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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): Objectives.
Mr. Howard: I am sorry, objectives. The day before, General Sir Charles Guthrie, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said that it would be very difficult even to stop the current killing in Kosovo--far less achieve the other objectives--with the current campaign. Both those statements cannot be right.
I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will give us an unequivocal answer when he replies to the debate. I hope that he will also be able to give the House an assurance that the Prime Minister did not give last Wednesday, when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked him to assure the House that General Guthrie and his fellow officers in NATO have the men, equipment and freedom of action to pursue a strategy that they believe will succeed.
That was a critical question. It is a question that any British Prime Minister at a time of armed conflict should be able to answer unequivocally and in the affirmative. It is a question to which the only acceptable answer is yes. However, the Prime Minister did not answer it. All that he would say was that the Government have throughout
One further point must be made about the Government's conduct of this conflict. We appear to be seeing the application to this conflict, in which lives are at stake and are being lost and in which the most dreadful suffering is taking place, of the worst of the Government's addiction to spin-doctoring. It is entirely unacceptable that we should read reports in our newspapers that are said to come from senior figures in the Ministry of Defence, which state that the Government's media campaign is being allowed to take precedence over military considerations.
We read of moves that are seen by media strategists as "symbolically important", but that the services feel are militarily unnecessary and impose too much strain on the personnel concerned. We are told of a perception that
Nowhere is the influence of those shadowy spokesmen more evident than in the current confusion over ground troops. While the Prime Minister tells us that he believes that the bombing campaign will achieve NATO's objectives in full, we read account after account denying that in our newspapers. The accounts are attributed to "unnamed Ministers", "Government sources", "a source in Downing Street", and "senior Government sources". That is no way to wage a war and that, too, must stop.
We are reaching a critical time in the conduct of the conflict. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked last Wednesday whether, if we wished to assemble and deploy troops to allow the refugees to return home before the winter, NATO needed to take any decisions on ground troops in the very near future. The Prime Minister agreed. The Foreign Secretary was, to put it politely, not very forthcoming, on the point this afternoon. I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will tell us more.
There are also questions about the care of refugees. The Foreign Secretary talked about a regeneration plan. That is welcome, but can the Secretary of State for Defence confirm that it was not until last week that the European Union finally approved the release of £168 million of aid
for refugees and the Governments of Albania and Macedonia that had been agreed as long as ago as the beginning of April? Can Ministers confirm that that money has still not been released? Can they tell us when it will be?
Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition tabled a written question asking for the appointment of an inquiry by Privy Counsellors into the circumstances that led up to the conflict. It is precisely the kind of inquiry that was requested and granted at the time of the Falklands conflict. Of course, we do not expect the inquiry to commence its work until after the conflict is over, but the establishment of an inquiry was agreed before the Falklands conflict was over. The inquiry into the Kosovo conflict should also be agreed now. I hope that we will hear a response on that from the Secretary of State for Defence.
Mr. Dalyell:
I gave evidence to the Franks committee for 85 minutes, so will the right hon. and learned Gentleman take it from me that there are certain deficiencies in that form of inquiry, such as having to consider matters retrospectively? If there is to be a serious inquiry, should not a High Court judge be appointed now to avoid all the difficulties that Lord Franks and his colleagues faced in examining things that were blurred in the past?
Mr. Howard:
There may be much merit in the hon. Gentleman's suggestion.
Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South):
I am delighted that the consensus has been maintained across the Floor, although anyone who had left to have a cup of tea three minutes after the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) began would, on returning, not have shared my view. If one criticises almost every element of the Government's policies, it is difficult to maintain the fiction that what is upheld by those policies is worth supporting.
