House of Commons Hansard Debates for 11 Dec 1990

Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South) : It is with regret that I note in certain quarters of the House and elsewhere some weakening of the resolve to stand up to Saddam Hussein. Some people do not recognise that seeking to appease him is no guarantee of long-term peace in the middle east but a guarantee of further aggression by Saddam Hussein and other like-minded dictators.

In considering the long-term impact, we must recognise that this may well be the last opportunity to deal with Saddam Hussein without nuclear weapons. We are fortunate that in 1981 Israel sought to deactivate the nuclear reactor at Basra. Without that action by the

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Israelis we would be facing a dictator with a nuclear capability. Those who are unwilling to face the possibility of war in the middle east are giving encouragement to Saddam Hussein and in three or four years when he has a nuclear capability he may engage in further aggression.

Some hon. Members seek to draw comparisons between the events of 1967 and those of August 1990. In 1967 the United Nations troops left Sinai because Colonel Nasser asked them to do so as a prelude to attacking Israel. In 1967 Jordan attacked Israel. At that time none of Israel's neighbours recognised her right to exist and none had signed a peace agreement with her. In that year Israel was reacting to aggression and the threat of aggression, but Kuwait is a quite different situation.

Kuwait was a small state living at peace with its neighbours. It was a small, inoffensive country and it was attacked by Saddam Hussein to satisfy his aggressive ambitions. He engaged in an act of naked and uncalled-for aggression against a small state. Some people on the international scene seek to establish a link between the situation in Kuwait and the position of the Palestinians. That is quite wrong because the Palestinians are among the chief victims of the invasion of Kuwait. Thousands of expatriate workers in Kuwait suddenly discovered that they had to leave the country. Their remittances, which were essential to the economies of many small towns on the west bank of Israel, disappeared.

I visited Bethlehem in September and the mayor told me that 300 Palestinians from Bethlehem were working in Kuwaiti banks. With the equalisation of the Kuwaiti and Iraqi dinar, their bank accounts were worthless and their remittances to Bethlehem disappeared overnight. Apart from those 300, about 5,000 Palestinians from Bethlehem were working in Kuwait and were sending remittances every month. All that stopped after the events of August 1990 because their remittances, which were important to many Palestinian families, evaporated in the wake of the attack upon Kuwait.

One of the other chief victims of the invasion was the peace process itself. The PLO's initial support of the invasion of Kuwait took the ground from under the feet of people in Israel who had been arguing that there should be discussions between the Government of Israel and the PLO. When I was in Israel, I met members of the peace movement who said that they had been completely gutted by the reaction of the PLO. One of them told me that he had spent five years arguing with his colleagues in Israel for negotiations with the PLO because the PLO had changed. However, its acceptance of events in Kuwait showed that, despite its claims, the PLO has not changed. That has made it much more difficult for people in Israel who seek the path of peace by negotiation.

World calls for a peace conference in the middle east as the price for Saddam Hussein leaving Kuwait will provide an over-large fig leaf to cover Saddam Hussein's withdrawal. Such a conference linked to withdrawal from Kuwait would be used to maximise Saddam Hussein's prestige among the Arabs. Is it right to do that, or is it right to maximise his inconvenience?

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait involved not only aggression against a peace- loving country but, as we hear night after night, it involves pillage, rape, the destruction of Kuwait City and quite unacceptable crimes against humanity. So

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much damage has been caused that many years and billions of pounds will be needed to enable Kuwait to recover. It is not enough simply to ask Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. Those bloody hands which have destroyed buildings, families and lives must be punished and compensation must surely be paid for the damage that they have done. If we fail to ensure that Saddam Hussein leaves Kuwait humiliated and defeated, it is almost inevitable that elsewhere in the middle east thoughts will turn to the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against him. Saddam Hussein is an evil man and the soil of Iraq is drenched with the blood of 1 million people which he wantonly shed. No lives have been too precious and all have been affected by this man's evil. Apart from his actions in the Iran-Iraq war, he has indulged in a campaign of institutional barbarism in his own country. He has been willing to use chemical weapons against innocent Kurds and to engage in a campaign of intimidation against his political opponents. Nothing has been too mean or evil for him to contemplate, and the world must recognise that at some stage it will have to stand up to this evil monster, either now or later when he has nuclear weapons. In the 1930s the world could have stopped Hitler when he entered the Rhineland. In the 1990s it must stop Saddam Hussein because of his invasion of Kuwait.

