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4.31 pm
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife): To have embarked on this intervention is a serious, solemn course of action, but intervention is always a question of choice. It would have been possible to say that these are matters with which we shall not concern ourselves.
In deciding whether we should intervene, we surely have an obligation to give serious consideration to what appear to be the relevant and compelling factors. I suggest that the first of those factors is the degree of wrongdoing with which we are seeking to deal. The second is the extent of our ability to take action. The third is the nature of our interest: is it moral, pragmatic or both? The fourth, which is, perhaps, as compelling as all the others, is the prospect of success. In analysing those factors, it is inevitable that we shall be engaged in value judgments.
In this case, when we ask ourselves what is the degree of wrongdoing, we are surely able to say that it is the most brutal and despicable ethnic cleansing. When we ask ourselves about our ability to take action, surely we can say that the most successful military alliance in history, which has annual defence expenditure of between $350 billion and $400 billion, has the capacity to take action. When we ask ourselves what is our interest, I say that we have both a moral and a pragmatic interest in preventing a flagrant abuse of humanitarian standards and inhibiting instability and preventing bloodshed on the very edge of Europe. What are the prospects of success? The objectives that we have set out can be attained, but it will not be easy and we should not pretend otherwise.
On an earlier occasion, when the Prime Minister made a statement to the House, I said that this was a bad business and might turn out to be a bloody one. I said also that those of us who have advocated the use of military force must live with the responsibility of the consequences and that, once the use of military force had begun, it would require political will to continue when, as there inevitably would be, there were setbacks. Those conclusions are as valid today as they were then.
Liberal Democrats have contended that an air campaign alone would not suffice and that military presence on the ground would be essential for the return of the refugees
so that they would have the confidence and courage to return to the communities out of which they have been burned, looted and shelled. However, such a military force could not be achieved by agreement between Rambouillet and Paris, and is even less likely to be achieved by agreement now. NATO must therefore be willing to impose its will.
That is why I believe that it was wrong for NATO to rule out the option of ground forces in such an apparently unequivocal way. That allowed the Milosevic regime to exclude from its calculations an option which it would at least have found disconcerting and potentially painful--which might well have made an effective contribution to deterrence. Milosevic should have been left in confusion and doubt about NATO's intentions.
Mr. Robert N. Wareing (Liverpool, West Derby):
It may not have been the stated intention at the beginning of this conflict, but there are certainly noises now about using ground troops, so it must obviously be a consideration with the Serbs. If the whole of Kosovo were occupied by ground forces and the Serbs continued nevertheless to resist, would the right hon. and learned Gentleman contemplate the full-scale occupation of Yugoslavia, including Belgrade, by NATO forces, with the likely guerrilla warfare lasting not months but perhaps years?
Mr. Campbell:
The hon. Gentleman intervened on me on the previous occasion on which we debated this topic, and I was less than gracious in my response. I wrote to him privately afterwards to apologise, and I am happy to take the opportunity to apologise publicly for the fact that I was less than gracious in dealing with his intervention. I shall deal with the intervention that he has just made on the merits on which he made it. I do not believe that anyone here would contemplate the occupation of Belgrade, but the threat and, indeed, perhaps the use, of ground forces will be an essential component in achieving any settlement. I cannot conceive of circumstances in which the threat of use or, indeed, the actual use will not be necessary.
Public opinion has been much more robust on this topic than Governments have estimated. In seeing the terrible scenes that flash across our television screens, which occur with such frequency that we have become almost dulled to their effect, the public understand that, without credible military protection, people who are driven out of their homes will have neither the confidence nor the courage to return.
I wish that it were possible to say that that presence would be obtained by consent, but I do not believe that it will. Whether troops are deployed will of course depend on the strength of the opposition--the success of the air campaign--and the political cohesion of NATO. Those of us who advocate this as a course of action would be very well advised to remember that there came a point in the Gulf war at which the issue before us was whether there should be an assault on Baghdad. That became regarded as impossible to mount because the political cohesion of the international alliance, which had been created in order to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, would not have survived.
