Iraq: Future Strategic Relationship

The debate has been mostly thoughtful and, on occasions, passionate. I would draw out from it three themes which have been expressed by most contributors in all parts of the House. First, there has been pride in the courage and professionalism of our armed forces. Secondly, there has been regret at the enormous cost of the Iraq war and the subsequent violence, the deaths, the physical and mental scars, the refugees who have gone to neighbouring countries and the many displaced families within Iraq. Thirdly, throughout the debate there has been an expression of hope that Iraq can at last, after turmoil and suffering, look to a more stable and prosperous future. That hope has been coupled with a determination across party political boundaries in the House to help the people of Iraq meet the challenge of reconstructing their economy and society. There have been a number of noteworthy speeches. Everyone in the House enjoyed the contribution from the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) relishing his new-won freedom, and the words of the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who spoke with an acknowledged history of commitment and dedication to the welfare and rights of the ordinary people of Iraq that is unmatched in any part of the House. The hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) made telling contrasts between the violent society that they had observed in Iraq just a couple of years ago and the more peaceful state of affairs that prevails today. As we all know, our troops will, in large part, be coming home in about six months. In that context, I want to raise one point that has not been alluded to so far. I ask the Minister to give a clear pledge that when the troops return we will not abandon any of the Iraqis who put at risk their lives and the safety of their families by working for the British armed forces or the British administrative authorities in Iraq. Those people deserve more than our thanks—if their lives are at risk on account of what they did on behalf of our forces or civilian staff, they deserve our sanctuary as well. I hope that the Minister will be able to guarantee that the cases still being considered will have been properly and fairly decided by the time the troops pull out and that the Government will have arrangements in place to deal properly, fairly and sympathetically with any new cases that come to light after July this year. The main point of disagreement in what has been a considerably consensual debate has been about the case for an inquiry into the decision to go to war and into the subsequent conduct of the war. Various speeches, notably that of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway), but also that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), have highlighted particular examples of when things went wrong and where it would be sensible, and good government, to learn and apply the lessons. We heard about the lack of a proper reconstruction plan and about the last-minute switch in the plans, when British forces deployed not in northern Iraq but in the southern provinces. We heard about the lack of adequate planning to ensure that reconstruction and development work was brought in swiftly in support of the Army. I cannot help adding that with hindsight it would have been helpful had there been at the time a Secretary of State for International Development who was interested in planning to work in support of the armed services. The Prime Minister of the time carries a responsibility for not ensuring that his Ministers were acting in a properly co-ordinated fashion. We need an inquiry for two reasons. First, we must learn the lessons. Secondly, we must establish what, as is evident from this debate, is still lacking—a degree of consensus about the facts. As I contrast what my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire said with what the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) said, I find not only disagreement about how to interpret particular events, but profound disagreement about what actually happened. A serious inquiry by Privy Counsellors, with access to all the people and documents relevant to the decision to go to war and its subsequent conduct, would establish what happened with greater clarity. I was disappointed by the Secretary of State's comments on that point. For the most part, I agreed with his speech and thought it a high-quality contribution. However, he seemed to be saying that the time was not yet ripe for an inquiry and that the Prime Minister would take a decision in due course. The Government gave no hint about the criteria that they would use to decide when the time was finally right to hold such an inquiry. Will it be the end of July, when the bulk of the troops come home? Will it be after the 400 troops left to train Iraqis are withdrawn? Will there be a delay until the very last military adviser of any kind is finally brought home from Iraq? I have to say to the Secretary of State, in sorrow rather than in a spirit of outrage, that his response on this point did not do him justice. We heard the voice of the Secretary of State, but we got the words of the Prime Minister. We got secrecy, not openness, and in place of accountability, we got evasion. I reiterate to the House that if a Conservative Government are elected at the next general election, that inquiry will be held without any further delay. There is such a contrast between how the British Government have behaved and the conduct of the United States, where both the Executive and the legislature have commissioned successive inquiries to examine what went right and what went wrong and have then published and discussed their findings openly—and they have not been afraid of trenchant criticism coming out of those inquiries. Any Member of this House can go to the internet and read the draft report of the inspector general on Iraq. Let me quote a couple of examples of the sort of criticism in that report. The inspector general talks about the"““poor integration of inter-agency efforts bred by weak unity of command and inconsistent unity of effort””" and"““the blinkered and disjointed pre-war planning for Iraqi reconstruction””." Those are charges