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Sir Peter Tapsell (East Lindsey) : Saddam Hussein is an evil despot who has long maintained himself in power in Iraq by a tyrannical regime, run for the most part by a small group of his personal henchmen, drawn from his own home village. He has eliminated, often after torture, any of his political colleagues who have attempted to stand in his way. It is widely reported that immediately before the act of aggression against Kuwait he had a number of his senior officers executed who opposed this attack on a fellow Arab state. We are dealing with a monster : let us be perfectly clear about that. The debate has reflected the feeling in the nation as a whole, overwhelmingly, that this act of aggression against

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Kuwait and its occupation has to be reversed and that Kuwait has to be liberated. I, like many hon. Members, spent most of the month of August abroad. I did not meet a single person of any nationality who was not in favour of bringing pressure to bear to ensure that Kuwait was liberated. I spent the first half of this week in my constituency. Every constituent whom I met said to me that we have got to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait. This debate has sent a clear message to Saddam Hussein, and the world, that Britain is united behind her Government in the steps that they have taken by giving full support to President Bush's magnificent leadership on this issue.

The question one has to ask is how we are to achieve the objectives on which we are all agreed. I am not convinced that the long haul is a practical solution. I first went to Iraq 40 years ago. I have been there seven or eight times since. It is easy for those who have not been to Iraq to imagine that that country holds certain characteristics in common with western European countries. However, despite the great potential oil wealth of that country, the great mass of Iraqis still live in grinding poverty. They are much less subject to the kind of economic pressures that sanctions would impose than those that would face a more prosperous country. They have been through the ghastly war with Iran, for which Saddam Hussein was entirely responsible. Despite having endured all that, they cannot escape his rule because of the machinery of terror that he operates inside Iraq. Anybody who tries to criticise him is liquidated. I have an Iraqi friend in London whose brother was hanged by Saddam Hussein last year simply because my friend had made a critical speech about Saddam Hussein in London. He will stop at nothing.

That is one side of the problem, but the other side is whether the American troops will be able to face month after month of sitting it out in the desert. I spent nine months in the desert at Aqaba when I was 19 and 20, but I had the advantage of having spent 10 years at boarding schools immediately before, so a warm slit trench in the desert seemed rather luxurious accommodation. Some of the specialist American technicians, who are used to operating the most advanced weaponry, have not had the advantage of having been at public school for many years before going to the desert and, although this is not a criticism of them, spending month after month in the heat and dust will take a considerable toll of their morale.

The dust will also get into their machinery. We saw what happened when helicopters landed at Desert Strip One outside Tehran and were on the ground for only a few hours. There is no doubt that there will be great technical problems with advanced weaponry being on the ground in such terrain and climate for a long period.

The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said that this is the most dangerous situation that the world has faced since 1945, and several right hon. and hon. Members have echoed that sentiment. I accept that it is a dangerous situation, but we must not make our position more difficult by exaggerating the dangers. I do not believe that it is the most dangerous situation that we have faced since the war. The Berlin blockade and the Cuban missile crisis were much more dangerous because of the danger of confrontation between the two great powers of the world, America and Russia, and of nuclear weaponry being brought into play. Mercifully, as a result of glasnost and President Gorbachev, that danger does not arise.

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Therefore, do not let us tell our constituents and ourselves that the situation is anything like as dangerous as some of the crises that we have had to face since the war.

I hope that President Bush's meeting with President Gorbachev in a few days will clear the way for American military action, because it will not be in the interests of the United Nations for us all to continue with a blockade that may last for six or nine months. The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) spoke of the possibility of oil prices reaching levels which might put the American banking system in danger. There will be great economic strains on the world economy if this long haul is pursued. I am sure that the Prime Minister was absolutely right when she said earlier today that we must keep our options open under article 51 to use military force if that seems necessary, and I believe that it will become necessary. I hope that when that time comes, and when the American chiefs of staff are confident that effective and quick action can be taken, we will give full support to the Americans in that action.

Many hon. Members have said that it is easy and ludicrous to be an armchair warrior. I understand that but, in the desert, air command is of dominant importance. It is not like Vietnam which, like many hon. Members, I visited many times and where I flew in choppers low over the jungle where one could not see the Vietcong. In the desert, even in Allenby's campaign of 1916 and 1917, the aeroplane was of vital importance. A tank cannot be moved in the desert without its being visible from a great distance, even to infantry on the ground. With modern aircraft dominating the skies, in a few weeks the American air force will be in a position completely to take out the Iraqi air force within a matter of days, as the Israelis did to the Egyptian air force in 1973. Once it has done that, the Iraqi tank force will be absolutely useless. Tanks are dependent on petrol, ammunition and water, and with an enemy dominating the skies nothing could be more frightening than to be an Iraqi tank commander, with his tank blowing up if a rocket lands anywhere near it. We should not exaggerate the military dangers that would be involved.

