House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 Jan 1993

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what the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) said. The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North -East (Mr. Campbell), who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, made one of the best speeches in the debate. We simply cannot continue tit-for-tat indefinitely. The Foreign Secretary has my sympathy and, in most respects, he also has my support because I realise how difficult it must be to deal with a regime that is entrenched in suppression, torture and extermination.

We should be working through the United Nations in the best interests of all the people of Iraq for greater stability in the region so that acts of war, military actions, can cease and some kind of dialogue can begin. I do not rule out more action, but we must try to persuade Saddam Hussein to accept the decisions of the international community authorised by the Security Council. He must promise to stop actions against his own people in the north and south or elsewhere in Iraq. If he can be brought to those terms, some dialogue must be initiated.

To bring additional pressure on him, I urge the Government and the coalition allies greatly to improve and strengthen their communications, links and dialogue with the democratic organisations which represent various groups of Iraqi people in capitals around the world. That should be used far more effectively than it has hitherto to bring pressure to bear on Saddam's regime.

Our support can be based only on that kind of approach ; on legitimate decisions, actions and objectives agreed internationally in the United Nations. The sad fact is that the United Nations is currently overloaded with demands. It is weak, underfunded, under-resourced and overstretched. Support for the Secretary-General is nowhere near sufficient to enable him to respond to the demands that are continually heaped upon him and his staff.

I hope that we will see a change in the Government's attitude towards support for the United Nations. Perhaps I had better reiterate that I am a strong supporter of the United States of America, and certainly of that country's newly elected President. However, we cannot allow the United Nations to be denied subscriptions from the USA on the one hand and to be persuaded to take military action in lieu of those subscriptions on the other. We should not accept that kind of pressure on the United Nations. I hope that problem can be tackled--as we intend to tackle it in our developing dialogue with the new Administration in Washington. [Hon. Members :-- "Oh."] I am not surprised by the looks of amazement on the faces of Conservative Members, but it is clear that they do not have many friends in the new Administration. Any hope that they had of a flying start was rather derailed by the kind of person and the nature of the campaigning ideas that they sent to support President Bush in the American elections.

Mr. Mans : So that we may get the record straight, will the hon. Gentleman say how many other nations that are members of the United Nations are not up to date with their subscriptions?

Dr. Cunningham : Yes, I regret to say that the number is large. I am not suggesting that the problem is only with the United States of America. I am merely urging the Foreign Secretary to start taking action to resolve the general

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underfunding of the United Nations. I do not for one moment suggest that the fault is wholly that of the United States of America. Before I conclude, I want to mention the circumstances of Paul Ride and Michael Wainwright, who were arrested and are being arbitrarily detained, having committed no crime other than to wander innocently over the border into Iraq. Again, that is an illustration of the nature of the regime that we must face and with which we must try to deal.

I have discussed their case with the Foreign Secretary on more than one occasion, and I know that he is acting consistently on behalf of those two men. I urge him again tonight to redouble his efforts to seek the safe release of those two British subjects--as my hon. Friends the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) have consistently done.

We have never pretended from this Dispatch Box that the problems are easy to resolve. We do not suggest now that the solutions are simple. However, there is, or appears to be, a lack of any coherent strategy towards resolving the problems of Iraq and of securing greater stability in the whole region.

We urge the right hon. Gentleman and the Cabinet to adopt a change of course in that regard if, and only if, the commitments that I have spelt out can be secured from Saddam Hussein. If they cannot, and if Saddam Hussein persists with threatening the coalition forces and with acts of genocide against his own people, we shall be as authoritative as anyone in calling for continued action against his regime.

I hope that Saddam Hussein will listen to reason. That would be the best outcome for everyone--including, I regret to say, Saddam Hussein himself, to whom I offer no sympathy or support at all. Neither does anyone sitting on the Opposition Benches. If Saddam Hussein will not listen to reason, he should be left in no doubt that the will and authority of the international community must be made to prevail. That will and authority, based on Security Council decisions, will have our implacable support.

9.34 pm

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd) : The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) for his concluding words.

The debate has two perfectly respectable parents--the Royal Air Force and the Gulf--but it has emerged as a mongrel. I apologise to hon. Members who have raised points related specifically to the RAF. I shall ensure that they are answered by Defence Ministers, as has been requested.

