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Iraq

My Lords, the Afghanistan war was, to my mind, a necessity, but the Iraq war was an expensive mistake. It cost hundreds of thousands of lives and made millions homeless. It led to mass hostility all over the Arab world. In the end it removed a tyrant, but it dismantled the Sunni machinery of state security. The Americans turned it around only by reversing their policy and creating the new Sahwa militia out of former Sunni insurgents, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, has admitted. As we have heard, the war was also illegal in the eyes of the world. Our then Prime Minister was, by February 2003, so committed to the President’s axis of evil that he went ahead without the necessary international support. I remind the Minister that the 2006 report of the Constitution Committee, on which I served, recommended the end of the royal prerogative to make war except in cases of emergency. The Iraq war was an executive decision and the last-minute parliamentary vote in 2003, with 130 Labour rebels, was hardly an expression of popular will. The Government promised to look at this war-making power again under the heading of "constitutional renewal". Could the Minister confirm that this will be in the Bill, although it will not of course be in the remit of the inquiry? Then there is the question of the 45-nation coalition against terrorism, claimed by the United States. Did terrorism exist in Iraq, or did we attract it? What happened to the Baker-Hamilton plan to involve the neighbouring states? Iran is still responsible for much of today’s violence. Whatever the outcome of last Friday’s election, the US and Iran urgently need to find new common ground of a stable Iraq and a lasting political settlement along the Iranian border. We cannot blame the Army. With a few exceptions, our troops performed at their best and Basra has seen some of the fiercest action in the war. It is true that we lost the confidence of the people. We were unable to control the Shiite militia. I hope that the inquiry will concentrate on the original decision to go to war, since soldiers are there to obey orders. "It was bad under Saddam, but now it is worse" is a familiar cry. Violence is still part of daily life. Corruption in the army is so bad that officers are charging new recruits hundreds of dollars to join. Food rations from the trade ministry are on sale in the markets, and the militia still rules. Who is going to cope with these problems? It will not be the US or the United Nations. My guess is that Iraq will need another tyrant. That tyrant may well be the present Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. The vicious circle of security and development must end, because a referendum on the security agreement would mean a hurried exit by the US in the course of the next year or so. Our Government have to make up for their past mistakes. One can understand the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, and others writing up Iraq for the benefit of British investors. It is also important to attract skilled Iraqis back into the country. An Iraqi MP summed it up yesterday: no security, no oil, no budget. More than 50 oilfields lie waiting for development. Many of our investors are still sitting it out. What matters as we look forward is that Iraqis gradually gain confidence in their Administration and that the international community makes a contribution in line with people’s needs, rather than being driven by profit or greed, as was the case at the end of the war. Building local capacity to lay the foundations for development is critical. Some of this is being done through civil society and the NGOs. What are our Government doing to encourage the UN to regain its previous status? It is labouring under excessive security restrictions. Is our humanitarian assistance really enough? An estimated 4.8 million Iraqis were displaced. As the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said, refugees are slowing returning but many will not ever do so. According to the International Rescue Committee, large-scale resettlement of refugees to third countries is still essential to protect the most vulnerable Iraqis. The UK is well behind others in this, even though it promised to fill its quota of 500.