The Americans intend to take military action. I think they will take it very effectively and will win. Saddam Hussein is a clear loser, and Arabs throughout Arabia are beginning to realise that. 8.35 pm

Mr. Jim Sillars (Glasgow, Govan) : We support the action taken by the Government to invoke the United Nations procedures. We also support what the Government have done in respect of the naval blockade to support the Security Council's decision on sanctions. We also support action taken to engage in a multi-military organisation to protect Saudi Arabia from possible Iraqi aggression, which, as I understand it--I stand open to correction--is an entirely separate matter from the United Nations Security Council decisions in respect of Kuwait.

I wish to make three points. One concerns a matter raised by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), who said that it is important that we try to take on board Saddam Hussein's tactics. He said that they probably are simply to sit tight, having, in a sense, annexed Kuwait, and to hold that territory. We must understand that when dealing with Saddam Hussein, as well as dealing with an evil individual, we are dealing with someone who

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is by no means stupid and who has displayed considerable political ability inside the Arab world. He already has one political mark in his favour : he split the Arab League and, from his point of view, that was a considerable thing for him to have done.

If we are dealing with a man of that capability who has decided to sit tight, we must, as a matter of tactics, consider the military option. It would be foolish for anyone on the United Nations side to rule out the military option.

There is a link between maintaining the military option and the possible success of sanctions, and I shall explain how I see that link. If we said that the military option was not on, it would be seen by Saddam Hussein as a failure of a test of will of those under the United Nations umbrella. If that military option were seen by him to be withdrawn, not only he but other states in the international community would get a very clear message- -that if it came to the crunch we would not have the will to sustain the pressure on him to withdraw from Kuwait.

Hon. Members have rightly said that sanctions have perhaps a better chance of operating than when they have previously been applied, and they have mentioned the oil crop economy of Iraq.

The Leader of the Opposition made the important point that credit facilities, from whatever source in the international community, should not be made available to Iraq. It will be difficult to tighten up this loophole. There is another downside to sanctions. They will result in a severe economic cost for all the member states which apply sanctions and the severest cost will be borne not by the United Kingdom, western Europe, Japan or the United States, which will be able to sustain it better than anyone else, but by the third world countries. They will be the weakest link in the application of sanctions. If the message is that, when the crunch comes, the military option will not be available, some of those states, for reasons that we cannot condemn, may crack. Once sanctions crack, without the back-up of a military option, Saddam Hussein will win the game in which he is engaged.

My second point is about the role, status, power and influence in the world community of the United Nations. The Leader of the Opposition and I are of the same generation and come basically from the same ideological root. As I listened to him, I began to be carried away by his idealism about the emergence of a new world order. There is unprecedented unanimity among the five permanent members of the Security Council. However, I doubt whether a new world order will emerge, or even that we are seeing something like that emerging now.

As hon. Members know, international law is made up of state practice, which is based on power, and upon treaties and conventions, but power is the key factor. Last week, on the BBC World Service, I heard Sir Anthony Parsons say "No" to the blunt question, "Is international law based on a moral code?" As he said, it boils down to power. The United Nations has tried to make moral law against genocide and aggression and for human rights, but when it comes to the crunch question whether it will agree to the enforcement of this law, the answer must be in the negative, because it is power that matters.

We have to be frank about this. The United Nations Security Council has acted in the Gulf crisis not out of

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some new sense of moral purpose but simply because of the fortuitous conjunction of state interests among the five permanent members and the majority of the rest of the Security Council with the United Nations charter. The United States and the west are involved because of oil. Some cynical United Nations official said that, if Kuwait manufactured tins of beans, we should not have seen the same reaction from the United Nations. The Soviet Union has developed a quasi-dependence upon the United States and the West, and particularly western Europe. China is paddling her own canoe so as to get back into the good graces of the United States and to resurrect the special relationship with it.

Sadly, the agreement goes no further than this conjunction. That may sound cynical and I hope that I am wrong and that we are seeing something new develop, but I doubt it. It is unprecedented for the Security Council to take such a decision and it is fine that it has done so. However, what will happen in two or three months' time when the Security Council permanent members do not agree and a next step is required? The United Nations and the Security Council are still on trial, and the verdict has not yet been reached.

My third point concerns the good speech made by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). He told the Government that we must engage in a battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab people. Given Saddam Hussein's ability to split the Arab League, we have to admit that he is ahead of us on that. I shall try--I do not think that I can do it as I do not think that any hon. Member can--to put myself in the mind of the man in the Arab suit. How does he see debates such as this and western reaction? Unless we can understand that, we shall not win the propaganda battle for the hearts and minds of folk in the Arab world.