I wish to respond to the part of the debate that, as it were, intruded on the original debate. I have been present for most of it, but I missed two speeches that were clearly outstanding--those of the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson). I did hear some exceptional speeches, however, including the shrewd contributions of my right hon. Friends the Members for Guildford (Mr. Howell) and for Bridgwater (Mr. King), and the eloquent tirade of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn).

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I do not think that there is any serious doubt or confusion about our objectives in dealing with Iraq. We have three : to maintain the integrity of Kuwait ; to eliminate the threat of Iraqi nuclear and chemical weapons ; and, as far as we can, to deter Saddam Hussein from attacking the Kurds and Shias who live within the frontiers of Iraq. Those aims have two things in common : they are all underwritten by the United Nations, and an attempt has been made to undermine all three in the past fortnight.

The underwriting by the United Nations is clear. The first objective--the maintaining of Kuwait's sovereignty--is contained in UN resolutions 678 and 687. The second, relating to nuclear, biological and chemical missile capabilities, is dealt with in resolutions 687 and 707, which authorise the inspection teams. The third is contained in resolution 688, which demands a stop to repression of the Iraqi civilian population. Resolutions 706 and 712 are sometimes forgotten, but they could become important again. They allow the sale of oil to finance humanitarian relief, including relief for the Kurds. As I have said, each of those objectives has been threatened in the past few weeks. Let us take the first, the integrity of Kuwait. On the Kuwait border, Saddam Hussein sent organised armed teams into what is now legally Kuwait to retrieve Silkworm missiles. He refused to return the missiles, and failed to evacuate police posts in the demilitarised zone by the deadline set by the Security Council. As for the second objective, relating to nuclear and chemical weapons facilities, Saddam did what he has done before. He presented several obstacles, and sought to impose several conditions, to prevent the UN Special Commission from carrying out its appointed task. He refused to allow UN Special Commission flights to enter Iraqi territory, and placed restrictions on the use of aircraft and helicopters inside Iraq.

As for the third objective, Saddam deployed missiles threatening coalition aircraft in the no-fly zone. In the north, Iraqi forces repeatedly harassed and attacked humanitarian convoys taking much-needed food and medical supplies, forcing them to be temporarily suspended.

Why was the effort made, quite suddenly, to undermine all three of the objectives of our policy, which were underwritten by the United Nations? I do not believe that Saddam Hussein is a madman, but he is certainly a gambler. He thought that he could gamble on what he perceived as a moment of uncertainty and weakness in the west because of the end of the current United States Administration. He was wrong, and it was desperately important to prove him wrong. That sums up the point of the action that has been taken in the past few weeks. If Saddam's challenge had gone unanswered, hewould have gained a substantial advantage in the world. Our aims would have been put at risk, and our friends including some who, perhaps a little belatedly now that President Bush is out of the way, have expressed criticisms--would have been the first to evince nervousness and apprehension, and to suggest that we had begun to lose our nerve and desert our objectives.

I am sure that it was right to respond legally and proportionately, and the result has been that, for the moment, the wrongdoing and undermining have stopped. The news today is not all about peace--I readily acknowledge that- -but the UNSCOM flight has now arrived in Baghdad with United Nations personnel

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aboard. We shall have to see how those United Nations representatives are treated and how they are able to operate when they get going.

As the House has heard, there has been an incident in the northern zone today, in which Iraqi radar may have locked on to a coalition aircraft resulting in that aircraft firing a missile. That incident is very recent and the facts have not yet been fully established. I mention it to the House to show how careful one has to be if one is to ensure that the pause for which we hope is sustained.

The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) and others have referred to the legal position. I believe that, unlike Saddam Hussein, we have paid scrupulous attention to international law. In response to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), I would say that we believe, and we are advised, that we have acted throughout in accordance with the charter-- which is not always the same thing as specifically acting under a specific resolution. Hon. Members will know of that important distinction, which has always been sustained. We have to operate within international law ; we intend to do so, and have done so.

Mr. Benn : Can the Foreign Secretary tell the House whether, in all the recent cases, Boutros Boutros Ghali was brought in to the consultation before the military action was taken, as he made no statement after the first bombing? We were told today that he had retrospectively endorsed it, but was he consulted by President Bush and the British and French Governments before the decision to take that action was made?

Mr. Hurd : I cannot, without notice, give the right hon. Gentleman the dates of the contacts between the western Governments and the Secretary -General, but those contacts have been consistent and continuous. The right hon. Gentleman is clutching at straws. He knows perfectly well that, when the Secretary-General has been given the opportunity, he has made his views known very specifically in support of the action. The right hon. Gentleman is on to an entirely false point.

