, on the front line and at home, and to those who help and support them, those who equip and supply them, and those who look after them when they come back. In particular, I pay tribute to the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), who have just returned from a gruelling tour of duty in Afghanistan, and to my own constituents, the marines and engineers who have gone out there to take over from them. We should all be very proud of what they are doing, often in very difficult circumstances. I should also like to welcome the new Secretary of State to his new responsibilities. Like the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), I recall shadowing him in his health role some years ago. I was rather surprised when the hon. Member for Woodspring suggested that he expected to find a more bipartisan atmosphere in our debates from now on, but he then went on to surprise me, because I found myself agreeing with much more of his speech than I usually do. It was one of the best speeches he has made on defence. Perhaps I was wrong to think that we would not find bipartisan support for a number of things, because, in fact, we are doing so. I also pay tribute to the Secretary of State's predecessor. I entirely agree that he was a straight and decent man, who did a difficult job in very trying circumstances. Rumours have been circulating all year that, when a reshuffle came, he wanted to divest himself of his responsibilities. I have no idea whether that is true, but I think that he can look back at the time he spent as Defence Secretary with pride and satisfaction. For five years, defence policy has been focused on, and to a great extent overshadowed by, our intervention in Iraq. Sometimes to the detriment of our forces, our capabilities and our wider operations, the Government have remained somewhat too steadfast—to my taste—in their involvement in that country. That has had a considerable cost. During the time of our involvement there, we have lost the confidence of many allies and friends around the world, and diverted our attention away from the real problems, not least those in Afghanistan, which predated our involvement in Iraq. We now have a new Secretary of State in charge, however, and I very much welcome what he said at the weekend, and again in our debate today, about the drawing down of our forces in the region. It may be that our time there is drawing to an end, and if so, I welcome that very much. I know that our troops are currently involved in training the 14th division of the Iraqi army. The previous Secretary of State said in an answer in early September—I think that the new Secretary of State has more or less confirmed this today—that this will be completed early next year. I gather that we are also anticipating handing over the Basra air base by the end of this year. I very much hope that we can assume that we are coming to the end of our significant engagement and that we have not been given yet another elastic deadline. Questions need to be answered about the draw-down to what I understand will be a few hundred troops remaining. I am particularly keen to understand where they will be and how they will be protected. The Minister of State was asked in the Select Committee on Defence about the minimum scale of forces that are capable of protecting themselves. If we are talking about drawing down to a few hundred, clearly they will not be able to protect themselves. I think that we have a much more sensible basis on which to build a long-term bilateral partnership with Iraq of the sort that the Secretary of State was defending. I see no problem with, or have any objection to, British expertise continuing to be available as the Iraqi army and nation rebuild themselves. If we want to be friends of Iraq, it is appropriate that we should do that, and the sooner that we bring our skills and expertise to Iraqis in modest numbers and not by dint of keeping a self-protecting force there, the better it will be for Iraq, for our involvement in Afghanistan and for the strain on our resources, manpower and finances. I hope that we are seeing the beginning of our withdrawal from any significant engagement in Iraq. I appreciate that we will have to wait a little longer to hear the terms of the bilateral deal that will be agreed between our Government and the Iraqi Government beyond 31 December, when the UN mandate concludes, but I hope that the House will discuss that in detail at some point. We also await with interest the attitude of a new American Administration. We will know soon what political complexion that will be, and we have heard slightly different remarks from the two candidates as to their view of long-term involvement in Iraq, but perhaps in either case we should judge what they say in their early days in office rather more than what they had to say on the campaign trail. I think that from early next year, more and more of our defence debate on current operations will focus, as it needs to, on what we are doing in Afghanistan, rather than on what we have done in Iraq. I opposed our involvement in Iraq. To pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Woodspring, I am not aware of anyone who says that our troops have done nothing beneficial in Iraq. It is not my view that they have been in any sense wasting their time there or that they have not contributed something positive to the well-being of the people of Iraq. However, it is a measure of how badly planned the post-war involvement was that a full five and a half years on, we are discussing issues such as the availability of power and water, which in some parts of Iraq are not back to the state that they were in during Saddam's regime. I welcome any progress that we can make, but we should not be in this situation five and a half years on.