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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I called Mr. Wells to complete his point.
Mr. Wells: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
My point is that that would leave NATO's credibility in enforcing peace in complete tatters.
Mr. Maples:
I was trying to explain that that is the dilemma that I see the Government facing. It is a question for the Secretary of State and, like my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), I shall be interested in his response. If the bombing does not succeed there will be enormous pressure for NATO to use the troops that are sitting in Macedonia. I believe that they have become a hostage to fortune and I query the wisdom of having pre-positioned them. The alternative, if the bombing fails, is to use that force or to extract it. I will be interested in the Secretary of State's views on that.
We can talk about NATO action, but none of this would be happening without the involvement of the United States. It is US air power, intelligence and communications that make such operations possible. Without the United States, the European members of NATO do not have the means or, I suggest, the will to act on their own. I hope that this will bring a healthy dose of realism to the ambitions of the European Union to develop military capability independent of NATO and the United States.
For a long time I have felt that we need a long-term strategy for the Balkans. We have never really had that. In the past, we have reacted to events, to television pictures and to atrocities and we have tried to deal with them on an ad hoc basis without a long-term plan or endgame, as some people might put it. I hope that the Secretary of State will develop that in his reply. What sort of a Balkans do we foresee at the end of our intervention in Kosovo? There may be other areas that we will have to look at, because Serbia might become aggressive in Sanjac in the north of the country and it now looks as if there are difficulties in Montenegro. The entire area is unstable. The Bosnian Federation looks equally unstable, if not more so, and without the United Nations force which is there at present, it is unlikely that the Federation Government or the Dayton solution will be able to continue.
There are many unresolved conflicts around the Balkans and I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us whether the Government have a long-term view. If we do not, it is difficult to see where the different actions are leading us. We need to know that there is a strategy.
Do we foresee a Balkans of even smaller nation states with all the implications that that has for redrawing boundaries and difficulties over whether ethnic minorities lie on one side or the other? What role do we see for Serbia in the future of the Balkans? How can Macedonia be stabilised, and how can the ambitions for a greater Albania be contained?
As I have said, there are many unresolved issues which we will have to address in one way or another if we want to bring lasting peace and stability to the Balkans. I hope that the Government have addressed those problems. If they have not, the danger is that we will end up reacting to events or, worse, reacting emotionally to television pictures without a long-term plan for what is in our nation's best interest, which is to establish stability in the Balkans. How we achieve that is extremely difficult and I am not sure that we should be embarking on these military adventures without some concept of where we want to end up.
One of the ingredients for that solution will be more democratic governments in the region--there are far too few at present. I suspect that an essential ingredient will be an end to Milosevic and his regime. That has been one of the main troublemakers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester made clear, the rise of Serb nationalism has been at the heart of the break-up of Yugoslavia. Economic development is always an ingredient. Slovenia has become relatively quiet and I suspect that that is largely because it is getting on with earning a living. I know that it was easier for Slovenia because there were fewer minorities.
If we can help with the economic development of areas where there is peace, there is a chance of distracting people from age-old ethnic conflicts and persuading them that it is not worth fighting because we can create something that is worth living for and protecting. However, lasting stability will need more than that. I should like to hear the Secretary of State develop that theme. How much have the Government thought the issue through? Will they share their thinking and their strategy with the House?
Kosovo presents a daunting challenge to statesmen and generals. All the countries of NATO and those in the Contact Group who are outside NATO face that challenge. The House and the Government have committed our armed forces. We have put them into action and asked them to kill and to risk being killed on our behalf. We often talk as though the situation were an international game of chess, but we are asking people to risk their lives. We have to have confidence in the policy that we are asking them to implement. Our forces and their families will know that our thoughts and prayers are with them. We know that they will, as always, acquit themselves with skill and courage. We wish them good luck and great success in their endeavours.
I question whether the bombing campaign will be successful. I am sure that those doubts are in the Government's mind as well. We must all hope that the Prime Minister is right that the bombing will stop the atrocities in Kosovo and bring Milosevic back to the negotiating table so that we can put in place a peace agreement that NATO forces can help to implement and police.