The coalition and its permanent representatives in New York made clear to Iraq the basis for the no-fly zone : indeed, that has been clear to Iraq for a long time. The zone was created as a result of Iraq's failure to comply with resolution 688. The House has discussed this before and hon. Members will be aware that we believe that the no-fly zones are fully justified in international law by the need to protect people whom they own Government will not protect or who, as in this case, are repressed by their own Government. The right of self-defence flows from that assumption and that action.

We also believe that the action against Iraq's nuclear facilities was fully in accordance with international law. In its statements of 8 and 11 January the Security Council--whose statements have to be approved unanimously-- determined that Iraq's actions, such as the obstruction of UNSCOM flights, were material breaches of resolution 687, the resolution that established the formal ceasefire. In those circumstances, other parties to the conflict in the Gulf have the right in international law to take necessary and proportionate measures to ensure that Iraq complies with the terms of the ceasefire. I believe that we acted in accordance with internaional law, and we will continue to do so.

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Mr. Harry Barnes : Was the bombing of Baghdad really justified because there were logistical problems involving United Nations observers having to travel through Jordan to get to Baghdad instead of flying through the no-fly zone? That is what it amounted to at that stage.

Mr. Hurd : There was a great deal of discussion with the Iraqis on that point in New York. What became perfectly clear--not the first time but the second time, because we gave the Iraqis a pause on this matter--was that the Iraqis' aim was to impose conditions and to put the United nations teams in a position in which they flew by grace and favour of Saddam Hussein. That is contrary to the United Nations resolution and to the statements of the Security Council to which I have just referred. That was the aim. What the actual condition suggested was of secondary importance. The aim was to remove the unconditional right of the United Nations teams to operate to show the world that the threat of nuclear and chemical weapons had been removed.

The hon. Member for Tottenham made a sincere speech. However, I ask him to consider his line of thought that the world and the west are manipulating the United Nations against Muslims. I ask him to think about Afghans, Somalis and Kuwaitis who have been helped in recent years, at some sacrifice to others, by the international community. They are Muslims, and injustices do not simply affect Muslims. The world is full of injustices against all people. I hope that the hon. Member for Tottenham will pause before he pursues that line of argument.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raised a specific point about the relationship between Customs and Excise and the Department of Trade and Industry. As the hon. Gentleman would expect, I must say that that issue will fall to the Scott inquiry. However, the hon. Member for Linlithgow should bear in mind the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer) that our reputation among the Iraqis, who were in a position to know, was not of looseness but of tightness in comparison to others in respect of administering controls.

Mr. Dalyell : The problem arises when one part of the Government, the Customs and Excise, does the enforcing while another part of the Government lays down the policy. If the enforcers--the Customs and Excise-- do not know, as is claimed, what happened in DTI negotiations, that makes justice impossible.

Mr. Hurd : I am aware of the hon. Gentleman's coherent point. However, the question clearly falls within the remit of the Scott inquiry and I will not deal with it tonight.

We have heard much from some Opposition Members about the imminent collapse of the coalition. I would take that point more tragically if I had not heard exactly the same prophecies over and again in our debates during the Gulf war. We did not have a debate in which I was not solemnly informed by newspapers or by Opposition Members that the whole thing was coming apart, that everyone was deserting, and that it was only the majority on the Conservative Benches who were sustaining the policy. That is nonsense.

Of course, misgivings have been expressed and I do not complain about that. That is natural enough when the situation is fast moving and decisions have to be taken.

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However, as I have said, those misgivings would have been much greater if we had sat back and done nothing and allowed events to unfold without any reaction. People would then have been disturbed. The coalition would then really have begun to come unstuck. I want now to consider double standards, but only briefly because I will not be able to do it justice. The issue of double standards loomed in the debate, as it looms in criticisms, particularly from the Muslim world. Hon. Members on both sides of the House who are close to the Muslim world quite rightly reflected the issue in their speeches.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations told me last week that there are about 25 points of conflict in the world. Are we to do nothing because we cannot do everything? We cannot be content with many of those points of conflict. We must exert ourselves, but we must exert ourselves in different ways according to the different natures of the conflicts.

In that regard, I will mention only one conflict because reference has been made to it and because it is the other big conflict in the middle east. That problem is the plight of the Palestinians. We need to demand action from Israel on that matter. The deportations are illegal and a menace to the peace process.

