Iraq: Future Strategic Relationship

The hon. Gentleman has misinterpreted my point. I pointed out the quality of the troops, but they have to do the job that the Government and Parliament tell them to do, which has been a disgraceful job. In that sense, they have become not a force for good in Iraq but the opposite of that, given the catalogue of cases that I mentioned. The UK has been an active partner in the ruling coalition, but it has tried to evade its guilt for complicity in the atrocities of the war and the occupation. Repeatedly, Ministers have answered parliamentary questions by saying, ““The US answers for what the US does. Nothing to do with us.”” But the UK was up to its neck in the policy and the atrocities that followed from it, including the disbandment of the Iraqi Administration under the guise of de-Ba'athification. Many other appalling things also happened as a result of decisions that we made and things that we approved. I always like to bring a bit of culture to the House, so I wish to quote a man who died recently, Harold Pinter, our Nobel prize winner for literature. He said in his speech when he accepted the prize:"““We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.””" He said:"““As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with al-Qaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of 11 September 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.""The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.""But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all.""The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.””" That is what Harold Pinter said in his acceptance speech. I also want to read a poem of Harold Pinter's, called ““God Bless America””:"““Here they go again,""The Yanks in their armoured parade""Chanting their ballads of joy""As they gallop across the big world""Praising America's God.""The gutters are clogged with the dead""The ones who couldn't join in""The others refusing to sing""The ones who are losing their voice""The ones who've forgotten the tune.""The riders have whips which cut.""Your head rolls onto the sand""Your head is a pool in the dirt""Your head is a stain in the dust""Your eyes have gone out and your nose""Sniffs only the pong of the dead""And all the dead air is alive""With the smell of America's God.””" Harold Pinter—worth quoting in the House. We were a coalition partner, who rode along with such policies. I want to put a few things on the record. On 22 December, the brave journalist, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, wrote in The Independent:"““So to the Iraqis, the beneficiaries of our noble 'sacrifices'. This week, Nahla Hussein, a left-wing, feminist Kurdish Iraqi was shot and beheaded for her campaigning zeal. Fifty-seven Iraqis were blown up in Kirkuk. Christians in Mosul are being savagely persecuted and sharia law has replaced the 1959 codified entitlements given to women in family disputes. Women in Iraq have fewer rights today than under Saddam. Yes, there is some normality in parts but tensions between Shias and Sunnis are explosive. When troops are withdrawn next year, expect more bloodshed. The resources of Iraq, meanwhile, are being plundered.""For these blessings, one million Iraqis had to die and their children still suffer from illnesses caused by our weapons and our war. Five million Iraqis are displaced and, of these, the US took in 1,700. It is easier for an Iraqi cat or dog to gain entry to the land of the free… we took in 300””—" against a refugee count of 5 million. That shows a lack of commitment, which Oxfam pointed out. We were not the second biggest army in Iraqi. Private mercenaries comprised the second biggest army by far. They immediately had immunity under the Bremer arrangements, which we supported, from the law and prosecution. A briefing from War on Want contains a heading, ““UK companies are making a killing””. Some have Members on their boards. Those companies have contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds. I want to put on the record the way in which the mercenaries operate. On 19 December, Tribune included a review of ““Big Boy Rules: America's Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq””, a book by Steve Fainaru. It states:"““This moving book reveals the human cost of Bush and Blair's illegal war in Iraq. Written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Steve Fainaru of the Washington Post, it follows a group of mercenaries, mainly American, as they roam across a war-torn country immune to any laws of decency, fighting a war by proxy and for profit.""As well as defining the 'fight, survive, get paid' rules under which they operate, he describes the corruption and moral bankruptcy of the American-led, British-supported policies of so-called 'reconstruction'. So-called because it is palpably clear the outcome is to line the pockets of the mercenaries—and the American corporations which employ them—at the expense of the Iraqis.””" The article continues:"““Iraq has proved a magnet for those war-like men from around the world, including Americans, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Fijians, South Africans, Peruvians, Chileans and many more, who find fulfilment at the end of a loaded weapon aimed at a fellow human being. Cover-ups are the norm in the shoot first and, if you can be bothered, ask questions later culture of this murky yet officially sanctioned world.""How can people sink to such levels of barbarity? And what does this say for the governments who condone their actions by employing them? There's sadness, too, that Iraq, anxious for change after Saddam Hussein, was condemned to the chaos and pillage of these licensed bandits.””" The militias of the various Iraqi groups mirror those mercenaries. Some are run by the Iraqi Government. Many, for example, the facilities protection service, which has killed ordinary Iraqis, do the same job as the mercenaries.