The Arab sees people in the west, including us and the United States, as double-dyed hypocrites of the first order because we apply a different standard to Arab nations than we apply to the state of Israel. He has good grounds for taking that point of view. Tonight, we are telling Iraq that it should obey Security Council resolutions and that if it does not, sanctions will be applied against it until it does so, when the United States did not take that attitude to Israel.

The hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) is a wee bit like Arthur Scargill in that his language is sometimes extravagant and his style goes over the top. He got a lot of barracking from his hon. Friends today. I shall try to speak in a quieter tone. We have to accept that the Israeli authorities treat the Arab people of the west bank and Gaza appallingly. They deliberately break bones and demolish houses in retaliation and incarcerate thousands of people in desert encampments. That is unacceptable in a civilised international community, but Israel has been allowed to get away with it. I have told Arab friends that I am appalled that they are not condemning Saddam Hussein and they have replied, "My enemy's enemy is my friend." I am told not to complain about that because westerners have operated on that principle many a time.

I have to convey to the Government as best I can the feeling of my friends that, while the situation in Israel continues, the west will continue to feed people like Saddam Hussein with the ammunition that will carry them to the top. In the three or four months ahead, while sanctions are being applied, we should take the

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opportunity to bring to the top of the world agenda the rights of the Palestinian people to a homeland and a state of their own. Unless we are prepared to do that and are capable of doing that, we may lose the critical war for the hearts and minds of the Arab people. My Arab friends have told me that the biggest problem in the middle east is that the Israeli-Palestinian situation poisons the whole atmosphere. We have to draw the poison if we are to get stability in the region. 8.47 pm

Mr. James Kilfedder (North Down) : I find it strange and disappointing that so little has been said about the tens of thousands of refugees in Jordan. I was pleased to note that the Prime Minister announced further aid for the refugees, but more needs to be done. It is appalling that men, women and children are suffering and dying from heat, hunger and disease while the western world is spending billions on armaments and ignoring their plight. It is a shame that their plight has been so ignored. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) spoke of the airlift that should take place. More immediate action is needed and greater help should be provided.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats used the term "flotsam and jetsam" in regard to the refugees and I believe that he used the term innocently. However, that sounded arrogant to me. Our hearts should go out to these people and some of the money that has been spent on armaments should be used to save their lives. More refugees will die in Jordan than have died so far in this crisis in the middle east. Food, medicines, clothing and tents should have gone out ages ago and must now go out immediately. If, instead of being Asian, Egyptian or from the middle or far east, those people had been English, Australian, American, German, French or Canadian, there would have been an outcry, and action would have been taken ages ago. We must not forget these people now.

Much has been said in the debate about hostages in Iraq. For me, that term applies peculiarly to those who are incarcerated in the Lebanon. I refer to a constituent of mine--Brian Keenan--who has just been released. He was held as a hostage there for more than four years, and he has been to hell and back again. We can see the agony in his eyes and in his language. I pay tribute to his two sisters who campaigned relentlessly for his release. Our hearts go out to Brian Keenan. I know that some people in Northern Ireland resented the fact that use was made of his having a passport from the Republic of Ireland. However, I believe that the sisters were perfectly entitled to use any key to release him from his purgatory.

We must think at this time about the other hostages who are still held there. We must think about Terry Waite, about John McCarthy and about the others. Greater pressure must be applied to Iran to ensure that those people, who have suffered so much for so long, are released without further delay.

I find it disturbing that Iran has become an ally in the campaign against Iraq, yet Iran was indirectly--and some would say directly--responsible for the fiendish nightmare of the hostages, and for their years of imprisonment in conditions that are an outrage to humanity. We must also remember Mr. Cooper who has been imprisoned in Iran. His imprisonment is an insult to the rule of law.

I refer also to Douglas Croskery, who was shot dead in Iraq near the border with Saudi Arabia and who was the

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son of a constituent of mine. The sympathy of the whole House goes out to his mother, my constituent, Marion Croskery, to his wife, to his children, to his brother and to all the other members of his family.

I spoke at some length with the ambassador of the Republic of Iraq about the necessity of an intensive search to find the remains of Douglas Croskery. He, as a Muslim, assured me that he and all the other Muslims in Iraq would be most anxious that the body should be found and returned for decent burial. The anguish of his wife, of his mother and of his family would be lessened to an extent if his remains could be brought back to the United Kingdom.

