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Iraq

My Lords, it is quite apparent that the inquiry announced by the Prime Minister in its present form does not enjoy the full support of Members of your Lordships' House, but it is not too late to do something about that. Attention has been drawn to the fact that there are no military figures on the committee, and there are no serious politicians there. I draw attention to the fact that there is nobody there with any experience of mounting an inquisition, a cross-examination. In my view, it is not necessary that people with those talents and abilities are part of the committee; they could be co-opted to be advisers to the committee. First, I hope that my noble friend can assure me that there is no restraint whatsoever on Sir John Chilcot as to who he can retain to advise him on the committee. Secondly, there has been some confusion—in my mind, if nowhere else—as to whether the inquiry is to be conducted completely in secret, in private. I have heard the words "total imposition of secrecy" used. On the other hand, I understand that the Prime Minister has written today to Sir John Chilcot saying that there will be something less than total imposition of secrecy. I imagine, and I hope that my noble friend can reassure me, that it will be left entirely to the discretion of Sir John Chilcot as to which of the meetings he holds in secret and how much of his evidence he sees fit to publish—although I fully understand that there must be prime ministerial oversight of that last point, because of questions of national security. I think that the Prime Minister was unfortunate in his reference to how long he thought that the committee would sit for. I saw no reason for him to do that; it seemed to me to be giving an enormous hostage to fortune. I am absolutely confident that the committee will do its work at a speed that it sees fit and will take the amount of time that it sees fit. It may wind up its work in six months; it may take three years; I do not have the faintest idea. None of us today should prejudge how long the committee will take to do its work. I want to respond to a couple of other things that I have heard in today's debate, which has been remarkable. I pay tribute above all to the speech made by my noble friend Lord Soley. It is one of the most brilliant speeches that I have heard since I have been in your Lordships' House. He was attacking the lawyers. I feel very much the same way as he does about lawyers. Nothing irritates me more than hearing lawyers say that something is illegal as though it were a matter of fact, rather than having the diffidence to say that it is illegal in their opinion. Whether something is legal or illegal is a matter of a lawyer’s opinion. That is why we have lawyers and judges, and judges disagree with one another and come to decisions that are overruled by other judges. So to say adamantly that something is illegal strikes me as the most preposterous arrogance and it irritates me intensely. I have now got that off my chest. As my noble friend was pointing out, what is illegal at one time can become illegal later on in precisely the same set of circumstances. I personally supported the liberation of Iraq—that is what it was. It was a military undertaking of extreme brilliance. There were a handful of casualties and, your Lordships may remember, it was undertaken without the best American infantry division getting on to the scene of battle while the fighting was going on. I thought it was magnificent. The second most brilliant speech, if you will forgive me for saying so, came from my old friend the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. I thought it was one of the most thoughtful speeches we have heard in a remarkable debate. I did not agree with a lot of it but it was admirably argued. He asked a very pertinent question: what is success? I think he got the answer from my noble friend Lord Desai—that one of the foulest dictatorships this planet has ever seen has been removed, and a lot of Iraqis, at danger of being machine-gunned, stood in line to vote in far higher proportions than people voted in this country in three elections. That is success. The noble Lord, Lord Hurd, who is unfortunately not in his place, asked about the over 100,000 Iraqis who were killed. It was appalling but they were not killed by us; they were not killed by the allies. They have overwhelmingly been killed by their fellow Iraqis. We should remember that. Much that happened after the liberation was most unfortunate and I am happy to have a debate limited to that subject, but the last thing we should be asking ourselves is why we went into Iraq. We should be asking ourselves why we did not go into Cambodia and why we did not go into Darfur. As my noble friend Lord Desai said, there we abdicated our responsibility to look after our fellow men.