I have already explained my view about the matter in person to the Foreign Minister of Israel. When he meets the Foreign Ministers of the Twelve on 1 February, we will have an opportunity to ram that point home, unless, as I hope, a solution to the problem has been found by then. We believe that the deportations are not simply wrong, but, as has been said, are a serious mistake, even allowing for the provocation of the killing of Sergeant Major Toledano.

Even today, we are trying to help. In response to a request that we have received, we will tell the parties concerned that, if they can agree on a further humanitarian visit by the Red Cross to those who have been deported, RAF helicopters from Cyprus will be available to help as necessary, provided that we can be satisfied about the security aspects of the operation. This is a small but important example of the way in which, because we are there, because we are skilled, because we are willing, we can quite quickly help to unravel and defuse a situation.

I should like to mention the plight of Mr. Ride and Mr. Wainwright--

Several Hon. Members rose --

Mr. Hurd : I will give way to the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross).

Mr. Ernie Ross : I appreciate that the Foreign Secretary has many areas to cover and many points to make, but it really does the House no good--we discussed this on Tuesday--and it does those who are trying to keep the middle east peace process on track no good simply to say that the 415 Palestinians who are stuck somewhere between Israel and Lebanon are the major block to people accepting that we are being even-handed in the middle east. Every single day, Israel breaks international law, and one simply cannot get away with saying that some helicopters will be sent and that this will answer the

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problem. Something specific must be done. Why go ahead with the meeting on 1 February when they are still there? Why not make some gesture?

Mr. Hurd : The hon. Member has made his speech ; he must not make it again. It is unfair to pick out the point about the helicopters. I simply used it, as it is a piece of news, to illustrate in a particular way the kind of thing we could do to help. Of course it is not a total response. The Israelis must find a way of dealing with this particular problem which they created, under provocation. A lot of work is going on to bring this about. The hon. Member knows that because I told him the details, but he probably knew it already. I hope and believe that the work will be successful. If it is not successful by 1 February, our meeting with the Foreign Minister of Israel will not be a sort of reward for Israel but an occasion on which to make this point very clear. It is partly why I am saying it now.

We are not leaving this aside or saying that it is negligible, because it is going to be an obstacle in the way of removing the injustice that the hon. Member has devoted a large part of his life to removing. We want to remove it. It will be removed by the peace process. It will be removed not by sanctions but by the peace process. We must liberate the path to the peace process, and that is what we are trying to do.

Dr. Cunningham : I appreciate the Foreign Secretary allowing me to intervene when time is short. If he wants to do something concrete and specific, why does he not, as the Israeli Government have now agreed to do, meet and discuss these matters with representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organisation?

Mr. Hurd : The hon. Gentleman knows that the Israeli Government have agreed to no such thing. They have agreed to remove a law which makes it illegal for Israeli citizens to do so--quite a different proposition. We have constant contracts with the PLO which are valuable to us and, I think, to the PLO. We last saw Mr. Qaddoumi in Tunis a few days ago. Ministerial meetings have been suspended since the Gulf war, for good reasons. I regard this as a matter of usefulness. If I could be persuaded, which I have not yet been, that it would be useful to us or to the peace process, we could change the level, but that is the position at the moment.

I was about to refer to Mr. Ride and Mr. Wainwright, who are suffering what we regard as grotesque sentences of imprisonment, sentences which are disproportionate to the offence. The hon. Member for Copeland, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) and the hon. Members for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) continue to press me ; we continue to make sure that the men are visited and we will do all we can to secure their release. Russian diplomats in Baghadad visited both men on 15 January and again yesterday, 20 January. They reported that the men are physically well and have suffered no adverse treatment in recent days.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West stressed the suffering in Iraq, and other hon. Members have rightly referred to it. I entirely agree with her. We must do our best, despite all the political turmoil, to get help through. That is why, although it is imperfect, I support the Secretary-General's memorandum of understanding to enable the humanitarian activities to continue in Iraq. Obviously I support what we are doing

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steadily to build up the help that we give through the Overseas Development Administration both in northern Iraq and in the south. I will spend the last few minutes on the plea which has come from many parts of the House for forward thinking and for a strategy. It is more easily asked for than provided, but nevertheless it is a perfectly legitimate demand, and this is the moment at which we ought to meet it.

