Debate on the Address

I am delighted that we are having this debate today. Never before have international affairs so dominated domestic politics. Certainly for all of the last five years it has been one of the major areas of debate, and the war in Iraq and the linked war in Afghanistan are part of that debate. We should be aware that the war in Afghanistan generated an enormous amount of opposition at the beginning and still does, and the war in Iraq generated the biggest ever demonstration in British history when more than a million people assembled in Hyde park to protest against it. Therefore, it would be pretty unwise of Parliament simply to ignore what is happening outside, and I find it astonishing that we still do not have a date for an extended serious debate about the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. The statement made by the Prime Minister while visiting Afghanistan a few days ago was extraordinary. He told the British troops there that they are fighting the crucial battle of the 2lst century. What exactly does he mean by that? Does he suggest that this is some kind of 19th-century colonial last stand where the final message to the troops is, ““You succeed here and the empire will be saved,”” or is it an encouragement to yet more wars and conflicts of the type that we are seeing at the present time? We cannot go through the 21st century with the idea that there is a moral correctitude and a moral supremacy on both sides of the Atlantic that can be imposed on the rest of the world. We have seen the consequences of that in the current conflicts. Colleagues might dispute some of the figures and some of the debate and information, but the reality of Iraq is that the Saddam regime was in many ways a product of western benevolence. It was armed by the west, it was strengthened by the west and to some extent sustained by the west, particularly during the Iran-Iraq war. We then had the Gulf war, followed by the period of sanctions, and we have now had the invasion, and according to The Lancet—no one has seriously disputed its figures—650,000 people have lost their lives in Iraq since that took place in 2003. That is one in 40 of the population. We all know that at some point in the not-too-distant future British and American forces will withdraw, and, as many others have said, they are now part of the problem, not part of the solution. The British troops in Basra seem to spend most of their time in their barracks defending themselves, and ditto US troops in the central part of Iraq. In a debate on CNN last week, I said to an Iraqi Government official, ““Look, you know that there will be a withdrawal. You know that at some point you will have to talk and negotiate with the insurgent forces and all the other groups,”” and he confirmed that that was already being done. We know that that political process is already under way. It is time that we named a date and set about the withdrawal of those troops. In an excellent speech earlier, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) pointed out what was happening in Palestine and the product of the Israeli policy there. He was quite correct to point out that the situation in Palestine is a running sore throughout the entire region. Unless we are serious about forcing Israel to behave in a legal and decent manner, to stop the assassination attacks that take place and the construction of the illegal wall, and to stop starving the Palestinian people of their own money through taxation income, or through the British and American policy of donating money only through non-governmental organisations, we will create a worse situation of greater instability and poverty within Palestine. I hope that when the Minister replies he will at least recognise that we are fundamentally on the wrong course there. The Palestinian people elected a Government and Israel has arrested some of its elected politicians and Ministers. That is simply not an acceptable way of going on, and we should not continue the pretence that there is somehow or other a conflict of equals between Palestine and Israel. What one has is a very wealthy first world country, heavily supported and subsidised by the US and to some extent western Europe, and the deeply impoverished Palestinian people.