Iraq: Future Strategic Relationship

I absolutely agree. The hon. Lady agreed to take part in one of the video conferences that we had to cancel, and I hope that she will participate in a future one. It is important for those women to feel solidarity with women in this Parliament. They value the British particularly—I cannot emphasise enough how much the Iraqi people value British involvement. Our continued involvement is certainly important in rebuilding the country. We should remember that for the first time in many generations, Iraqis enjoy basic rights—for example, freedom of speech, expression and association and the right to take part in democratic processes. I remember meeting the leader of Baghdad city council in 2003. I asked him how things had changed. He looked at me and said, ““Madam, if I had met you two years ago, I would have been able to say to you only, 'Hello', 'Long live Saddam Hussein' and, 'Goodbye'. Now I can say anything I want to you.”” About two years ago, I went to the marshes with an Iraqi Water Minister—it was the first visit to the devastated marshes by a new Iraqi Government Minister. The water ministry is responsible for re-flooding the marshes, which were drained by the previous regime. Life is beginning to return to the marshes, although there are not as many people as lived there previously—many of the people fled or were killed when Saddam Hussein attacked the Marsh Arabs. However, we met a representative group, and as we went round the villages, people ran out, hugged us and laughed and clapped. We sat down with the community leaders in a big building made of rushes, as all buildings on the marshes are. They started banging the floor and saying to the Minister, ““We want better roads, education and better housing.”” I sat there and thought that two years previously they could not have done that—if they had done so, they would not have been there that day. Freedom of expression is important, as we have seen in the Iraqi press, which we have played an important role in retraining. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting, based in this country, has done good work on retraining Iraqi journalists. Previously, they had to write reports from reports that had been given them and could not change anything. When we see them rethinking and challenging ideas that people have given them, it is impressive. I hope that we continue to support the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, which does excellent work in Afghanistan and many countries that I have visited where freedom of the press has not been part of the culture. There are human rights issues and challenges facing Iraq today. When the Prime Minister addressed the House just before Christmas, he said that"““the relationship between Iraq and Britain will be strengthened at a cultural, economic…and social level””.—[Official Report, 18 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 1241.]" He talked about our commitment to the economic development of Iraq and scholarships in the UK for Iraqi students, which is all very welcome. A few weeks before Christmas, I went to the British Library, which had organised an event for the chief librarian of Iraq's main library in Baghdad, Dr. Saad Eskander. Since the war, he has had a good relationship with the British Library. He gave us a slide show and a talk about how he had found Iraq's library when he went there in 2003. The library was no more. All the documents and books had been burned, and there were just ashes on the floor. Then he showed us what he has done since, with the help of the British Library. He has been able to rebuild some of the collection through copies of books and documents that existed there. We listened to him talk about his enthusiasm for rebuilding the library in Iraq and how many young people he has brought in to work there, particularly a large number of women. He said that he would very much value continued British help. At the end of his speech, the audience of a couple of a hundred people—librarians and chief executives from all over the country—got to their feet and applauded him, because his story was such a poignant example of how to rebuild from the ashes. There are many other examples in Iraq of people who do similar things. A couple of months ago, I chaired a human rights forum on Iraq at the Foreign Office. Fifty people were there, and three Iraqi Ministers were among the participants. There were people from non-governmental organisations and trade union groups, officials and academics. The universal view at that meeting was that British involvement in building Iraqi civil society would be essential in future. We agreed that the group would meet regularly, every three months, and that working groups would focus on freedoms, the rule of law and the role of women. We will also involve NGOs from Iraq, which I had hoped would be able to take part in that first meeting, but the line broke down or there was a problem in Iraq, so they could not get the sound link. There are many NGOs working in Iraq, and it is very impressive to see them do so. The British Government have assisted NGOs in getting off the ground. There are people working with the disabled and with widows, and people working on corruption, which is a brave thing to do in any country, but particularly so in Iraq at this time. People are working on all aspects of life in civil society. When one spends a day or two with them, one feels that there is considerable optimism and determination among the Iraqi people. Everybody agrees that women are a key part of rebuilding the country and establishing it more firmly as a representative democracy. We must continue to lobby the Iraqi Government, so that when the national elections take place at the end of the year, the 25 per cent. quota for women is still in place. The women MPs whom I know, who have built a strong caucus within the Council of Representatives, must be allowed to continue to speak out and shape the future of their country. The Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament has recently been forced to stand down. One of the things that he did prior to being asked to step down was verbally to attack women in Parliament for not having suffered enough. At that point, all the women stuck together and walked out of the Parliament. It is heartening to see such groupings forming. The freedom of the press is crucial in Iraq. I receive a synopsis of the Iraqi press every day, and it is amazing to see the spread of opinion across the publications, daily and weekly, that exist in that country. I have been contacted on a number of occasions by concerned Iraqis, the National Union of Journalists and others about violence and threats made against journalists in all parts of Iraq. I have lobbied the Iraqi Government in Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government to treat all those cases with great seriousness. We must keep the pressure on to ensure that Iraqi journalists can work without fear. One of the obvious developments in a democracy is that the press are more or less free to write what they like, which is essential in Iraq. That is one way of ensuring that corruption does not take place. I return to the example of my friend who runs the radio station. Some time last year, he was approached by an official from a department who was planning to advertise on his station. He was told, ““We'll pay you so-and-so, but you'll have to give me back so-and-so.”” My friend was very brave; he said, ““Can you please sit there? I have to go and do something for a moment,”” and he went upstairs to his studio and broadcast over the air what had happened in the room below. When he went back to the room, the man who had made the offer had disappeared, and an official appeared about a week later to apologise profusely that anyone should have done something like that. To have such brave people speaking out is the best way of combating corruption. I have taken an interest in the rule of law in Iraq for a long time, and Indict has supplied 35 box-loads of evidence to the trials that continue in that country. The rule of law has developed a great deal since Saddam's time, when the law was used as a brutal tool of repression. I hope that we will continue to press the Iraqis on the implementation of their amnesty law. It is a well-written law that should allow for the release of those who have been held without trial. We should also offer advice and training to the Iraqi authorities charged with running prisons. Right now the Iraqi Ministers of Justice, the Interior, Defence and Labour and Social Affairs run prisons. Many of those prisons are overcrowded, and the situation for the inmates is intolerable. I hope that we will continue to provide any support that the Iraqis ask for to improve conditions in their prisons. We have supplied specialists at various times to give advice on how to run prisons, including prison officers from this country. That support must accompany training for judges to allow those who are arrested to be brought to trial quickly and fairly. I know that as our military support to Iraq draws down, our work to support the growth of civil society and a culture of human rights will continue. I am hopeful that in 10 years' time, Iraq will be a country where all of us, if we want to, can go on holiday in safety and that we will see a much-strengthened Iraqi democracy to which we have done much to contribute.