7.58 pm

Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South) : We have heard some significant speeches expressing a wide variety of views, particularly from the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). Those outside the House should read my right hon. Friend's speech carefully--it was not a crafty speech, as one hon. Friend suggested, but one of great statesmanship.

I do not consider that I shall be compromised by voting with the Government today. I am a strong believer in the view that politics should cease at the water's edge. A majority of hon. Members have confirmed that our national interest is sustained by a substantial agreement. There will never be consensus in the House, in the country or in the international community, but we must seek substantial agreement on the sensible policy being pursued by the multinational force and the Governments whom it represents.

This is a timely debate. Like many hon. Members, I should prefer a peaceful resolution of the problem. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton said earlier, there is an overwhelming preference for achieving that objective by means of sanctions. But sanctions themselves, unrelated to the threat of force, will achieve nothing. Moral pressure and diplomacy unrelated to the possible use of force will simply be mocked by a man as cynical, manipulative, vicious and tyrannical as Saddam Hussein. We should not eschew the military option or the threat of military force. Military force may not be used, but the threat of it, resolutely applied, will, I hope, be sufficient to bring that regime to heel.

We should not expect our forces to wait indefinitely for sanctions to bring Saddam Hussein down. The multinational force and the coalition would probably not be sustained, economically or politically, for the length of time demanded by some of my hon. Friends. We should speak to our adversaries, but that does not mean that

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Saddam Hussein's arguments are necessarily legitimate. Some hon. Members have taken a rather too even-handed view in this debate, as though the man had some justification for his attitude and actions. If negotiation means reaching a point equidistant between two extreme views, I would oppose it. I also oppose the argument that we should throw him something to allow him to save face. That would be the wrong approach.

We have heard today arguments about the concept of a just war. Should all else fail and war break out, military action would not only have been underpinned by the United Nations, which is critical, but it would be a just war. It would not be a war to prop up the oil companies and to maximise their profits. It would not be a war representing some sort of collective blood lust on the part of those prepared to resort to it. It would not be to make the middle east safe for autocracy Gulf-style. It would not be a war to impose western imperialism.

In the past couple of hours we have heard a great deal of nonsense about Kaiser Bill, the re-establishment of white rule and the return to imperialism. The multinational force is not, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) implied, some sort of Anglo-Saxon conspiracy--it is infinitely more broad-based than that rather facile analysis would lead us to believe. Most of those hon. Members who intend to vote with the Government today have been accused of odious hypocrisy, and that is grossly unfair.

The aims of western and Muslim Governments are well known. It is not United Nations policy, but I firmly believe that, whether one uses the word compensation or the more controversial word reparation, that must be pursued, as well as the neutralisation, by military means or otherwise, of Saddam Hussein's offensive and war-making capability. That must be in conjunction with a peace conference to resolve the middle east crisis, and to strengthen the United Nations and international law. It is critical that every effort should be made to prevent the spread of the arms trade, which has been the source of so many problems.

We must keep up military pressure on Iraq. We must sustain the military build-up to give a signal to Saddam Hussein that, militarily as well as politically, his options are running out. We must work hard to prevent the fragmentation of the multinational coalition, and we must work hard to sustain international public opinion and the legitimacy of the United Nations.

Saddam Hussein is clearly successfully manipulating international opinion, using hostages first as a human shield, then releasing them in droplets and, finally, completely. He does not want compromise. He is stalling. He is hoping that the international coalition against him will tire, will be undermined by internal dissent and that the generals and the legions will go home, leaving him with his illegal profits.

Much has happened since our debate a few months ago. Both sets of forces are better prepared, but now there is a balance between them. Any thought of military action before now would have been folly beyond belief. The multinational force and commitment to it is holding, despite pressures from outside and inside. The greatest difference of all is United Nations resolution 673 of 29 November. I have spoken of Saddam Hussein's manipulation of the hostages and how sanctions are being applied with some effect.

If it ever comes to a conflict--I hope to God that it does not--I hope that we shall be successful. If we are not, if

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Saddam Hussein gains a military victory, should there be a military stalemate or a peaceful solution allowing him to retain his access to the sea, keep his armed forces intact, control Kuwait's oilfields, keep unchanged his country's military structure, expand his nuclear capability, develop his conventional weapons and further build up his conventional forces, that will be a disaster for us.

If Saddam Hussein wins, there will be a gaping international power vacuum. The United States will be completely discredited and will join the Soviet Union as an ex-superpower. It will be a green light to any predatory nation with a spurious territorial claim on a neighbour to settle it by invasion. If he is successful, the United Nations will be fatally weakened and the post cold war security order that has been so patiently set up will be destroyed.

