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Iraq

My Lords, you can put some of the great and good into a shuttered room and present them with files and documents into which they can dig and delve, and you can send an occasional witness into the gloom to give evidence in secret. No doubt they will emerge after 12 months, blinking into the light like the political prisoners released from jail in Beethoven’s Fidelio, but I suspect that the chorus they will be singing will not be regarded by the public as an ode to freedom and enlightenment. The alternative is to hold a proper public inquiry, where evidence is called, examined and tested, on oath and in public, for the commissioners to come to proper conclusions that everyone can consider and assent to. On Monday this week in another place, Sir Menzies Campbell asked whether the inquiry will have the power not just to ask for witnesses but to compel them to attend and put them on oath so that their evidence may be verified against that background. The Prime Minister’s reply was to say: ""I know that the Liberal party wanted it to be held in public, but I think they know also what happens when there are public inquiries. That means lawyers, lawyers and lawyers, whereas people can feel free to give evidence and give it frankly about what we want to hear—that is, the lessons that we can learn from the war"." Pressed further on whether there would be a power to compel witnesses to give evidence on oath, he said: ""The terms under which evidence will be given is a matter on which we will comment and report later, but I am absolutely sure that everybody who gives evidence will have to tell the truth to the committee. They are under an obligation to do so by the committee’s terms of reference".—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/09; cols. 33-34.]" Can the Prime Minister be capable of such naivety? The whole point about an oath being administered is not that it is an appeal to someone’s god but that it opens a person to criminal prosecution for perjury if he does not tell the truth. I can think of a number of instances of this. I was involved in the court martial of the paratroopers three years ago for the death of an Iraqi in Maysan province, when witness after witness came from Iraq and gave evidence. Some women complained that their clothes had been ripped off them, some of them claimed that the deceased had been hit by rifle butts and so on. When subjected to detailed cross-examination and reminded that they had taken the oath on the Koran, they all retracted what they had said; we got to the truth. As the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who has to be congratulated on introducing this debate, said, we need to know the truth. The Baha Musa court martial, in which I was also involved, revealed unacceptable and disgraceful conditioning that was being carried out in the British Army regarding the way that prisoners were handled. A senior colonel from the legal department arrived at Basra airport and saw groups of prisoners sitting on the ground in the sun with their hands bound and with blindfolds over their heads. When he made a fuss about it, all the way up to the Ministry of Defence, he was told, "Well, the Attorney-General says it’s all right, and if you think any better then you should be the next Attorney-General". Of course, the House of Lords held that the Human Rights Act applies to soldiers in the field, but that has not helped the career of that particular officer. The Baha Musa inquiry into the death of a single person and the circumstances surrounding it was announced in May last year. There have been directions hearings; it is to open on 13 July; evidence will start in September; and it is expected to last until June or July next year. That is for a single death. The concept that the inquiry that has been announced by the Prime Minister will take in the order of 12 months is, obviously, not worthy of consideration. It is a serious matter to start an inquiry, but we are concerned with extremely serious issues that have to be determined in public. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for bringing this matter forward. I know that we will return to it again and again.