Iraq: Future Strategic Relationship

While listening to the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), I am afraid that I reflected that there were voices—informed people—who warned about the vacuum that existed immediately after the invasion. I myself prepared a paper for the shadow Cabinet at the time saying that all the ingredients for an insurgency war were in place. I had meetings with the Secretary of State at the time about it, and I remain grieved that nothing was done. When I complained on the Floor of the House that we were withdrawing our troops too quickly and that they were overstretched, I was accused of nitpicking. I did not need a crystal ball; many experienced military and other figures warned about the consequences of the vacuum that we had left, and I wish to address that in my comments. I remain convinced, as I was in 2003, that the removal of Saddam Hussein was the correct course of action. As history will record, the new Iraq that is at last emerging from the turmoil of the past six years demonstrates that the decision we took alongside the United States—and which was supported by almost 40 other nations—was the right one. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen have performed in Iraq with exemplary courage, skill and determination, and I salute them and honour those who have fallen and those who still suffer from their injuries. The failures in strategic planning for the aftermath of the war meant, however, that the struggle in Iraq has been much more prolonged and bloody than it needed to be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) pointed out. British politicians and officials cannot escape their share of the blame for this. The failure in post-conflict planning, coupled with the fact that the Department for International Development is simply not engineered to cope with post-conflict reconstruction, meant that we wasted the vital first 100 days of hope after the invasion—that is the limited window that exists in a post-conflict situation. We should have been able to prove to the Iraqi people that the removal of Saddam Hussein would lead to improvements in their lives, but, tragically, we and the Americans missed that window. The lack in our case—in Regional Command (South)—of a single campaign plan and a single integrated command across the British military and civilian effort was fatal in that respect. That is of even greater relevance to our current difficulties in Afghanistan, and it is the need to learn the lessons from these mistakes, and to learn them quickly, that makes the case for a full public inquiry into Iraq so compelling. Unfortunately, when we consider the future strategic relationship between the United Kingdom and Iraq, we are left to ponder what might have been. The excellent mentoring role played by our armed forces in the south of Iraq, which Defence Committee members witnessed when we visited this year, last year and in previous years, could have created a platform for a sustainable and productive mil-mil—military on military—relationship between the British and Iraqi armies, and could have led to the kind of strategic relationship that our country has developed with, for instance, Oman. Thanks to its oilfields, southern Iraq is likely to develop into one of the richest areas in the region, as the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) pointed out. The UK has expended a great deal of blood and treasure in trying to ensure that sustainable and prosperous future for the south of Iraq, and yet at the very moment that one might actually call victory, the Government seem determined to snatch defeat from its jaws by withdrawing precipitately and leaving the long-term benefits of a strategic relationship entirely to the Americans. Our withdrawal would be understandable if our mission were truly accomplished, as the Government claim—after all, Iraq is for the Iraqis and we have no strategic interest in maintaining security with our own troops in Basra indefinitely—but the awkward fact for the Government is that the moment the Union flag is lowered over the Basra air base, the stars and stripes will be hoisted in its place. Far from our mission being over, the Americans will have to fill the gaps left by our departure. The manner of our withdrawal is symptomatic of the Government's dual failure in Iraq: it is both a tactical and a strategic defeat. The failure was caused not by any lack of skill or courage on the part of our armed forces, but by a collapse of political courage on the part of the Government, and the inability of Ministers ever to come to terms with the size of the job that they had asked our soldiers to undertake.