I have a number of constituents who are detained in Iraq and in Kuwait at present, including one who is a student of 19. He went out on a summer exchange during the university vacation. When I saw the ambassador, I argued that, on humanitarian grounds, all the foreigners who were then detained in Iraq and in Kuwait should be released and that, as a first step, the children and women should be released on humanitarian grounds. I was glad to see that President Saddam Hussein is in the process of releasing the women and children.

I believe that reasoned argument carries far more weight with the President and with the authorities in Iraq than do all the insults that I have heard. Words such as "cowboy", "dictator" and "outlaw", and similar expressions do not make President Saddam cower in the basement of his palace. His reaction would be to turn the screw and we should avoid that. It is all right to impress the British voter by talking tough, but it does not do anything to President Saddam. We now need less of the language of conflict and more of the language of diplomacy. I know that if people are prepared to talk, a way forward can sometimes be found. I was impressed by what the Iraqi ambassador said to me. He said that the Iraqis were prepared to engage in diplomacy and I noted what the Foreign Minister of Iraq said about the need to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis. As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) said, we must consider the Arab perception of the situation. Whether right or wrong, the Arabs see the might of the United States poised in Saudi Arabia. Many Arabs regard the presence of foreign armies as a defilement of the holy places of Islam. I use the word "invited". However, some considerable time elapsed before Saudi Arabia invited them and I believe that certain pressure was brought to bear on the Saudi Arabians to invite the Americans into their land.

It is now accepted by many people that Iraq will not invade Saudi Arabia. The Arabs also view the American presence as a means of obtaining relatively cheap oil for the western world. As has been pointed out in the debate, other countries have been invaded, but we have had no great reaction from America or from the west. If a precedent has now been established, let us ensure that we do not ruin the unanimity of the United Nations.

Let us also ensure that we seek a settlement and that we pursue the policy of sanctions. I am sure that they will work and that they will bring a settlement in this region which will last for a long time to come. If war takes place, there will be a legacy of hatred which will last for decades to come. There will be instability and acts of terrorism, and I doubt whether the oil will flow as readily as it has flowed in the past. That is why I urge all concerned to cool it and

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why it is necessary to defuse the present explosive situation. I hope that we shall have more diplomacy and less belligerency. I pay tribute to the Secretary General of the United Nations for his efforts on behalf of peace. I pay tribute also to King Hussein of Jordan, who is tireless in travelling the capitals of the world in search of a decent settlement.

Billions of dollars have been spent on the armed might that is now assembled in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. I question whether that money might have been used to search for alternative sources of oil. It might have been better invested that way. Better still, those billions of dollars could have been used in searching for alternative sources of energy.

We should think about those who are detained in Iraq and Kuwait. Let us do nothing which might endanger their situation. There appears in The Times today a letter from a woman who has come from Iraq. She fears that the words of the Government may act as kerosene in the heat of the present situation.

8.59 pm

Mr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East) : The House has been united in its condemnation of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The speeches of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition fully reflect the views of the overwhelming majority of the British people. Indeed, they reflect opinion throughout the world. The world has not just condemned the invasion but, through the United Nations, has committed itself to taking effective economic action, backed by force if necessary, to secure the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and to see the freeing of the hostages unharmed.

The main point of my contribution is to emphasise the supreme importance of the Government giving their full support to the United Nations in that role. That is the central thrust coming from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I hope that the Government may be relied on to heed it.

I do not believe that there is a viable alternative, not at this stage. When we see on our television screens, as we have seen time and again, leading republican senators speaking in terms of taking out Hussein, of destroying the Iraqi air force and of having learnt the language of surgical strikes, we must accept that the situation is not like that.

In our heart of hearts we surely know that, if we were to go down the road of a United States-initiated attack on Iraq, perhaps supported by the British Government, it would not be an easy option. It might be possible within a reasonable time to destroy the Iraqi air force and their military and key economic installations, but it would not follow that Iraqi forces would withdraw from Kuwait. The most likely scenario in the use of military action to secure the withdrawal of Iraqi forces would be that of a prolonged ground war involving large losses. The remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) and of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) were pertinent in that respect.

We cannot be certain of the consequences of taking military action. Indeed, we could not, as a result of military action, be sure of the political consequences. Many hon. Members, particularly on the Opposition Benches, fear that we could find the United States leading

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us into a war which would be seen in due course as a war between western imperialism and Arab nationalism and fundamentalism. Before long, the fundamental issue of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would be lost in the minds of many Arabs. It is crucial, therefore, for us to reject at this stage any idea of unilateral action by America, supported by other western countries.

I listened with interest to the speech of the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). I shall not get involved in the argument whether Security Council resolution 661, with its reference to article 51, gives authority for taking military action. I do not agree with him that it would be wrong militarily to approach the United Nations for such authority. The American forces are in such a state of readiness that there would be nothing to benefit the Iraqis making an initial strike against those forces.

