---

Iraq

With permission, Mr. Speaker. The whole House will want to join me in expressing condolences to the family and friends of the two soldiers who recently lost their lives serving in Afghanistan: Lieutenant Paul Mervis of 2nd Battalion the Rifles; and Private Robert McLaren of 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland—the Black Watch. Their lives, their service and their contribution will not be forgotten. Their sacrifice reminds us of the dangers our serving armed forces confront every day and of why we must continue to give them all our support. Our troops first went into Iraq in March 2003 and now they are coming home. In total, 120,000 men and women have served in Iraq during the last six years, so it is fitting that I should now come to the House to talk of their achievements through difficult times; to chart the new relationship we are building with Iraq; and to set out our plans for an inquiry into the conflict. As always, we can be supremely proud of the way our armed forces carried out their mission—proud of their valour in the heat of combat, which is recognised in many citations for awards and decorations; and proud of their vigilance and resolution amid the most difficult imaginable conditions and the ever-present risk of attack by an unseen enemy. Today we continue to mourn and to remember the 179 men and women who gave their lives in Iraq in the service of our country. In my statement to the House last December, I set out the remaining tasks in southern Iraq for our mission: first, to entrench improvements in security by putting Iraqis in charge of their own defence and policing; secondly, to support Iraq's emerging democracy particularly through the provincial elections; and, thirdly, to promote the reconstruction of the country, economic growth and basic services like power and water in order to give the Iraqi people what matters most for their livelihoods in years to come—that is, a full stake in their economic future. I can report that those three objectives are being achieved, and that, thanks to our efforts and those of our allies over six difficult years, a young democracy has replaced a vicious 30-year dictatorship. In recent months, we have completed the training of the 9,000 troops in 14 division of the Iraqi army, who are now fully in charge of the security of Basra. It was 14 division who, with our and the Americans' help, took on the militia in the crucial Operation Charge of the Knights in spring last year. Since then, violence and crime in the Basra region have continued to fall, while levels of violence across Iraq as a whole are at their lowest since 2003. Provincial elections were held peacefully on 31 January with 7 million Iraqis turning out to vote for 440 different political groupings. The Iraqis ran the elections themselves with only three violent incidents across the entire country, and preparations are now under way for national elections on 31 January 2010. Since 2003, the UK has spent more than £500 million in Iraq—for humanitarian assistance, infrastructure and promoting economic growth. Support to the health sector has included 189 projects in Basra, including the refurbishment of Basra general hospital and the building of the Basra children's hospital. As a whole, the international community has rehabilitated more than 5,000 schools, as well as constructing entirely new schools and new classrooms in existing schools. Despite high unemployment and the scale of the global recession, economic growth in Iraq this year is predicted to be nearly 7 per cent. Significant challenges remain, including that of finding a fair and sustainable solution to the sharing of Iraq's oil reserves, but Iraq's future is now in its own hands, in the hands of its people and its politicians. We must pay tribute to the endurance of the Iraqi people; we will pledge to them our continuing support. However, it will be support very different from the kind that we have provided for the last six years. As the House knows, our military mission ended with the last combat patrol in Basra on 30 April. As of today, there are fewer than 500 British troops in Iraq, with more returning home each week. On the day of that last combat patrol in April, I welcomed Prime Minister Maliki and most of his Cabinet to London. We signed together a declaration of friendship, partnership and co-operation defining the new relationship between our two countries for the future. At the request of the Iraqi Government, a small number of British Navy personnel—no more than 100—will remain in Iraq for long-term training of the Iraqi Army. Royal Navy ships will continue to protect the oil platforms on which Iraq's exports depend, and we will continue to offer training to the Iraqi army as part of a wider NATO mission. We will also offer training opportunities at Sandhurst and elsewhere in the United Kingdom for Iraqi officers of high potential. At the core of our new relationship, however, will be the diplomatic, trading and cultural links that we are building with the Iraqi people, supporting British and other foreign investors who want to play a role in the reconstruction of southern Iraq. I have discussed with Prime Minister Maliki a plan for British companies to supply expertise to the Iraqi Oil Ministry. Earlier this year, the Mesopotamia Petroleum Company signed a joint venture worth $400 million. Shell is working with the Southern Oil Company to bring to market some of the 700 million cu ft of gas that is currently lost each day by flaring. British companies are now competing for further contracts, and Rolls-Royce and Parsons are currently discussing with the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity proposals for a new power generation infrastructure worth an initial $200 million. British funding will support lending to 1,000 businesses in southern Iraq, and a youth employment programme that should give training and work permanently to young Basrawis could be rolled out across the whole of Iraq as a result of its success. We are supporting the Iraqi Transport Ministry in the resumption of civilian flights; the Department for International Development and the British Council are working on a major education programme; and Iraq has already identified its first 250 students, an early initiative in Britain's contribution to Iraq's plans for 10,000 overseas scholarships for Iraqi students. Issues in the region still confront us. Iran is an independent nation that deserves our respect, and the Iranian people are a proud people who