Let us imagine what would happen if Saddam Hussein were successful. Who then in the middle east would stand up to him? It is unlikely that a coalition of Arab states would do so. He would be master of the region. He would be able to control the price of oil. I do not want the world economy to be determined in Baghdad. I do not want the price of oil and its rate of extraction and distribution to be decided by Saddam Hussein. It is not remotely immoral to stand up to Hussein because one is worried about the future of one's national economy and the world economy. Therefore, if war does take place, it will be justifiable. We are all aware of the disastrous consequences of war, but we should not forget the potential disastrous consequences of opting out.

There are many precedents for compensation or reparation. It has been suggested that it would cost more than $60 billion to rebuild Kuwait. How will one replace the destroyed infrastructure or compensate for the loss of life and misery that Saddam Hussein has perpetrated?

Finally, we should be worried about Saddam Hussein's nuclear strike potential. It might be apocalyptic to say that he would have some form of primitive device next week or next month, but to argue that it would take a decade or more would be deliberately to evade the facts. It is obvious that Iraq was planning to build three super guns with the help of Gerald Bull's design. It is obvious that Saddam Hussein has ballistic missiles, largely based on the SCUD--the Al Hussein with a range of 600 km, the Al Abbas with a range of 900 km, the Tammouz, with a satellite launch vehicle, with a possible range of 2,000 km, and the Al Abbad, also with a range of 2,000 km. When those are deployed in significant numbers, the Iraqis have a warhead capability which can take chemical and biological weapons. In a few years they will have nuclear warheads, and then we shall have to hold on to our hats. It is not merely alarmist to say that if war is inevitable it is better earlier than later. I do not want war--I want a peaceful solution.

History has frequently been cited in the arguments both for and against war. Hoare-Laval and Suez have been mentioned today and even the Cuba crisis was cited by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). However, the essence of the Cuba decision was that Khrushchev was faced down by Kennedy--he realised that Kennedy desperately meant it, and so withdrew. The lesson to be learnt is not that suggested by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, but that when western nations are seen to be desperately serious, that is when an adversary will back down.

I shall feel no guilt whatever about voting in the same Lobby as the Government today because in many ways we

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are on the same side. I hope very much that the national and international consensus will be sustained, and that diplomacy, sanctions and the threat of military force will be sufficient to bring about the withdrawal of Saddam Hussein's forces. If after three, six or nine months it is clear that sanctions have failed, the United Nations will have underpinned action which will be a last resort, but which may ultimately be necessary.

8.10 pm

Sir John Stokes (Halesowen and Stourbridge) : It is always a great pleasure to hear the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) speak about military matters, and I agree with much of what he said. Before I turn to the details of the Gulf problem, I want to let my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs know how much I, as a member of the WEU's defence committee, and my colleagues, I am sure, were delighted at his speech yesterday when he pointed the way to a much more important role for the WEU not only in Europe but outside it.

I was nostalgically interested in the speeches of a number of old colleagues this afternoon. We heard first from my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), whose views are wrong, in my opinion--but his was a powerful speech. I have known him for more than 50 years. The right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) spoke about the United Nations. I remember his speeches about the UN at the start of, during, and towards the end of the Falklands war--and, oh dear, what a dying fall they had. We heard also from the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), with whose views I also do not agree. But what fine fellows they all are, and were. The entire Gulf situation has been transformed recently by President Bush's offer to hold talks with the Iraqis. I doubt whether that will prove to be a wise move, and I fear that it is the result of pressures from the American peace movement. We have seen what powerful emotions can be stirred up by the pictures of hostages and their families on our television screens night after night. Those scenes only prove what a menace television can be to the true interests of the nation. The visits by senior politicians to Saddam were a grievous mistake because they only gave him added kudos. Now he realises that there is no more political capital to be made by continuing to hold hostages.

It is difficult to see what there will be to talk about, as Iraq appears to have no intention of withdrawing from Kuwait and making appropriate compensation for the appalling wrong and damage that it has done. I believe that Mr. Bush has felt compelled to offer talks with Saddam because of the growing peace movement in Congress and among the American public, yet if Saddam Hussein still refuses to withdraw, what can Mr. Bush do? He will be in a difficult position if Congress and the American people are unwilling for him to go to war. He must also miss the support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), who added so much backbone to the efforts of the United Nations and of Britain.