If, at the end of the day, military force is to be used, that should happen only through the auspices of the United Nations. If, sadly, sanctions were not working, the final bit of pressure on Saddam would be the very fact of the United States, Britain and other countries going to the United Nations for that authority. He would know at that point that he had a final chance to withdraw, and that otherwise he would encounter huge forces ranged against him. The most important point to make in this debate is to encourage the Government to do all they can to make sanctions work. As a range of other hon. Members have said, we are talking about economic sanctions. There is good reason to believe that we can make them effective and cripple the economy in Iraq, destroy the living standards of the people in Iraq and, in so doing, bring enormous pressure--as much as can be mobilised in the world--against the Iraqi leadership. That is not an easy option and it means using huge amounts of resources to help the countries in the front line. Other hon. Members have seen an interesting piece in this week's Newsweek International magazine, in which the Crown Prince of Jordan spells out just how dependent the Jordanian economy is on Iraq and the enormous consequences of sanctions for Jordan. It will be a huge task to compensate and seek to protect Jordan and the other countries in the vicinity, which are poor, from the effects of the sanctions, but it must be done. It will need action, money and commitment from the British Government, wealthier Governments and the world generally. It also means--I am glad that the hon. Member for North Down (Mr. Kilfedder) referred to it in his speech--that we must adopt a more radical and comprehensive approach to the desperate plight of the thousands and thousands of refugees pouring out of Kuwait and Iraq all the time.

We had better be quite clear in our minds that we are talking about an economic embargo, not one aimed at starving the Iraqis. We must be clear that, when it comes to the crunch, we must allow food and medical supplies to move into Iraq.

The remarks of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) were pessimistic. Unlike him, I believe that the crisis gives us a great opportunity in relation to the future of law and order in the world and the United Nations. We can look back on the incidents that have occurred and ask why no action was taken then, but our approach should be to look forward and consider the tremendous opportunity and achievement of having the

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whole world united in taking effective action to try to ensure--indeed, we must ensure--that this aggressor does not succeed or benefit as a consequence of his actions.

There is unanimity in the Security Council, and the Arab countries of Egypt, Syria and Morocco are lined up in the middle east in support of the decision. A tremendous opportunity has opened up for the world as a result of the new relationship between the Soviet Union--still an enormously powerful country with tremendous interests and links with various countries throughout the world--and the United States, the most powerful military country in the world. It is because of the change in the relationship between those two countries that the United Nations has been able to develop as it has and has progressed so far.

If the United Nations action can succeed, what is being achieved is more important than the short-term outcome in relation to what happens in Kuwait, although the whole thing is destroyed if the United Nations fails. If its actions succeed, what is being achieved is bigger than one incident and could lay down a new world order and a new climate in which individual nation states recognise that if they take such aggressive action there will be a united world response.

In his speech to the Trades Union Congress, the Leader of the Opposition said that Hussein had challenged the world and it was important that the world should share in his defeat. That sums up the position well. We could be moving into a great, important new period of international law and order. I trust that the Government will do all that they can to prevent the United States or anyone else damaging that opportunity.

9.10 pm

Sir Rhodes Boyson (Brent, North) : I entirely support the Government's approach as it has been outlined today. The recall of Parliament is a constitutional issue, and it was right that Parliament should be recalled to discuss the events in the Gulf. It would have been remiss of us to fail to discuss the issue. Our serious debate has demonstrated the necessity and usefulness of the recall. Parliamentary democracy means that Ministers should be cross-examined by Opposition spokesmen and Back-Bench Members. Similarly, the Government must return to the House to be tested from time to time. That is an essential component of our constitution. There has been a debate throughout the country on the Government's policy. If the House does not meet, debate will be led by the media as if the House is redundant or even non-existent. In fact, the House sits for about nine months of each year to discuss many different issues, some of which are irrelevant to many people outside. When a major issue arises which is a challenge to the western world and its preservation, it would be thought by those whom we represent that if we did not meet our values would be shown to be different from theirs.

There are precedents for this recall. Military issues such as Suez, the Falklands and the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia--the third incident did not threaten British troops at the time--have led to Parliament being recalled. Parliament has been recalled because of sterling crises. We have assembled on recall during the summer recess because of Northern Ireland problems. We did so when faced with the three-day week. It would have been remiss of us not to have assembled on recall for today's debate.

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As others have said, there are those who look back to what was happening during the late 1930s. At that time I was a young schoolboy. In the later years of the war I served in the Royal Navy, and I continued to do so when the war had ended. Those in my generation will never forget the sanctions that did not work at the time of the invasion of Abyssinia. Sanctions were not introduced when the march into the Rhineland took place. The lessons of history must be learned. If we fail to learn them we shall be presented with the same lessons. Henry Ford may have described history as bunk, but history is a thread that runs through generations. We must remember that certain forms of behaviour bring certain responses.