Mr. Benn:
If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is right that ground troops will be needed--that view is
Mr. Campbell:
It may come as something of a surprise to the right hon. Gentleman, but I have some considerable sympathy with his point of view--not only in relation to my party leader, let me hasten to say. The right hon. Gentleman makes a sound point. If we are to ask our young men, and increasingly our young women, to risk their lives in the furtherance of political objectives, surely they ought to know that they have the endorsement of the House of Commons.
Mr. Hogg:
On a substantive motion.
Mr. Campbell:
On a substantive motion, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman says.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) has, of course, a long history of endeavouring to reform the prerogative power, and I have some sympathy with that point of view. It seems to me that, at a time when we are engaged in remarkable constitutional reforms in relation to Scotland and Wales, the adoption of the European convention on human rights into our domestic law and perhaps--if we are fortunate--in due course, freedom of information, there is time for a proper examination of that issue. Although the right hon. Gentleman and I disagree as violently as it is possible to disagree on the merits of this case, I believe that he should have the right to record his vote in relation to that matter on a substantive motion in the House.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North):
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Campbell:
I am not subject to the 10-minutes rule, but I know that very many hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate so, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall make progress.
We should not underestimate the fragility of public opinion--even although I believe that it has been more robust than Governments have estimated--and we have a duty to explain that, if we were to embark upon a ground campaign, it would not be for a matter of a few weeks, and it would carry a substantial potential for casualties.
We have another duty, and that is to be frank. If NATO makes mistakes, it should say so and publish all the evidence, including the video evidence. No matter which side of the argument one takes in these matters, none of us can have been entirely satisfied with the way in which NATO dealt with the events of last week. As this debate began, a press conference was being held at which more information was being put into the public domain. I doubt whether NATO will ever be blamed for delay, but it would certainly be blamed for disinformation, even if that arose innocently. NATO's values must demonstrably be different from those of the Milosevic regime.
On another point, I do not believe that the rubbishing of correspondents by unattributable briefing serves the cause. Mr. John Simpson is not a candidate for sainthood,
but it seems to me to betray a conspicuous lack of confidence in the justice of the cause to be so ultra-sensitive to his broadcasts from Belgrade. I firmly believe that we should let people make their own judgments. The Prime Minister rightly says that this is an issue about values. One of those values is freedom of expression. How shall we justify our determination to bring that freedom of information to Kosovo when we seem to fight shy of it ourselves?
It is possible to discern the pattern of the air campaign. With the tragic exceptions that have been mentioned, it has been largely successful in the avoidance of civilian casualties. It is clear that the pattern is to block the exits from Kosovo for the forces of the Milosevic regime. The purpose of the destruction of bridges and fuel dumps is obviously to cut lines of supply and the line of retreat. It will be a long way back to Belgrade for the paramilitary police and soldiers who have been such enthusiasts for ethnic cleansing; a long way back for those who have used rape to terrorise and humiliate women of the Albanian community; a long way back for those who may have done in Kosovo what they most assuredly did in Srebrenica. The Milosevic regime, it is clear, is ready to sacrifice its own foot soldiers for its survival.
I ask myself constantly, "Are we right to be there at all?" We are there out of painful necessity. We are there for values, not for money's-worth or resources--there are no natural resources to be plundered there. But we should ask ourselves that question constantly, because the course of action upon which we have embarked is a serious and solemn one; and, as has been said, we should be planning for what happens when the peace is won.
We should be planning for the strenuous effort that will be required to assist the long-term reconstruction, the economic revival and the political integration of the states of the former Yugoslavia into the mainstream of Europe, including Serbia and the Serbians, under a Government other than that of Mr. Milosevic. The Serbians, too, must be absorbed back into the mainstream of Europe. Rape, destruction, looting and brutality have become commonplace in Kosovo. The people of Kosovo are entitled to expect better and we should now be preparing to give them better.
I have never been comfortable with the expression "a just war". I have never been convinced that we do justice by waging war, but, rather, that sometimes it is necessary to wage war to allow the opportunity for justice. This is such an occasion. However, we delude ourselves if we think that military action can be conceived and implemented immaculately. With no irony, I say that military action is always a blunt weapon. The expression "a surgical strike" contains its own inherent contradiction. Sometimes, however, the blunt weapon is the last painful resort when diplomacy has failed and the defiance of civilised values is unabated. This is such an occasion.
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