Saddam will try to prolong talks as long as possible, and will bring in the Palestinians if he can. We must not allow him to get off the hook for that reason, although I

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accept that the Palestinian problem must be solved as soon as possible after Saddam has been put in his place. If the United States fails to secure Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, Mr. Bush will have allowed aggression to go unpunished, and will also have fatally damaged his personal standing and the position of the United States as a great power. The fact that Iraq may soon have nuclear weapons adds to the awfulness of the prospect.

Iraq is a difficult terrain in which to fight. Many years ago I spent nearly a year in that country as a soldier, and I can tell the House that it is difficult to read a map there, let alone to fight. The climate is most disagreeable in summer and in winter. However, if Saddam does not withdraw, I believe, with the greatest reluctance, that war will become inevitable--awful though that thought may be. We have some difficulties with our own allies that certainly worry me. Syrian troops are not only deployed alongside British troops in Saudi Arabia but are crawling all over Lebanon and taking over the Christian enclaves. In a sense, the Christians have been thrown to the Syrian wolves, which shows the sadness of realpolitik in foreign affairs.

Can we allow aggression to succeed? I speak as someone who was willing and able to fight at the time of Munich. If appeasement wins, it will be a fearful blow to the United States, Britain, and our allies, and will deal a crushing blow to the United Nations and the Security Council--which for the first time in 40 years, with our alliance with the Soviet Union, has shown itself to be strong and united. Those are the difficult problems which confront the peace party and which people in this country, including some of our clergy, must also be brave enough to face. Therefore, I hope, albeit reluctantly, that our allies will strike and that their campaign will be short, sharp and successful--and as soon as possible after 15 January.

If we do not win this struggle, it will make the Munich agreement seem almost harmless by comparison. Aggression will have paid off, and the future of the world will be jeopardised, as will our new understanding with the Soviets. Saddam will become the strongest person and a hero in the middle east, and Israel--which has been mercifully quiet so far--will probably feel compelled to strike at him. The consequences of that happening are too awful to contemplate both for the middle east and the Arab nations, as well as for ourselves, the United States, and our allies. I repeat that, although I know how horrible war can be, if we cannot bring Saddam down by the middle of January, it will be the only solution to this appalling problem.

8.18 pm

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : Unlike the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Sir J. Stokes), I am thankful that there is televising of war situations, because by instantly knowing what is happening, the public can have at least some, albeit indirect and remote, say in what is done in their name.

I have sat on these Benches for more than 28 years, since the time of the foreign affairs debate that was opened by the late Hugh Gaitskell. I must tell my parliamentary colleagues that I have never been so concerned about anything as I am about what we are debating tonight. Saddam Hussein is in a position to bring down the temple with him. He may be starved of oil and short of munitions,

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but he has deep-mined some 300 Kuwait oil wells and is now able to detonate them. The truth is that none of us-- scientists, politicians or mining engineers--has any clear idea what may happen when oil wells are deliberately detonated. It is outwith human experience. There is every reason to believe that the emissions of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide will be on a scale that the earth has never seen before. According to the King of Jordan, a radius of about 750 km could be affected. That would be an ecological catastrophe. Therefore, we must ask ourselves whether our reaction is in proportion, whatever the outrage. If any hon. Member thinks that I am being fanciful, he should consider these words in the official Government newspaper, Al Jumhouriya, on 8 November. It said that Iraq threatened to turn the Arabian peninsula into ashes, and the Saudi oilfields into a sea of fire if attacked.

"The mother of all battles is nearer today."

Only Medina and Mecca will be spared.

"If the fire of aggression is unleashed against Iraq, flames will burn everything in every direction."

The newspaper said that sets of sealed orders existed in case of war.

Is that an idle threat? I fear that it is not. That fact may be uncomfortable, awkward and horrific, but nevertheless that is what we are facing. Any battle will be enormously difficult.

The hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge said that he had experience in a military capacity in Iraq. I am not claiming any great military experience, other than 21 months with the Desert Rats--with the gerbil on my shoulder sleeve, because it was the 7th armoured brigade. Anyone with remote knowledge of tanks, as tank crew, realises how difficult a battle will be in an oilfield. Among other things, have Ministers thought what will happen when tanks have to operate in the vicinity of high-pressure oil pipes? That is a real problem--as is sand.