The issue before us is not confined to ensuring that Iraq gets out of Kuwait. We are concerned also with the fall of Saddam Hussein. We must deal also with the chemical warfare capacity of Iraq and its threat to develop nuclear weapons. If these issues are not dealt with, we shall have to pay the penalty in future. That will be the price of failing to learn the consequences of appeasement in the 1930s. Until recently, there was talk of a peace dividend following the end of the cold war. Suddenly, we are faced with the threat of a hot war. I do not believe that human nature has changed since the events that took place in the Garden of Eden. Irrespective of whether one is an evolutionist or a creationist, human nature is the one thing that is static. We are faced with a fallen world. Communists and religious fanatics have tried to transform this world in one generation after another but have failed to do so. The lessons of history must be learned, because if we fail to work with the grain of human nature it will react against us. If a cat is stroked in one way it will purr, but if it is stroked in another it will growl. We must examine human nature and decide how to make it work. We must try to ensure that it does not growl, as it were, at what is being done to it.

The first task of Government is to ensure the preservation of the nation state against external attack. That task cannot be undertaken by an individual. The second task of government is to ensure the maintenance of the Queen's peace so that we can walk the streets of our country in security. Any country that cannot defend itself and cannot impose the Queen's peace upon its streets is not fulfilling its obligation to provide the basics for the nation.

We have been taught a lesson--that not only do we need to maintain a strong defence force to protect this country, but that we need to do so to help our friends. It is no good passing resolutions and emitting nothing but hot air--we need weapons, ships for a blockade, air cover and so on. I hope that the lesson has been deeply learnt not only in this House but in the country. We must not disarm ; we must maintain strong defences, both for our preservation and to play our part with our allies and with the United Nations to make life tolerable throughout the world. Dictators always say that they want to make life good, but it always becomes intolerable. Democracies try to make life tolerable, and the necessary components of that are the Queen's peace on the streets and the Queen's peace in external defence.

It was right to recall Parliament, because parliamentary democracy means that Ministers must be responsible to Parliament. The country would not understand if we did not debate the crisis here when it is being debated outside. We would be redundant, although I do not know whether we would be entitled to redundancy pay. We do not want

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the appeasement of the 1930s that my generation witnessed. Unless we learn the lessons of history, we will suffer.

It is evident from today's speeches and the way that the Government have worked with the United Nations, America and our allies, together with our own strength, that the lessons of the 1930s have been learnt, especially by Opposition Members. People listening to the debate today will say, "Thank goodness the House of Commons was recalled ; thank goodness it was so responsible in its support of the Government."

Mr. Dalyell : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could you tell us your intentions about 10-minute speeches tomorrow? Will sympathetic consideration be given to those hon. Members who, understandably, could not be called today but who have sat through the debate?

Mr. Speaker : Sympathetic consideration will certainly be given to those hon. Members who have sat through today's debate, but I regret that even then it is unlikely that I will be able to call all of them tomorrow. My sympathy is with them and I shall do my best.

Mr. Dalyell : What about 10-minute speeches?

Mr. Speaker : I look at each day as it comes. It is a fair to good bet.

9.17 pm

Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton) : There were some, both inside and outside the House, who suggested that the recall of Parliament might be unnecessary, that it might be unproductive, that it could be nit-picking and that it might even be divisive. On the contrary, those who have listened to and watched the debate--and the World Service is carrying the debate live and in full to those listening in Iran, Kuwait and the rest of middle east--will have found it sober, serious, valuable and worth while. It has been part of the way a true democracy deals with such serious events.

At the heart of the saga has been the remarkable and refreshing unity and solidarity of the world community in the face of such a breach of international law and of acceptable behaviour. The strength and purpose of the whole world, east and west, has been unprecedented, and notably it has included many in the Arab world who have rightly recognised the threat of brutal Iraqi adventurism. The United Nations has played--as it was always intended to do, but rarely has had the chance to do--the central part in dealing with this act of aggression. The fact that it has acted decisively and unanimously has produced order where there could so easily have been chaos. It has acted with speed and with measure to tighten effective sanctions against Iraq. In turn, that has strengthened its credibility and the credibility of international institutions.

I add my tribute to that of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to our United Nations ambassador Sir Crispin Tickell and his staff who did so much to make the United Nations' work so effective. It is also right that we pay tribute to the arduous work that has been put in by our ambassador in Kuwait and his staff in such appalling circumstances and to the ambassador in Baghdad and his staff.

