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Mr. Portillo: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the support that he has given to the Government and to our armed forces which may be involved in the operation. I thank him also for his constructive questions. I will not necessarily have complete answers to all of them, but I confirm that the mission must have clear objectives. I said that the exit strategy would be to hand over to other nations. I am encouraged that a number of other nations have come forward, particularly from the African continent. We do not yet have a commitment from them to a follow-on force, but their expression of interest is encouraging.
We have all learnt lessons from Bosnia. The talks going on at present in New York involving British military planners are intended to ensure that all the objectives, the rules of engagement and the command and control systems are fully worked out before any British soldiers are committed to the area.
The hon. Gentleman pressed me on numbers. The present indication from each of the other contributing nations from the west is that they will put in the equivalent of about a battalion, with whatever supporting troops are necessary in each case. I therefore imagine that our commitment might be of a similar order, but the most important determinant of the numbers that we would send would be to ensure that they were sufficiently well equipped and armed, and there in sufficient numbers to take care of themselves and to do a good job of saving human life. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the House will forgive me if I cannot yet deduce an exact figure from all that.
Do we share the United States' notions? By and large we do. Certainly the idea of deploying for about four months before finding a follow-on force fits in closely with us. Canada is to be the lead nation, but the Canadians would be the first to recognise, I think, that, although it is extremely helpful in the troubled circumstances of Africa for Canada to be our lead nation, to provide the command and control it will need a great deal of back-up from the United States, particularly for the equipment and communications that are necessary for such an operation.
The hon. Gentleman touches on a critical factor which needs to be discussed further--I must be frank with him and with the House. The critical factor is that the US wishes to limit the mission to the delivery of humanitarian aid. The hon. Gentleman has identified a broader ambition to disarm the militias, which would help with the repatriation of refugees.
I believe that we would be wise to think carefully about this issue before taking a position. Clearly, the nations must take a collective position. To say that we will disarm the militias is to undertake a much more complex and dangerous military operation. While I stand by what I said in my statement--that repatriation of the refugees must form part of the long-term process--it is highly debatable whether we should include that now in the short-term mission. The US has indicated its view that the short-term mission should be limited to humanitarian aid.
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater):
Does my right hon. Friend sense, as I do, a general recognition in the House
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The operation will have to be of sufficient size to meet an extremely uncertain situation. Clearly, there will be concerns about the time frame that my right hon. Friend has outlined, and about whether the withdrawal date will be achievable--we were disappointed in the case of Bosnia.
My right hon. Friend read out very fast the names of all the countries that will support us. Does he not draw comfort when he recalls how many of those countries we have worked and trained with in Africa? I hope that the forces from Africa that were trained by British training teams will be able to make their contribution to this vital humanitarian task.
Mr. Portillo:
My right hon. Friend makes a number of very important points, including our very strong links with some of the countries that we would like to be part of the force taking on the burden of the operation as a follow-on force. I repeat that I have been encouraged by their expressions of interest so far.
I very much welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend supports this decision, with all the dangers that it entails, and that he recognises that the scale of the impending catastrophe justifies it.
Let me make one thing clear. Although we will be deploying with NATO allies, which is an important factor in all of this, this is not envisaged as a NATO operation. Were it to be a NATO operation, first, that would inject delay as we move towards consensus within the North Atlantic Council--there obviously is not room for delay in the situation; secondly, I am not sure whether NATO would have available a deployable headquarters for this operation.
We have clearly identified that a Canadian headquarters could be available. We would wish to have a brigade headquarters in order to provide the immediate command and control over our own troops.
Mr. Menzies Campbell (Fife, North-East):
May I offer my support to the right hon. Gentleman for the measured terms of his statement, and for the principles enunciated in it? I believe that I am right in saying that there was no express reference in his statement to the risks that will be run by United Kingdom forces that may be deployed to the area.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not regard this as sounding an unduly sombre note, but does he accept that it would be wrong for the House to endorse the deployment of British forces without a recognition of the risks to life and limb that British service men and women may face? Are not those risks justified in this case only because of the acute nature of the humanitarian considerations involved?
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Finally, the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that much of the difficulty experienced in the former Yugoslavia lay in the fact that the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council were often ambiguous and difficult to implement. Does he agree that the success of the operation will rest primarily on the United Nations producing a resolution that is clear, unambiguous and capable of implementation?
Mr. Portillo:
I am most grateful for the hon. and learned Gentleman's support. He is right to say that there are risks involved. I will, of course, devote great efforts, as will all the planning staff, to minimising those risks, and particularly to ensuring that we have the rules of engagement, the equipment, and a deployment that will match the threats as we see them and enable our forces to respond accordingly.
I agree that the resolution has to be clear and sufficiently permissive. The hon. and learned Gentleman will know better than me, because of his longer experience, that in Bosnia one thing that was particularly hampering was the need to refer command decisions to New York. Nothing envisaged in this chapter 7 operation--it is not a blue-hatted operation--would require us to go back to New York for command decisions, which should properly lie in the field.
Mr. Michael Colvin (Romsey and Waterside):
The whole country will applaud Her Majesty's Government's decision to send our forces to join the task force. We all know that no troops are capable of doing the job better, as we have seen from experience. I am also pleased that the lessons of Bosnia have been learned--the proper chain of command, with one country in charge, which in Bosnia is the United Kingdom, with brown helmets being worn instead of blue United Nations helmets--and also the lessons of Somalia, where delivering humanitarian aid is one thing, but getting involved in trying to separate the belligerents in the civil war is something else, which we do not want to become engaged in.
How soon does my right hon. Friend think that African countries will be capable of taking over from the British commitment, which I gather will be temporary? Secondly, how can we ensure that the aid that gets through feeds the innocent and not the guilty men?
Thirdly, will he confirm that the cost of the operation will fall on the contingency fund and not on his own, heavily overstretched, defence budget?
Mr. Portillo:
On the last point, I shall make that argument at least as vigorously as my hon. Friend. Seriously, however, I have been encouraged by the way in which the Bosnian operation has been financed largely from the contingency fund. Fresh statements will be made on that subject before long.
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