Last Tuesday, with about 60 or 70 of my parliamentary colleagues--mostly members of the Government party--I attended a lecture given in Committee Room 14 by General Colin Powell. I shall reproduce the question that I asked and General Powell's answer. I told General Powell that, as a member of the minority who did not believe that any successful military victory was to be had, I did not doubt his sincerity in preferring peace to war. I asked him about the figures, with which I have now bored the House on five occasions, from King Hussein's speech about carbon dioxide. That afternoon reference had been made by our Defence Minister to a short, sharp and quick war. I asked General Powell whether he contemplated the use of nuclear weapons. In the hearing of many hon. Members--I do not think I am being inaccurate--General Powell said that he would take my second question first and that he did not contemplate the use of nuclear weapons, but he could not rule out any advice that he might offer to the President of the United States. I think that it would be fair to say that every parliamentary colleague in that room realised that if things were not going right for the Americans and the allied forces, there would be a possibility of nuclear weapons being used. That is horrific. If nuclear weapons were used by white westerners against Arabs, no hon. Member can fail easily to imagine what the reaction in the Arab world would be, even among those who hate Saddam Hussein. General Powell then turned to my first question. He seemed to accept the King of Jordan's figures, and added

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that I had better understand that trenches had been

dug--incidentally, that has been confirmed by satellites--and that oil is pumped into the trenches, which means that there could be canals of fire. General Powell also said that it would be difficult for his tanks to go through canals of fire. As former national service tank crew, I can only echo that view. Those are the sort of problems that we are up against.

One can say all sorts of things about Saddam Hussein, but I was interested by Sir Brian Urquhart's Montague Burton lecture in Edinburgh. He said that we might find it hard to take the idea of Saddam Hussein as the self-styled champion of the underprivileged, but that that view had a lot of takers. That is an uncomfortable fact, but we have to live with it.

I promise to be brief, and I shall now address my remarks to my own Front- Bench spokesmen--something that I have hardly ever done. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) spoke about the United Nations. In many circumstances I would be bound to agree with him. However, I have a severe streak of doubt. I had the privilege to be chosen by Mr. Speaker to lead the parliamentary delegation to Zaire two weeks ago. We met the Foreign Minister of Zaire. He was full of the fact that earlier in the week he had had a long session with James Baker--Zaire happens to be a member of the Security Council. We asked him why Zaire had lined up with the Americans. He was quite clear that it had nothing whatever to do with rights and wrongs in the middle east. For perfectly understandable civil rights reasons, the Americans had decided that they would not give aid to the hard-pressed Government of President Mobutu, but because Zaire had obliged the Americans in the United Nations, lo and behold, United States aid to Zaire would flow once more.

I suspect that the same may be true of the Ivory Coast and other countries. I was not satisfied with the answer that I was given earlier by the Foreign Secretary in regard to Yemen. The Yemeni people are nearest to the crisis and they have something to lose, but they voted against. It was no good the Foreign Secretary asking me whether I did not know that Cuba is some way from Zaire, as that was no answer. The issue concerns Yemen.

I must also ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton about the Labour party conference. For the first time I was sitting in the rows of seats for constituency delegates. I remember the occasion well. My colleagues may correct me if I am wrong, but in the delegate section of the conference it was the general impression that we were concerned about sending air force and naval units for the protection of Saudi Arabia. We were not conscious that we were about attacking Iraq and liberating Kuwait. I suspect that the party goalposts have been changed. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton thinks that I am wrong, doubtless I shall be told, but I do not think that I am.

Angus McGrouther, professor of plastic surgery, who helped to treat soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war, said :

"Casualties likely to arise from a war in the Gulf would rapidly exhaust the facilities available in military hospitals. Even health service facilities to treat burns and major injuries would be fully occupied within days or weeks. Hard choices will need to be made about the priority of different patients."

I wonder whether in the reply to the debate we can be told about the hospitals and treatment.

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I intervened in the speech of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). He is so right. There is confusion between dialogue and appeasement and we must embark upon dialogue. 8.30 pm

Sir Alan Glyn (Windsor and Maidenhead) : I do not often agree with the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), but tonight I do. Any war would be ghastly and horrible. Also, I was fortunate enough to listen to General Powell. The House should be indebted to him for giving us such a marvellous dissertation.

The debate serves two purposes. First, it brings home to the British people what a dangerous situation the nation is facing. In fact, I think that it is probably more dangerous than 1939 because the conflict in 1939 was on our doorstep, but this one is a long way away and is not seen as being as immediately dangerous to them. Secondly, the speeches in tonight's debate serve as a signal to Saddam Hussein that we intend to go forward with our allies and bring his aggression to an end. Of course, we all hope that it will be a peaceful conclusion.

The weapons that may be used in the conflict are far worse than those used in the second world war, with the possible exception of those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The weapons are horrific and I am certain that there will be many casualties in a war such as this. The debate could be entitled, "The Rape of Kuwait". Like most rapes, it cannot be repaired, but compensation can be exacted from those responsible-- [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : Order. Will the hon. Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Sir A. Glyn) continue with his comments?