that have been levelled this afternoon, and during other debates in this House, about the United Kingdom's planning and preparation. Whether or not they are true, they should be examined by people who have access to all the relevant records. Rightly, however, the focus of the debate has been more on the future of Iraq than on its past. The future strategic relationship of this country and Iraq is important not only in terms of bilateral relations but in terms of our policy towards the region as a whole. For the most part, what has been said in the debate has been couched in terms of hope and optimism for the future. However, my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) gave us a cogent word of warning when he spoke of how in the past we sometimes promised things that, in the event, we were unable to deliver. We need to temper optimism with a hard-headed appraisal of the problems that face Iraq today and that will continue to face it in the foreseeable future. While the speech by the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead was largely over the top, he was right when he reminded us of the daily violence and intimidation that still takes place in Iraq. This week, the Pentagon submitted its latest quarterly progress report to the United States Congress. The report said that security incidents had reached their lowest level since systematic counting began in 2004. That is welcome, without any qualification. It said that inadequate supplies of food, water, electricity and health care had replaced security as the chief concern of Iraqi citizens. But it went on to say that"““the underlying sources of instability in Iraq have yet to be resolved. Iraq remains fragile because its major power brokers do not share a unified national vision””." In the run-up to the imminent regional elections, we see political tensions not only between the main ethnic and religious groups in Iraq, but within those groups as well. Once those elections are out of the way, there will be further political jostling ahead of the referendum planned for the summer on the United States' stationing of forces agreement, ahead of the national elections at the end of the 2009 and ahead of the decision on the future of Kirkuk. Political tension and rivalry in Iraq can lead to the abuse of human rights. I join the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley in urging the Government—I think that the Government will be happy to agree—to keep our attention on the human rights record in Iraq. We must maintain a dialogue with the Iraqi authorities in all parts of Iraq about human rights, and we need to ensure that the record of Iraq is examined, as those of other countries are, through the appropriate international bodies. The hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling) and others were right to discuss the continuing persecution of some religious minorities. In recent weeks, I have met delegations from some of the Christian communities in Iraq, who have told me about the pressure that they have been under not just, as is commonly known, in Baghdad and Basra, but in areas of the Nineveh plain that are the traditional centres of Christian culture in that country. The smaller minorities, such as the Yazidis and the Sabbateans, have probably suffered even worse, with large proportions of those communities having given up and fled into exile. I turn to the challenge of Iraq's economy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) urged, the Government should give a higher priority to helping British business take advantage of the opportunities opening up in Iraq. I am getting rather tired of the fact that in every country that I visit in the middle east, I hear from the host Government something along the lines of, ““Well, we'd like to work more with you British, but you've rather let the French, the Germans and the Italians steal a march on you in recent years.”” I hope that the Government will not let those economic opportunities for our country slip, given that our country has sacrificed a great deal in soldiers' lives and taxpayers' money to support the policy being pursued in Iraq. The extent to which Iraq makes a success of economic development is bound up with political stability in getting a proper rule of law introduced and observed throughout the country. Significantly, there has to be agreement on the sharing of petroleum revenues. It is dismaying to see that such an agreement has still not been reached, despite the fact that for several years the political parties in Baghdad have said that they had done a deal and were on the verge of introducing legislation. We still seem to have a stand-off between the Kurdish regional government and the central Government in Baghdad. Given that a number of oil industry experts believe that Iraq's reserves may even match those of Saudi Arabia, it is urgent that agreement is reached, and I hope that whatever diplomatic work Britain can do to facilitate that will be pursued. Finally, there is the question of Iraq's regional role. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring touched on its relationships with Iran, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. I hope that the Government will continue to encourage those of our friends in the Arab world who have not yet done so to station ambassadors permanently in Baghdad. Given Iraq's close links with the Iranian Government, it might be possible for her to help to provide Britain and the United States with a conduit for contact with the Iranian regime at a very senior level. I would be interested to hear the Government's view on that. In the longer term, it seems to me that if we are to get a stable arrangement for collective security in the middle east—something along the lines of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has often been discussed—Iraq should play a key role in the effort. It is both proudly Arab and now friendly with Iran, and it could play an important part in creating a stable, more prosperous future. The hope and objective of our policy must be not just for Iraq to be sovereign, politically stable and prosperous, but for it to play a leading and constructive part in shaping a better future for the whole of that very troubled region.