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Iraq

My Lords, it is fairly unusual to have two dozen speakers for the second debate on a Thursday afternoon but it shows the importance that this House places on the issues involved. The only sadness is that we have so little time to explore them. There are many questions which arise in this debate but let me start on a point where there is unity throughout this House. That is to praise the courage and professionalism of the British troops who have fought and have been under fire in Iraq over the past six years. Their effort and dedication has been magnificent, part of which I saw for myself when I visited Basra last year. I saw then everything I wanted to see, given the security position at the time, and was certainly able to put all the questions that I wanted to ask. I thank the Ministry of Defence for that opportunity, although I have to admit that on one occasion I was helped by an unaccountable rumour that I was in fact the First Sea Lord. The truth is that the invasion of Iraq was deadly serious in intent and deadly serious in its impact. The price that was paid for the invasion was extraordinarily high. One hundred and seventy-nine British service men and women have been killed and several hundred others badly or severely injured. The number of Iraqi dead has been much greater. At a conservative estimate, the figure is 100,000 but many would put it much higher. Many of those killed were also tortured and the reign of terror has had a traumatic effect on ordinary Iraqi lives—so traumatic that an estimated 2 million refugees sought shelter in surrounding countries such as Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, while another 2 million sought refuge elsewhere in Iraq itself. The war created the worst refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948. Of course, there have also been gains. A new democracy is, one hopes, emerging. The internal security position has, one hopes, permanently improved. Certainly, the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein has been replaced. We need to weigh those advances against the price that has been paid. There is no agreement on whether they justify the action that was taken. The decision to go to war in Iraq was almost certainly the most controversial political decision taken in post-war years. Many opposed the invasion from the outset. They took part in the massive demonstrations in London and elsewhere and they maintain that opposition to this day. Others—and I was one of them—supported the action that was taken and relied on the information provided by the Government. What unites us today is the need to know the truth about the decision to go to war and, even given that decision, whether some of the appalling later results could have been avoided. Among the questions that need to be answered are the following. We need to know whether the Government misled Parliament and the public by overstating the evidence there was of weapons of mass destruction. It does not seem to me that the report from the intelligence community that it knew little about Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons since 1998 justified the claim made by the Prime Minister at the end of 2002 that our knowledge was "extensive, detailed and authoritative". We need to know just how the decision was made inside Government—what advice was proffered by the Foreign Office and whether that information was put before the Cabinet. We need to know what planning there was for the aftermath. The invasion is one thing; occupation is quite another. We need to know what action we have taken to help the refugees who have been created by this conflict. Too often they are the people who have been forgotten. There is an assumption that, as the security position improves, they will all return to Iraq. But frankly that is not the case. Earlier this year I went to Syria on an IPU delegation. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, was also part of it. In Damascus we interviewed some of the refugees who have been living in Syria for the past few years. We need to face the fact that there are people there who have no intention of returning to Iraq. They have nothing to return to. Their memories are memories of murder and of violence. They are the survivors of torture and of kidnapping. They are men and women who have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. That is why a resettlement programme in other countries is being organised by the United Nations refugee agency. We need to know whether Britain is playing its full part in this. The evidence from Syria was not encouraging. Our help in resettlement was not only behind the United States, which is to be expected, but behind Canada, Australia, Sweden and the Netherlands. We need to know whether we are meeting our obligations. In essence, we now need closure on a political decision that by any measure has bitterly divided this country. That was why I initiated a debate in this House 18 months ago, calling for an inquiry and saying that I knew of, ""no other way that the lessons from this conflict can be learnt".—[Official Report, 24/1/08; col. 338.]" That is why, four weeks ago, I tabled the Motion that is being debated today. In one very substantial way, the story has moved on, with the Government at long last conceding the case for an inquiry; so the crucial question today is not whether there should be an inquiry but whether the inquiry that the Prime Minister announced on Monday meets the widespread and legitimate public concern. In my judgment, it does not; it is in essence a political response, and as such it runs the risk of satisfying no one. What has the Prime Minister said? He said on Monday that the proceedings will be held in private, which he justified; that there should be no attempt to "apportion blame"; that the committee should include no senior military figures and no experienced politicians; and, of course, that the report should not appear until after the next general election. Perish the thought that the public should be influenced by its findings. The inquiry is to be held in secret