Sir Alan Glyn : We are all pleased to see that the hostages have been released, but one wonders why they were liberated. Was it to gain time, or was it for some other reason? We do not know. However, I am sure that the House is glad that they have been brought home safely.

It is important that we adhere to the United Nations resolutions. We have to see this conflict through. We have one of the most powerful forces that has ever been raised in a limited area and it has the most devastating weapons. One only hopes that they will not have to be used. The hon. Member for Linlithgow talked about what General Powell said, but we all hope that it will not come to that. We do not know--my hon. Friend the Minister may know--the comparative strength of the two sides in the military terrain and the weapons that Saddam Hussein has in his arsenal. There are many ways of finding out approximately but when it comes to war it is difficult to estimate the balance. All wars are horrible. Mention has been made of the weapons used in Vietnam. I fought in Vietnam, and it was not very pleasant. However, it was nothing like what I imagine a war in the Gulf would be like.

There must be no possibility of our giving in to the dictator. Although we hope that there will be a peaceful solution, whatever hon. Members think, we have the authority to use whatever means we need to stop Hussein. That is useful. I hope that the means that we have discovered--this international force--can be developed and used not only in Kuwait but anywhere else in the

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world where it may be necessary. I hope that in any conflict involving factors of this nature it may be used. Britain, together with the Americans and our other allies, could form a force, perhaps with NATO, that could be used as a world peace force. That would be a great step forward. Perhaps the war can bring with it some lessons of international co-operation and working together for the sake of peace.

As many of my hon. Friends have said, we must not allow Saddam Hussein to get away with or gain anything. The damage that he has inflicted and the casualties that he has caused must be paid for. I see no reason why he should not be forced to pay for them. This is not because of a greed for oil or the profits made by oil companies. However, hon. Members on both sides have said that oil is essential in this century whether it be for the peasant in India, the factory in Leeds or elsewhere. We must not allow Hussein to become a sort of king of the middle east able, as one hon. Member said, to dictate the price of oil.

Whatever the conflict brings, we have to look at the aftermath and what is to be done. Obviously the problems in Israel and Jordan have to be solved and we have to encourage the Arabs to work out a peaceful solution to the problems in the middle east after we have accomplished our task. I hope that the international armed forces will be able to maintain their determination. However, armies do not like sitting doing nothing. One danger is that Saddam Hussein may realise that our armed forces are perhaps getting bored. I hope that we shall be able to find a peaceful solution rather than having to go to war.

Sir Jim Spicer : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The unfortunate interruption just now is bad enough in itself. However, when five hon. Members applaud such action and, thereby, encourage it, one can envisage the headlines tomorrow morning.

Madam Deputy Speaker : The headlines are made larger by points of order of that nature.

8.38 pm

Mr. Ken Livingstone (Brent, East) : There is no doubt that my position is the same as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and as expressed in the early-day motion. I am opposed to a war in the Gulf and I am specifically deeply disturbed at the danger that we face as we give a blank cheque to an American-led assault some time after 15 January. I shall be voting against the Adjournment because I do not want in any way, by silence, omission or vote, to give any encouragement to the Government to think that they can continue propping up American policy and carrying on a long tradition of being dragged along in the wake of the United States like some poodle yapping its chorus of support for American interests round the globe.

I profoundly disagree with those Members who, however sincerely they hold the view, say that the crisis is not about oil. From the opinion polls in Britain and in America, there is not the slightest doubt that the overwhelming majority of people realise that this is about oil, wealth and power. It is not a defence of a small country from some nasty, oppressive neighbour. Over the past 40 years, we have seen endless examples of aggression and of crossing borders which, in some instances, have been supported by the United States. In some instances, the United States has acted with our complicity, as was the

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case with Suez. It ill behoves the United States now to adopt the mantle of an international judge dispensing peace and brotherly love ; it is a cover for its own financial interests.

Early in the evolution of the conflict, I was especially struck by a statement from the Iranian news agency, which is not a body with which I normally find myself in agreement. The agency said that Frankenstein's monster had turned on his creator. The Iranians were reminding us that Saddam Hussein, his Government and his state have been a creature of western interests for a long time. Evidence has been provided by King Hussein of Jordan that when Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party came to power in Iraq it had the support of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA gave Saddam Hussein death lists of activists, trade unionists and members of the communist party because it saw Saddam Hussein as an instrument through which to destroy the Iraqi communist party--which he did with total ruthlessness. Throughout the war between Iraq and Iran there was wholehearted support by the United States--sometimes covert and sometimes not so covert--for Iraqi aggression against Iran. When Iraq launched an unprovoked assault against Iran, where was the condemnation by the United Nations? The United Nations was prevented from acting by America's veto. America assisted both through the supply of arms and through the passing to the Government of Iraq of spy satellite photographs showing the disposition of Iranian forces.

