A number of people have said today that the 2003 decision casts a long shadow, and indeed it does. There has been much talk about lessons learned and lessons needing to be learned, but I fear that this is largely about: “I was right and others were wrong”. There is a slightly self-righteous tone when people talk about where they stood on the vote in 2003 that I feel will not help us to make the decisions facing us, which are as serious, dangerous and consequential as any.
I was not in the House in 2003; I did not come in until 2005. At the time, I was one of those marching up and down and saying no to war. When I came in, I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would spend most of my time on defence matters, but I came into the Chamber one day and noticed a group of middle-aged men talking to another group of middle-aged men across the Chamber on perhaps one of the most important subjects facing the country. I thought, “I’m not having this”, and I went out of my way to teach myself defence. I
have to say that that is necessary—unless someone has been in the armed forces, they have to go out and learn, find out how decisions are made, what equipment to use, how on earth a decision to go to war is implemented and how it is carried through. It is not enough to be a Member of Parliament and think that defence is something that can be dipped into. Sadly, too many right hon. and hon. Members think it is.
I do not feel that people have the right to criticise unless they have looked and questioned: what equipment are our people going to war with; how many of them are there; what is going to happen when the number of personnel we want to send is balanced against the number of personnel that can be met? We made a disastrous decision when we sent our people to Helmand, but nobody questioned it. We are not having a big two-day debate about that disaster. How many hon. Members have bothered to read any of the Defence Committee reports on anything? Quite honestly, I wonder how many Members have read the strategic defence and security review. How many Members have been worried and concerned at the paring back over and again of our armed forces? How many have been concerned about the cuts to the platforms that our armed forces will be able to utilise?
It is all very well to go back to 2003 and beat our breasts. It is all very well to spend seven years. Since I have been a Member, I have taken three decisions on going to war—and I spent a lot of time on all three of them. Libya was as great a disaster as Iraq. I spent a lot of time asking whether it was about regime change, and I was told, “No, it is not about regime change”. I do not believe that to be true—I think it was always about regime change. I asked what we were going to do about post-conflict reconstruction, because it was the big lesson from Iraq, and I was told, “We are not putting boots on the ground, so it isn’t an issue for us”.