Iraq: Future Strategic Relationship

The hon. Gentleman and I will have to agree to disagree on that. I want to take the House one stage further and reference the statements made by the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. He has made many calculations about the competence of Iraq's army and police force to deliver a secure Iraq in which all civil society can survive. Again, some of his words are quite clear. Although he thanks the British troops for the role that they have played, he goes on to say that their continued stay is not necessary for maintaining security and control. That gives me a tremendous amount of confidence. This is a man who for years has watched, worked with and relied on the support of the coalition team, in particular the British armed forces in Basra. What he then says takes us to the point of acknowledging what our future strategic relationship could be about. He qualifies his statement that Iraq may need UK forces because of their experience in training and their technical knowledge by saying that as a fighting force, their job is done. I hope that that will be part of how the Ministry of Defence, and perhaps DFID, will see the way the British armed forces can continue to have a positive relationship, on Iraqi terms, with the Iraqi Government. I am not saying that all is achieved; I am simply making the argument that our British Army has faced significant challenges and has made significant advances. I am confident that we are seeing for the first time a trusted system of law and order developing. Yes, the development is cautious, but it is happening. Without the British deployment, it would not exist. To argue otherwise is nonsense. We want a competent police force in Iraq, but we know that the Iraqi Prime Minister is more than prepared to bring British forces, including police forces, back into Iraq to support any future development or need. All that suggests that we are seeing the institutional development in all parts of Iraq that is capable of developing a stable and peaceful country. I am delighted to hear from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence that women are clearly valued and seen as part of the whole system. Many hon. Members would expect me to make that statement, and they would certainly expect my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley to do so. It is easy for us to acknowledge the strategic value of the armed forces, the police and the rule of law. All those elements are crucial; they are part of an institutional delivery. However, the absolute fact is that too often too many people give women a specific role that is outside civil society. Frankly, it is a wrong that undermines an effective force. The United Nations once made the statement that when we persuaded the mother in the family, we persuaded the family. That family is part of the community, and that community delivers. It is crucial that we celebrate the Iraqis' vision to allow women to be a 25 per cent. part of local government at this stage. We must congratulate them on that. There is a future relationship to be built there. I will not repeat it. My right hon. Friend has made clear statements about how she is developing a relationship with Iraqi women, and many in the House would support the development of that relationship. The Select Committee report makes other observations about where the British armed forces and DFID have been seen to deliver effective and valued training and mentoring. It mentions the MiTTs, the military transition teams, which have worked alongside Iraqis in training and mentoring. A very effective relationship has developed, based on both trust and competence, which I believe will continue in the future. The report also mentions the value of the provincial reconstruction team. Working with the provincial government, it has assessed and prioritised existing Iraqi funds with the aim of implementing good policy and achieving good governance, and I hope and believe that that too will continue. Many Members have referred to Iraq's economy and the serious concerns that people rightly have about it. We know that unemployment rates as high as 90 per cent. have been recorded in Basra, but we also know that the economic development team's main aim has been to achieve lower unemployment, and to meet overriding priorities that will enable the economy to develop. It is crucial for the provincial reconstruction team to be seen to have a future and a strategic role. I believe that mistakes have been made over the past five years and that there have been serious misunderstandings. I, and perhaps others, did not anticipate the level of insurgency. I was mortified to observe the lack of control in prisons: Iraqi prisoners, at the time and subsequently, have made serious allegations of abuse, and many of us witnessed much of that abuse on television. A significant number of people have been killed, including many of our own armed forces, and many more have been left wounded. At times, there has been considerable political and military friction within the coalition, which, although it was ultimately resolved, was seriously distracting. Having said all that, however, I believe that the achievement in Iraq over the last five years has been considerable. I do not mean just the provision of water and electricity, and I do not mean just the way we have worked to achieve an effective police force—which we will continue to support—and an effective army. We have achieved considerable change, and people feel that they know the benefits of freedom. Soldiers from my constituency return and tell me that some of the best moments for them have been experienced on the football field. Instead of playing with a rolled-up piece of rag, children were playing with the footballs that had been produced, and goalposts had been erected. According to the soldiers, the children were small and many looked as though they needed a good meal, but they were tenacious on the football field and invariably won their games. Sometimes we gain more through the way in which we involve ourselves and form relationships, and the British armed forces have delivered and developed relationships in a very valuable way. The friendship and respect that have developed between the two countries in so many different ways will be invaluable to future strategic relationships. Let me leave the final words to Sir Mike Jackson who, although he has made serious criticisms about the way we deploy, has also been very complimentary. In December 2008, in a statement to us all, he said that conflict between groups was a political phenomenon that could only be solved politically. The soldiers' job was done. They had created the conditions for political solutions. Iraqi civil society was now in the hands of Iraqis. Hopefully, a British Government will always continue to support them.