As regards Iraq, I do not dissent from the closing part of the speech of the hon. Member for Copeland. The first step is for Iraq to show in practice that it is complying with the resolutions. Until that happens, we have to keep all our options open, as the hon. Gentleman said. Of course, Gulf security is the framework of this. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) referred to Iran, as did other hon. Members, and quite rightly. It is a factor, and there is understandable anxiety about the policies of Iran.

Obviously, in an ideal world, Gulf defence is best carried out by Gulf countries. This is something that I urged on all the Gulf states after the Gulf war. I must admit that I have been disappointed by the extent to which they have come together, and come together with Egypt and Syria, despite the Damascus declaration, in order to provide worthwhile machinery for their own defence. Iraq is not a helpful factor in that ; it is a threatening factor at the present stage. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup was a little churlish about Kuwait. I first went to Kuwait, as he reminded the House, in his company, under his tuition. He went to Kuwait in 1968 so that he could explain to the Kuwaitis how he would defend them for a long time, and how Mr. Denis Healey, as Secretary of State for Defence, was wrong in proposing that we should cease to defend them. I believe that that instinct of my right hon. Friend was perhaps rather more soundly based than the instinct on which he spoke today.

Of course, we cannot be rash or seek to do things beyond our strength, but we have an obligation to work closely with the Kuwaitis in meeting their defence needs, and an interest in doing so. We have had no request to send a battalion of troops, so I am not talking about that. I am talking about our memorandum of understanding, the kind of joint air exercise that we had last December, visits by the Royal Navy and the advice that we give on defence. I believe that that kind of co-operation between Kuwait and Britain, in the situation in the Gulf, is reasonable and should continue. As regards Iraq, we will continue to enforce sanctions. We will insist on inspections. We respect the integrity of Iraq and we know that it will remain an important middle eastern country. But, before it can fit into a general framework, it needs to comply with its international obligations. They are onerous because we are dealing with a country which was a recent aggressor. We are vigilant because of the past record of deceit, and, with our allies, we have to insist on compliance with these obligations and maintain our vigilance. I turn finally to the general point to which the House ought to return--the question raised by several hon. Members of peacekeeping in these 25 trouble spots. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made a notable speech on this yesterday to the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies. This will be one of the big questions and problems for all of us :

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the role of the United Nations, which, as has been shrewdly pointed out, is moving from dealing with acts between one state and another to dealing with acts within a state--South Africa first, resolution 688, and Somalia since then. This is a big move, but the United Nations is not equipped to deal with it, partly for financial reasons and partly because of the lack of staff and equipment available to the Secretary-General.

Then there is the role of the United States, the only super-power, but not wishing to dominate. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen are simply misguided about that. They will find great continuity between President Clinton and former President Bush. They will find a desire to make sense of what they call the new world order and they will want a good deal of help from their allies in doing that--not in a relationship of master and servant, giving orders and carrying them out. When the records of the conversations over this last weekend are revealed, as when earlier records are revealed, they will see that that was not the relationship. The position of the United Kingdom and the role which we should play, not always but when we can, to make a British contribution by those means will lead to a slightly safer and more decent world.

Question put, That this House do now adjourn :--

The House divided : Ayes 21, Noes 156.

Division No. 119] [10.00 pm

AYES

Adams, Mrs Irene

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Bennett, Andrew F.

Canavan, Dennis

Chisholm, Malcolm

Cohen, Harry

Corbyn, Jeremy

Dalyell, Tam

Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)

Galloway, George

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Hood, Jimmy

Livingstone, Ken

Loyden, Eddie

McAllion, John

Madden, Max

Mahon, Alice

Pickthall, Colin

Simpson, Alan

Skinner, Dennis

Wise, Audrey

Tellers for the Ayes

Mr. Bob Cryer and

Mr. Harry Barnes.

NOES

Aitken, Jonathan

Alexander, Richard

Amess, David

Arbuthnot, James

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Ashby, David

Baldry, Tony

Beggs, Roy

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Booth, Hartley

Boswell, Tim

Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

Bowis, John

Brazier, Julian

Bright, Graham

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Burns, Simon

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Cash, William

Clappison, James

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Congdon, David

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Cormack, Patrick

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Devlin, Tim

Dorrell, Stephen

Eggar, Tim

Elletson, Harold

Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Evennett, David

Fabricant, Michael

Fishburn, Dudley

Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

Forth, Eric

Foster, Don (Bath)

Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

Freeman, Roger

French, Douglas

Gale, Roger

Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Hague, William

Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie (Epsom)

Harvey, Nick

Heald, Oliver

Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Jack, Michael

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Jessel, Toby

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