It is important, and it does no harm at all, to reiterate just what was involved in the events that we are

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considering. I realise that, as a trickle of freed hostages deliberately manipulated by Baghdad dominates our headlines, there is a danger that they, rather than the act of aggression which engulfed them, will become the issue. We cannot allow the natural joy and relief at the reuniting of families to overshadow the illegality and indecency of their being held in the first place, and the continuing outrage that the men and the remaining women and children are still being held.

The naive and crude manipulation of the television screens of the world will, if we allow it to, divert attention from the way in which Iraq invaded the sovereign state of Kuwait on 1 August. Iraq invaded a friendly Arab nation state. Its troops pillaged it and now the Iraqi regime has annexed it. Iraq has forcibly held against their will thousands of foreign civilians, the uninvolved citizens of a dozen countries, and has compounded its flouting of international law which that represents by moving some of them to strategic locations in violation of even the Geneva convention's rules of war. It is instructive that that tactic brought condemnation even from among that small group of Arab friends that Saddam Hussein's regime has. Attracting condemnation is something that Saddam Hussein is used to, but to be attacked by Colonel Gaddafi for going too far is really some achievement.

There is no doubt that Kuwait was only the beginning of Saddam Hussein's ambition : an ambition which threatened most of his neighbouring states-- more, certainly, than just Saudi Arabia--and, in the process, threatened the whole world. To be the new super-power of the middle east, to be the military power and arbiter of events in that area. to have a stranglehold on the world's oil supply, was his obvious ambition, and that had to be stopped.

Saddam Hussein and his regime started, conducted and lost an eight-year- long war with Iran at the expense of 1.5 million casualties and unimaginable horror. They have not only manufactured and deployed chemical weapons but have used them first in the battlefield against Iran and then, when that war was lost, against their own Kurdish population. This is a man and a regime who eliminate internal opposition by a process called grass cutting, by which any potential opponents are mowed down. It has been reported that more than 120 senior army officers were executed simply for raising their voices against the invasion. This is a man and a regime whose contempt for civil and human rights has produced a society of such cruelty and barbarity that torture, terror and bribery are the only intruments for retaining power. This is a man and a regime who can make, and literally have made, the flesh creep.

The world watched, and at Halabja it even made the television screens, when the lethal gases were massacring the Kurds. But then trade mattered more than condemnation and punishment. The world watched as Farzad Bazoft, the journalist from the Observer, was murdered after a farce of a trial, but not one Iraqi diplomat was sent home. The world saw the nuclear triggers discovered at Heathrow and bits of the supergun emerge all over Europe, and heard the threats chemically to extinguish Israel, but the world went on trading and dealing with Saddam's Iraq.

There is a great and shared culpability in the world that a man and a regime of such an accepted capacity for evil were provided with the means to perpetrate their aggression. We must collectively share that awful

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responsibility for creating the monster which brought about this crisis. The weaponry which faces the multinational force in the Gulf and confronts British troops as well is not home grown. The tanks, rockets, warheads, chemical weapons, chemical plants and nuclear technology on which the Iraqis are still working have been imported. They all came from nations that knew where all that was going and the sort of regime to which it was going.

Over the years, Saddam Hussein has built up a network of companies and contacts with the active connivance of many Governments, in feeding weapons, technology and know-how to the military machine that has caused so much trouble. On "Panorama" the other night, we saw how a company based in this capital, the Technology and Development Group, operates openly and without restriction as an arm of the official Iraqi military procurement operation. Its tentacles spread to many other countries. Such operations should be stopped in Britain immediately and banned for good--in the same decisive way that the Iranian arms procurement office in London was closed two years ago. This whole episode must teach us--it is an expensive lesson- -that we must all take far greater care in future with the technology of death. The end of the cold war and the unique new collaboration between the Americans and Russians evident in the United Nations over the past few weeks should see the end of the cold war and the replacement of the apparatus of controlling strategic exports. We should complement the nuclear non-proliferation treaty with one covering chemicals and the deadly new high-technology weapons as well.

The debate has rightly reflected the wide range of views that exist in this country. It is proper that we should rejoice in one thing alone in this country. I refer to our right as free representatives of our people to give voice to our diverse views. Would that it were the same in Baghdad. Some right hon. and hon. Members and others outside say that we should enter Kuwait right away and use force to liberate it, and argue that only by military force will Saddam Hussein leave that country. They do so despite the declared view expressed last week by General Norman Schwarzkopf, the American commander in Saudi Arabia, that there will be no war unless the Iraqis attack, and that of the Saudi Defence Minister, who also commented last week that no offensive action will begin in Saudi Arabia.