deserve democracy. That is why the regime must address the serious questions that have been asked about the conduct of the elections. The way in which the regime responds to legitimate protests will have implications for Iran's relationships with the rest of the world in future. The House will note the speech made by Prime Minister Netanyahu, in which for the first time he endorsed a two-state solution. His speech was an important step forward, but there remains a long road ahead of us. I will speak to him again later today to impress on him the importance of freezing settlements. With the last British combat troops about to return home from Iraq, now is the right time to ensure that we have a proper process in place to enable us to learn the lessons of the complex and often controversial events of the last six years. I am today announcing the establishment of an independent Privy Counsellor committee of inquiry which will consider the period from summer 2001, before military operations began in March 2003, and our subsequent involvement in Iraq right up to the end of July this year. The inquiry is essential because it will ensure that, by learning lessons, we strengthen the health of our democracy, our diplomacy and our military. The inquiry will, I stress, be fully independent of Government. Its scope is unprecedented. It covers an eight-year period, including the run-up to the conflict and the full period of conflict and reconstruction. The committee of inquiry will have access to the fullest range of information, including secret information. In other words, its investigation can range across all papers, all documents and all material. It can ask for any British document to be brought before it, and for any British citizen to appear. No British document and no British witness will be beyond the scope of the inquiry. I have asked the members of the committee to ensure that the final report will be able to disclose all but the most sensitive information—that is, all information except that which is essential to our national security. The inquiry will receive the full co-operation of the Government. It will have access to all Government papers, and the ability to call any witnesses. The objective is to learn the lessons from the events surrounding the conflict. It is on that basis that I have accepted the Cabinet Secretary's advice that the Franks inquiry is the best precedent. Like the Franks inquiry, this inquiry will take account of national security considerations—for example, what might damage or reduce our military capability in the future—and evidence will be heard in private. I believe that that will also ensure that evidence given by serving and former ministers, military officers and officials is as full and candid as possible. The committee will publish its findings in as full a form as possible. These findings will then be debated in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It is in these debates, as well as from the report itself, that we can draw fully upon the lessons learned in Iraq. So while the format is the same as that of the Franks inquiry, we have gone much further in the scope of the inquiry. No inquiry has looked at such a long period, and no inquiry has the powers to look in so much breadth, for while Franks looked only at the run-up to the Falklands conflict, the Iraq inquiry will look at the run-up to conflict, the conflict itself and the reconstruction, so that we can learn lessons in each and every area. The inquiry will take into account evidence submitted to previous inquiries, and I am asking members of the committee to explain the scope, width and breadth of its work to Opposition leaders and the Chairs of the relevant parliamentary Committees. In order that the committee is as objective and non-partisan as possible, the membership of the committee will consist entirely of non-partisan public figures acknowledged to be experts and leaders in their fields. There will be no representatives of political parties from either side of this House. I can announce that the committee of inquiry will be chaired by Sir John Chilcot and it will include Baroness Usha Prashar, Sir Roderick Lyne, Sir Lawrence Freedman and Sir Martin Gilbert. All are, or will become, Privy Counsellors. The committee will start work as soon as possible after the end of July. Given the complexity of the issues it will address, I am advised that it will take a year. As I have made clear, the primary objective of the committee will be to identify lessons learned. The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability. Finally, I am sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the courage and dedication of every one of our armed forces, and also our civilian personnel, who have served our country with such distinction in Iraq over six years, and who will continue to do so in Afghanistan and on peacekeeping missions around the world. At its peak, a force of 46,000 served tours of duty in support of operations in Iraq. In total, 120,000 men and women served over the period of the entire conflict: 179 Britons died and 222 were seriously or very seriously injured, and we remember them all today. I said in my statement in December that the memorial wall in Basra would be brought home. I can now confirm that it will form part of a new memorial wall to be built at the national arboretum in Staffordshire, and just as it is right that we should pay tribute to the memory of those who have fallen, and to the wounded, so it is right to give thanks for the safe return of their comrades, to show our gratitude to all those who have served, and for us as a nation to celebrate the enduring achievements of all our armed forces. So I can also tell the House that in the autumn of this year a service of thanksgiving and commemoration will be held in Westminster abbey. We salute our forces today. Through their work, the work of their American and coalition comrades and of the Iraqi security forces, and supported by the courage and vision of those within Iraq led by Prime Minister Maliki, Iraq is emerging from the shadow of 30 years of brutal dictatorship and then conflict. Today, Prime Minister Maliki and his Government can work together for a peaceful and prosperous future. That they can now do so is the ultimate tribute to all who served in Iraq: to their skills, commitment and sheer professionalism; to their great and enduring courage in conflict; and to their immeasurable contribution to reconstruction and to peace. I commend this statement to the House.