Iraq: Future Strategic Relationship

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) has made a powerful speech, and he will be surprised to learn that I agreed with quite a bit of it. I particularly agreed with his point about the talents of the Iraqi people. My constituency contains a number of Iraqis who came to this country fleeing both the tyranny of Saddam and the chaos of Iraq since the Kurdish-run forces invaded. One Iraqi asylum seeker came to my surgery one Saturday morning during the foot and mouth problems that we experienced some time ago, before the Iraqi war. He greeted me with the words ““Mr. Davey, I do not seek your help; I want to help you.”” Of course, as a Liberal Democrat I thought that he wanted to deliver leaflets, but no; he wanted to help with foot and mouth disease, because he was a trained vet. Iraq had had foot and mouth disease as well, and he said that he had diagnosed and treated it and carried out vaccinations. Although it was a Saturday morning, I immediately rang the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which, as the hon. Member for Pontypridd will remember, was on a 24/7 footing. I managed to contact one of the people responsible for recruiting vets to help with the problem. I said, ““I have a vet here who has seen foot and mouth and wants to help.”” The official asked, ““Is he a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons?”” I said, ““Probably not.”” When I asked what was the key issue, the official said, ““We have to make sure that his English is good.”” My constituent had seemed to communicate very well with me. I told the official that I did not think sheep or cows spoke English, and that MAFF was taking a rather silly approach. I have told that story to illustrate the fact that we sometimes do not use people's talents—whether they are from Iraq or from other countries—because of our shameless bureaucracy. We should bear in mind the need to maximise the talents of people from around the world. I parted company with the hon. Gentleman on what I considered to be his inaccurate analysis of the way in which we should deal with dictators. I share his view that we should wish to see the demise of all dictators, and to promote and enhance democratic forces throughout the world, but I do not agree that we should act against international law in doing so. I believe that if we take measures to get rid of dictators and promote democracy, we should do so within what I concede is the imperfect framework of international law. That is one of the many reasons for the Liberal Democrats' concern about the invasion of Iraq. As we move forward in the 21st century, we must develop international law. I think that the notion of the responsibility to protect that was signed up to by the United Nations in 2005 represents an important advance in international law, and that we should work hard on that so that we can take the necessary measures. However, I do not think that in 2003 we were right to anticipate legal developments and go against international law. Our action put us outside the law, which is why so many people opposed it and why it was ultimately so wrong.