If Iraq attacks, a response will have to be made. Any military threat must be met, resisted and repelled by the same world solidarity that we have already seen. However, let us be clear that a war in the Gulf would be a war such as the world has never seen before. Where there are chemical weapons and those mad enough, irrational enough or desperate enough to use them, there is no such thing as a "surgical strike". Where there are mustard gases and toxins such as sarin, tabun, and anthrax, the missiles to deliver them and the willingness to use them, there can be no such thing as a short, sharp conflict. Any war involving chemical weapons will bring suffering, casualties and death on a scale that we have not seen in a century, and which we had good reason to believe was outlawed for ever.

A war in the Gulf, or any conflict that is not started by Saddam Hussein or conducted clearly within the authority of the United Nations, could have incalculable and irreversible political consequences in a part of the world

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where future oil supplies might be the least of the resulting problems. Many right hon. and hon. Members drew attention to those political dimensions.

There are those who say that the troops should be pulled out, while simultaneously condemning the Iraqi aggression and recommending that everything should take place under UN control. However, it is an irrefutable fact that only the United States could have taken action on a scale sufficient to protect Saudi Arabia from the grave and imminent threat that it faced after the invasion of Kuwait, when it could have been immediately overwhelmed.

The United States and Britain, as well as the other 10 countries, have forces in the area because article 51 allowed, indeed dictated, that Saudi Arabia asked for and received international help. In the five weeks since the invasion no military action has been taken by any of the defending forces without the explicit backing of a resolution of the United Nations Security Council.

There are those who say ; do a deal--negotiate with Saddam Hussein. United Nations resolution 660 states that there should be negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait, but only when Iraq has withdrawn unconditionally from Kuwait. A few yards of territory, an island here or there, a part of an oilfield or some financial gesture would not force the aggressor to retreat and to learn that armed invasion and annexation do not pay, and should never pay. There are those who have preached ultra-caution, but the reality is that only relentless continuing pressure and an unremitting tightening of the sanctions until the Iraqis know that there is no way out, will produce a just outcome. The sanctions are working ; the noose is tightening ; the friends are deserting and we have to stick with that tactic until it works.

The majority of hon. Members here today reflect the vast majority in the country who believe that it is these unprecedented mandatory sanctions with the international solidarity that they represent and the pressure that they are putting and will continue to put on Saddam, that will bring about his defeat.

Quite rightly the debate today has also looked ahead. We must be constructive about what we can do now. In so doing we are right to remind ourselves that Saddam Hussein is not Iraq and Iraq is not Saddam Hussein. We cannot and should not write off 17 million subjugated Iraqi people for the crimes and perversions of their dictator and his cohorts.

Iraq is a terrorised, frightened, war-weary nation, but it is one where the germ of freedom and decency is still alive. There are people in Iraq--they must be remarkably brave and courageous peole--who represent an alternative to Saddam's regime. They must be encouraged and sent a signal from the world outside that their courage and sacrifice is worth while and that it is supported. The best way to send that signal is for the opposition leadership in exile to be given the same attention, recognition and moral support that we so willingly, rightly and successfully gave to the Walesas, the Havels and Sakharovs, when they fought for their freedom in eastern Europe. Our support would stiffen the resolve of those for whom opposition means risking liberty, sanity and all too often their lives and those of their families.

The world must also ensure, as so many hon. Members have properly said during the debate, that help is given to those countries paying the heaviest price for the United

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Nations campaign against Iraq. It is not merely the front-line states, like Jordan, with its appalling and urgent refugee problem, that we should be helping immediately and generously, but also Egypt, Syria and Turkey which are also paying the price. On top of those, and equally important, are the poorest countries on earth : Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and so many of the African countries where the oil price rise is yet another savage blow to an already dire condition. Above all, we must make it clear that our overriding objective in this whole exercise, after the liberation of Kuwait and the full release of all the hostages, is real stability in the middle east.

This rare display of unanimous United Nations support for international law must not be lost for ever, especially in a region which has for too long been a shop window for broken international laws.

After 1990--like Europe after 1989--the middle east will never be the same again. One feature brought out in many of the speeches today is the new, valuable and constructive role that has been played by the Soviet Union in the United Nations, alongside the United States of America. The future role of the Soviet Union in both Europe and the middle east will be a major factor in the outcome for both regions. It is a significant and historic step forward, which we should recognise and welcome.

Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have drawn attention to the way in which the world has now concentrated its concern on the part of the world affected by the invasion. That concern will not end ; it will not go away, however the matter is resolved--even after the defeat of Saddam Hussein. The message of our debate today has been clear enough : we stay tough, we stay cool, we stay united--because, for as long as Saddam Hussein threatens his neighbours, he threatens us all.

9.35 pm

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