I can imagine what Saddam Hussein felt when he decided to invade Kuwait. He must have thought, "They did not object when I did it to Iran, so why should they object when I do it to Kuwait?" That is the logic. In one sense, Saddam Hussein is a creature of the west. He has paid his dues to the west and he has carried out the interests of the west in attacking Iran when we saw Iran as the great danger. Now he has turned on his creator.

Even with Saddam Hussein's more recent abomination--the assaults on his own Kurdish minority, when his gas weapons killed them by the thousands--the United States threatened to use its veto in the United Nations to prevent it from condemning Iraq. One of the western satellites and puppets of the imperial interests of the United States is embarrassing its creator, turning on its creator and getting too big for its boots. We can only understand the debate about what has been happening over the past five months when we see matters in that international perspective.

I was amazed today. I listened to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) and, for the first time in my life, I agreed with every sentence that he uttered. I wished that he had gone one sentence further and said that the logic of his position would lead him to vote against the Adjournment, and that he would join us in the Lobby tonight. However, he made a fine speech which pointed out the nonsense and the dangers that we now face.

My right hon. Friend reminded the House that sanctions would need a year to work. He reminded us that the sanctions would destroy 43 per cent. of the gross national product of Iraq, which would be a massive assault. Such an impact would be likely to lead Saddam Husseim to withdraw. Yet we are told by America, which is exerting pressure at the United Nations, that it wants clearance for an attack on Iraq and that it wants to be able to move. Why is that? It is because there is an insufficient

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domestic base of support for George Bush's policies. American public opinion does not support the prospect of war and the support is eroding.

We are told by independent commentators that President Bush could not get a vote for war through his House of Representatives. It is nice to think that the House of Representatives would at least be allowed a vote on whether to go to war. I sometimes think that this House has one or two things to learn from the procedures in other Parliaments.

We are also told that the Americans must move because sanctions are not working quickly enough. Why is that? The reason is that American corporations are leading the sanctions-busting. We are told by the President of the United States that we may have to lose the lives of young people in our armed forces who are stationed in the middle east because the Americans cannot impose the discipline of sanctions on their own multinational corporations. Why should young people from this country be butchered in a war that is the consequence of the failure of the Americans to carry the support for sanctions of their own business community? We are supporting sanctions. Why cannot President Bush get his own large, multinational corporations to ensure that the sanctions work? It is an obscenity that, because corporate America will not co-operate, we are now under accelerating pressure for a military solution in the Gulf. That is why there has been pressure on the United Nations.

What a weasel-worded way of proceeding there has been. The Americans have not had the courage to put down a motion saying, "We want authorisation for a military strike against Iraq." They have used the term "other means" so that they can get the support of Gorbachev and of others. While the Government here can say, "This does open the way for the use of a military strike", Gorbachev can say, "It means that the Americans will do everything but launch a military strike." Let us have some honesty about the proposal. We know full well that if America had proposed a resolution using the words "military force", it would have been vetoed. The weaselly evasion has dominated much of the debate, with people saying one thing while meaning another. That is why I regret the fact that we shall not have a specific and clear vote tonight. Why do not the Government have the courage to table a motion calling for support for an armed strike after 15 January? The reason is that they do not want to fracture the fragile alliance. They want to minimise opposition and they want to allow hon. Members to say only, "I am opposed to that."

I should like to think that, when the Secretary of State for Defence speaks tonight, he will have the honesty and integrity to say that if the House votes for the Adjournment, when he is talking about it in public he will say, "We won the backing of the House of Commons for military action after 15 January." If he is not prepared to say that on the Floor of the House, he has no right to say it outside the House either nationally or at international conferences. We will press him on that point.

Many Members who are undecided about how to vote tonight want to know how the Government will interpret their vote. Let us hear how the Government will interpret the vote before hon. Members go into the Lobby. I am prepared to give way now to the Secretary of State for Defence if his integrity pressures him to feel that he wants to intervene to make the Government's position clear.

