Debate on the Address

I was saddened the other week that more of my hon. Friends did not join me and others to call for a proper inquiry into the Iraq situation. It is a scandal that our Prime Minister can give evidence to an American organisation but not to one set up in this country. I always think that the real reason why we are in Iraq can be summed up in one word—oil. The dangers that we are seeing now were forecast by many of us. In fact, in the week before the invasion of Iraq I spoke at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party where the Prime Minister was present. I said: ““Invade Iraq, and you might as well put a banner over the front of the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall with the words, ‘Recruiting agency for al-Qaeda””. There is no doubt that al-Qaeda did not previously exist in Iraq. When I was in Iraq and in Palestine, on the west bank, in 2002, I know where I felt safest, and it was not on the west bank. I can confirm everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said about the situation in those occupied territories. I am convinced that we will not solve the problem of Palestine and Israel until the occupation ceases. That is not the finishing point, but the starting point, in that part of the world. In 2002 and 2003, Front Benchers were always telling us about weapons of mass destruction. That was the reason for being in Iraq that was given at the time. We refused to allow Hans Blix to carry on with his investigations. If they had been carried through to the end, perhaps the estimated 650,000 Iraqis, more than 100 British soldiers and nearly 3,000 American soldiers who have died would still be alive today—but the British Government, subservient as they have been all along to President Bush, bowed to the necessity of invading Iraq. I remind the House of something that I mentioned during Prime Minister’s Question Time in October 2004. One month before the invasion of Iraq, the Prime Minister was saying that Saddam Hussein could stay in power—oh yes, he detested him, but he could stay in power—if he complied with all the United Nations resolutions. Let us not have any of this nonsense that those of us who opposed the British-American policy in Iraq have ever in any way been in favour of Saddam Hussein. Indeed, many of us were opposing the sale of arms to Saddam Hussein when many of our Front Benchers were ignoring the 12 early-day motions on the subject that were put before the House between 1986 and 1990. Only one member of the current Cabinet was a signatory to one of those 12 early-day motions. On 25 May 1994, the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs reported that America had been exporting chemical and biological agents to Iraq. As late as 1988—two years before the Gulf war—Britain exported £200,000 worth of a component that could be used in producing mustard gas to Iraq. What is the position now? Every day, more Iraqis are killed by all sorts of insurgent groups, by al-Qaeda, which is now present in Iraq, and by coalition forces. We are told that we will leave Iraq as soon as we have trained the police and the army. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) pointed out, one cannot regard those who are being trained to be police as existing in a vacuum, away from the divisions of Sunni and Shi’a because, after all, they are Sunnis and Shi’as. Indeed, many of the recent atrocities have been committed by people wearing police uniforms that the US provided. The division exists and will continue, whether we are present or not. The big question that we must ask ourselves is whether we go now—or soon—or allow ourselves to be embroiled in the inevitable civil war that will happen in Iraq. We have a choice and I believe that we should make it in favour of a phased withdrawal, leading to the complete withdrawal of British troops by next summer. The Prime Minister and other Ministers are in constant denial about the failure of the Iraq policy, although we think that the Prime Minister recently admitted that it is a disaster. In that, he is with the majority of people in this country. That is also true of the American people, if we consider the mid-term elections in the US. It is wrong to believe that attacking American policy means that one is anti-American. I have sometimes attacked British policy. Before I became a Member of Parliament, I marched against the invasion of Suez. Was I anti-British for doing that? Of course not. I have decent American friends and I know that many in the US want an end to its imperialist policy. I should like an end to our subservience to the US. I do not know whether hon. Members felt the same way as me when I learned about the overheard conversation between Bush and our Prime Minister. He treated our Prime Minister like a little boy. Our Prime Minister wanted to go to the middle east—to give him his due, he has always been in favour of the peace process to end the conflict between Palestine and Israel. He has a genuine and sincere feeling about that. However, what was he told? ““Don’t go to the middle east; I’m sending Condi.”” Who on earth does that foreign leader think he is? How does he have the right to tell a British Prime Minister what he may do? Can hon. Members imagine Winston Churchill or Harold Wilson—Harold Wilson kept us out of the Vietnam war—responding in the weak way in which our Prime Minister did? He should have said that Britain would carry out its own foreign policy—of course, in co-operation with other countries, although not only the US. We should look more towards co-operating with our partners in the European Union. Our main partners, France and Germany, did not get involved in the disaster of Iraq. I shall speak briefly about Palestine, as I was there in 2002, and I can confirm everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton said. The centres of Jenin and Nablus are deserts, caused by the destruction brought about by Israeli bombers, Israeli tanks and Israeli bulldozers. Indeed, in Jenin, people were referring to ““Jeniningrad””, making a comparison between their lot and what happened in the siege of Leningrad. A distinctive British foreign policy is necessary and our priority now should be to ensure that we do not stay in Iraq any longer than at all necessary. We should bring our forces home by the summer of next year.