However, there is a strong possibility that the bombing will not achieve its objectives. If it does not, the options that the Government will face are unattractive.The pressure to involve the NATO ground troops stationed in Macedonia will be very strong, as will the pressure to escalate the air strikes. The only alternative to those two courses of action is to withdraw and admit that we have not achieved our objectives. None of those is a satisfactory outcome.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson):
I associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples). This has been a remarkable debate. Sombre, serious, passionate and crossing party lines, it has done a lot of credit to the House of Commons. That makes it all the more difficult to reply to the debate and to pick up many of the points. I hope that the House will indulge me by allowing me to answer some of the serious, detailed points that have been made and not take too many interventions. A lot has been said and asked and I should like to deal with those points in the remaining minutes.
As a direct result of Siberian intransigence--sorry, I should get the country right. I assure the House that those who are in charge of targeting know better. As a direct result of Serbian intransigence, as my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister told the House last night, British forces participated in a substantial strike by NATO forces against targets in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. NATO has taken that action because all other means of preventing a human catastrophe in Kosovo have been frustrated by the Serbs.
Despite the intense diplomatic efforts of the international community to secure a peaceful solution to the conflict in Kosovo and to prevent a humanitarian disaster, the Serbian Government have refused to allow a peaceful solution to the crisis. The result, as we have all seen, has been a developing humanitarian catastrophe in which Yugoslav and Serbian security forces are destroying whole villages and making tens of thousands homeless. Only yesterday, before we had to embark on air strikes, the Ministry of the Interior special police were reported to be razing villages to the ground in central Kosovo in the areas around Podujevo, Srbica and Komorane. That was only 24 hours ago, when, I believe, President Milosevic still doubted our resolve and our ability to do something, and still believed that the air attacks would not take place.
Several right hon. and hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), who once held this onerous position, asked me to report on what happened last night, when NATO aircraft and naval forces began military operations against targets in Yugoslavia. The offensive action--involving sea and air-launched cruise missiles as well as manned aircraft from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Spain--was supported by aircraft from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Turkey, flying essential fighter cover, air refuelling and defence suppression missions. In all, 13 NATO air forces were involved.
The first targets, mainly facilities associated with the Yugoslav air defence system, were hit just after 7 o'clock. Assets used included air-launched cruise missiles fired by US B52 aircraft, which had taken off from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire earlier in the day, and Tomahawk land attack missiles fired by United States Navy ships and, for the first time, by HMS Splendid.
Follow-on attacks were conducted by manned tactical aircraft, including RAF Harrier GR7s, based in southern Italy, using Paveway 2 laser-guided bombs. Other targets included facilities associated with military units directly involved in aggression in Kosovo. Let me repeat for emphasis what I said last night and throughout today: all the targets and any future targets are military, not civilian. They are chosen with enormous care.
Just over an hour after the first cruise missiles impacted on their targets, six RAF Harriers were tasked to attack an ammunition storage facility to the east of the Tomahawk target. Four of the aircraft were armed with two Paveway 2 1,000 lb laser-guided bombs--the type used extensively and with considerable success during Operation Desert Fox--and the other two acted as escort.
The bombers were tasked against explosive and ammunition storage buildings in a Yugoslav military ammunition storage facility that was known to support the Ministry of the Interior special police, who have been at the forefront of repressive actions against the Kosovar Albanian population. Such facilities contribute significantly to the Serbian security forces' repressive capability.
It is too soon to give any results of the United Kingdom attacks but, as confirmed earlier today by the NATO Secretary-General and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, overall, the attacks by NATO aircraft and ships are assessed to have been successful.
Several hon. Members have questioned the degree of international support for NATO action. The 19 nations in NATO that are involved are united in their resolve. The United Nations Security Council, as the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) said, met last night. The Security Council is not made up only of its permanent members--the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia--but of other members of the international community. NATO's action has received the support of Security Council members Canada, Argentina, Slovenia, Malaysia, Gambia, Bahrain, the Netherlands and Gabon, in addition to France, Britain and the United States. Apart from China and Russia, the only opposition came from Namibia. Indeed, the UN Security Council, of which China and Russia are permanent members, has repeatedly condemned the actions of the former Yugoslavia in Kosovo.
Three UN Security Council resolutions--1160, 1199 and 1203--have condemned Serb actions in Kosovo. We believe that the UN understands that we could not allow Milosevic to attack the civilian population of Kosovo with impunity.
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