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What is the real reason for war? It is not to uphold the law or to defeat aggression, and it is certainly not to build a new world order. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield said, war will be about re-establishing the old imperial order of the 19th century. With the weakened position of the Soviet Union, the imperial powers seek to regain some of the ground that they have lost. If any of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench doubt that--and I was much moved by the oratory and charm of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman)--I must point out that The Wall Street Journal carries more influence in the White House than Labour Members do when they speak in the House. My right hon. Friend should read The Wall Street Journal, which is the paper of capitalism. It is honest about its aim. It does not talk about defending poor Kuwait or about defeating Iraqi aggression, but about re-establishing western control over vital international resources. We are told now that we shall prop up America in this campaign. We can look back over decades of aggression led by America and over decades of the Americans breaking international law. We think of the illegal invasion of Cuba in 1961, of the illegal complicity in the assassination of President Lumumba in the Congo, which is now Zaire, and of the invasion of the Dominican Republic to overthrow a democratically elected Government who were barely social democratic, but who were perceived as a threat by the United States. I refer also to the illegal bombing of Cambodia, the assassination of 6,000 people in South Vietnam by the CIA because they were believed to be agents of North Vietnam, the invasion of Grenada, and the arming of Israel in 1982--a massive increase in American armaments to prepare Israel for its illegal invasion of Lebanon. There was no condemnation of that. When we saw America condemned by the world court, where was its defence of the rule of international law? When the world court ruled against it for the illegal mining of the harbours of Nicaragua, it refused to comply with the judgment. Those people are not fit to determine how the world is organised.

There is no denying that Saddam Hussein is a vile, despicable and brutal leader, and I look forward to his overthrow by his own people. However, in terms of global politics he is the local mugger on the block. One does not bring in the local mafia to deal with the mugger on the block. America's record over the decades is infinitely worse. It is a record of sustained oppression. My vote tonight will demonstrate that the people who sent me here did not intend that I should simply play the role that has been part of British politics in the past 40 years--tagging along with America.

It is striking that the nations that have built successful and dynamic economies have held back from the conflict. The two leading protagonists, America and Britain, think that they can easily divert the attention of their peoples from their mismanagement of their economies to foreign adventures. That will not work. It will not be the quick surgical strike that people are talking about. It is the gravest threat that the world has faced since the Vietnam war was at its height.

I urge all hon. Members to make their commitment clear. They cannot go into the Aye Lobby and argue that

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it was a vote for peace in the Gulf. It is a vote to carry on the policy of subordinating Britain and its interests to the United States of America, and it is time we said no.

8.51 pm

Mr. Harry Ewing (Falkirk, East) : I promised my colleagues that I would not take too much time because one or two other hon. Members want to speak.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) that we should be debating another motion because our position at the end of this debate will be farcical. The Government opened the debate by moving,

"That this House do now adjourn."

When the Division is called, the Government will vote against their own motion. If they vote for the Adjournment of the House, the rest of tonight's business will fall. People outside simply do not understand the procedures that the House of Commons adopts on such great occasions. It would have been far better to debate a motion which could have been the subject of an amendment. We would then have known clearly where we stood.

I voted in the Aye Lobby in the September recall. I shall explain what I explained to my constituency Labour party on the Thursday night following that vote. I supported the actions that had been taken until that time. I made it clear that, if the position changed, I reserved my right to change my view. The position has changed. It has moved on dramatically, and we are now on the brink of war. Whatever else may be said, I am the first to concede that, in a moderate speech today, the Foreign Secretary made it abundantly clear to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) that the Government considered that they had a mandate to take the country to war without further reference to the House of Commons. That is untenable and I will not support it, and I urge my colleagues not to support it. We should not place the Labour party in such a position. The Secretary of State for Defence will no doubt talk about the need to preserve the coalition. The coalition has a far better chance of survival through the operation of sanctions than it will have if we go to war. What is the composition of forces presently in the Gulf? They are from Syria, Egypt--even some mujaheddin--Britain, France and America. No one can tell me that the Syrian forces are going to go to war. The Egyptians will not go to war. Francois Mitterrand is already making it clear that there are serious doubts whether the 5, 000 French troops in the Gulf will be committed to conflict. The coalition will not survive ; it will flounder on war alone. The Secretary of State for Defence had better understand that the best chance of survival for the coalition is the imposition and preservation of sanctions, not war.

In an earlier intervention I asked whether there are contingency plans in the Ministry of Defence for the reintroduction of conscription. No one has given thought to the continuing troop commitment in the Gulf even after the conflict is over. We have seen the continuing commitment that we need in the Falklands. We have commitments in Ireland. We will continue with commitments in the Gulf states after the conflict is over. No one has given any thought to that question. We have had no comment and no analysis of the required continuing commitment.

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