as, according to the Prime Minister, this is the best way of getting "full and candid" evidence. That is an extraordinary reason, coming as it does a week after the Government proclaimed that only openness and transparency would serve the public interest. However, it is worse than that. If this inquiry is to achieve any kind of closure, it has to satisfy a wide national constituency. It needs to satisfy: the relations of those killed in Iraq; those who have been injured; people like me who supported the war that we were not deceived; and people who opposed the war, who should at least be satisfied that this was an honest undertaking. It needs to satisfy the people of Iraq, who have taken the full force of the action, that the cause was entirely legitimate. I give four reasons why the inquiry as presently constituted will not achieve those goals. First, a secret inquiry of the kind announced by the Prime Minister on Monday simply will not satisfy the public. The Government say that this was the procedure of the Franks inquiry in 1982, but that was 27 years ago. Times have changed, as the Government up to this week have proclaimed constantly. The plain fact is that an inquiry behind closed doors is not what the public expect at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. I also observe in passing that the Franks inquiry, even at the beginning of the 1980s, did not satisfy everyone. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, a familiar face here now who was then a Member of the other place, called it, ""an establishment cover-up and a whitewash".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/1/83; col. 180.]" while none other than the late Lord Callaghan said that the committee, ""chucked a bucket of whitewash"," over the issue. I do not deny that when there are undoubted issues of national security, the committee will want to go into private session, but surely the presumption should be the very opposite of what is proposed. It should be that evidence is given in public unless there are overwhelming reasons of national security to do the opposite. That is the test. We hear today that, somewhat typically of this Government, a letter has gone from the Prime Minister to the chairman of the inquiry and includes, it is claimed, concessions. We are told that the chairman will be allowed some sessions in public, but we already knew that. That was exactly what the Leader of the House of Lords said to me in response to direct questions in this House on Monday; it can be seen in the pages of Hansard. We wait to hear what the Minister says on the Government’s latest position on this, but I suggest that it needs to go beyond reheating Monday’s Statement. We need to know whether the presumption is for openness or secrecy. That is the crucial question which the Minister should answer. Secondly, I am frankly astonished by the blandness of the Prime Minister's statement that the committee will not "apportion blame". The truth is that there may well be blame to be apportioned. Even Ministers agree that the planning for the aftermath was utterly inadequate. Are we to say that this was entirely and exclusively the fault of the United States? If Britain was also culpable, blame may well be apportioned, and so it should be. Thirdly, I am concerned by the make-up of this committee and the absence of military and political experience. If the Government are to quote Franks, it should be pointed out that this was a committee with massive political experience that included Merlyn Rees and Harold Lever, the late Lord Lever of Manchester. The Prime Minister ignores such experience and says that he wants the committee to be as objective and non-partisan as possible. I think he shows a lack of understanding of what happens in such inquiries. As the Select Committee system in this House and the other place shows, politicians are entirely capable of setting party positions to one side. Then there is the Prime Minister’s later comment that he is relying on the advice of, ""people who have not been involved in commenting on this issue over the last few years".—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/09; col. 27.]" Frankly, I find that strange. Are we to believe that no members of his chosen committee has expressed any view on the most controversial foreign policy decision for more than 60 years? If that is the case, I am not sure that I want a committee composed of such totally disinterested figures. The timing of the publication of the report until after the next election of course gives the whole game away. I never met anyone, including those I met in the Army, who believed in the Government’s previous excuse that it would be wrong to hold an inquiry while there were still troops in Iraq. In any event, I am not sure on the basis of what the Government propose how you can be demoralised by a secret inquiry. The Government know perfectly well that this inquiry could and should have been held months ago. They now have the responsibility to find some way, either by an interim report or perhaps by dividing the report into two, of delivering at least some of the results before the public are called on to judge their period of government. The debate in the other place on the Franks report in January 1983 contained a fundamental point. The terms of reference of the committee of inquiry were agreed by the Opposition—indeed, they were changed because of a request by the Leader of the Opposition—and the membership of the Franks committee was agreed by the Leader of the Opposition and by all the principal parties in the House of Commons. We are entitled to know why there was no serious attempt to do this on this occasion and to find some consensus on the way forward. An inquiry into the Iraq conflict should have provided the nation with an opportunity to learn the truth and the lessons that could guide future conduct. If we go along the present course, that opportunity will be lost. I hope the Government will recognise that the inquiry that they have set up does not command the confidence of much of the British public, and I very much doubt whether it commands the confidence of Parliament.