I know that some hon. Members on both sides of the House totally oppose what the Government are doing. I understand the frustration of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe at mistakes and the slowness with which the Government and NATO have done things. It is the same frustration that I felt at the prevarication of the previous Government in getting our forces to Bosnia. When they got there, they were put in blue helmets and were almost innocent bystanders as Bosnians were slaughtered by hundreds and thousands. I understand the frustration that was expressed about our perhaps not having the forces that we would like to go in with. It is the same frustration that the Defence Committee felt while the previous Government were cutting defence expenditure from more than 5 per cent. of gross domestic product to 2.5 per cent. If the Government in exile had fought this campaign as brilliantly as they fought their election campaign, we would now be having our
Franks-type inquiry, following a catastrophic defeat. Yes, of course there have been mistakes, but have wars ever been fought in which endless mistakes have not been made--even by the victorious?
I welcome this further debate. The House of Commons does not decide policy, but we can influence it. We are reflecting enormous public support for what the Government and NATO are doing. I believe that I was right when I supported this campaign on day 1; I was prepared to support it on day 55 and, if it goes on until day 100 or day 155, I shall support the policy. Wars do not proceed according to paths laid down by analysts, progressing swiftly towards the ultimate objective. There have been mistakes--political, strategic, tactical and intelligence mistakes--and hon. Members on both sides of the House will elaborate on them.
Perhaps we were wrong to misjudge Milosevic's ability to hang on to, and to exploit, weaknesses, but he misjudged our resolve. He has been most successful in exploiting an adversary consisting of 19 nation states that were clearly not exactly calibrated. However, when the leader of the Greens in Germany, Herr Fisher, made his courageous speech and stood there splattered with paint and blood, I realised that I had misjudged him. I wish that more people in the alliance were prepared--publicly, enthusiastically and at some personal risk--to stand up for what the alliance is doing.
Clausewitz offered the advice that, if one fights a war, one should fight it seriously and fight to win. Perhaps few alliances ever fought a war keeping in mind what is almost a paranoia about putting their own forces at risk. Even fewer wars have been fought in which adversaries have been so careful to avoid killing non-combatants and even the other adversaries. We have retained alliance cohesion, but perhaps that cohesion has been achieved by fighting the war less enthusiastically, robustly and efficiently than is desirable to achieve our military objective. Even though the air war is being stepped up, the rate of bombings and the number of sorties are less than such deployments during the Gulf war.
I very much hope that the present strategy of using air power alone will succeed. However, it is possible that it will not do so. If it does not succeed, let us think the unthinkable: Milosevic will survive and be emboldened; and he will start to unpick other agreements and interfere in developments made after he lost other wars--not least in Bosnia. The Kosovans will be dispersed for decades--if they can even return then. Milosevic will certainly begin to cause even more problems in the Balkans. What will happen to the credibility of NATO, of the European Union and of the Labour Government? What will happen in future conflicts? Will others be emboldened by NATO's failure to defeat a tinpot dictator? Merely pondering those possibilities will surely encourage people to the view that we must be successful.
Will the insertion of ground forces be required, as some have argued--many of us inconsistently? It may well be that they are. If we are prepared to use ground forces, and if they are dispatched, that might have an influence that would make deployment superfluous; however, it is not possible to beam over to the region and instantaneously deploy 50,000 troops. I remember how long it took to deploy adequate forces in the Gulf, and Opposition Members will also remember that protracted period.
We have to maintain diplomatic initiatives and try to get some agreement with the Russians and the Chinese. We have apologised to the Chinese, so perhaps they should now apologise for pinching all of NATO's secrets. If they are as contrite as we have been, some success will have been achieved. It is important that we try to sustain, as far as is possible, a consensus in this country, even though there are those who want to remain outside that consensus.
With the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, I visited Kukes and saw the refugee camps. I read the report of the Select Committee on International Development and saw its criticisms of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Kukes might not have been a Butlin's holiday camp, but it was an example of what could be achieved fairly swiftly and I compliment those involved, including the Italian Government, who have done what they can to house fleeing refugees.
"worked extremely closely with our armed forces."--[Official Report, 12 May 1999; Vol. 331, c. 311.]
I would rather hope that that went without saying. The prospect of a conflict in which the British Government do not work extremely closely with our armed forces does not bear contemplation, nor does the prospect of a conflict in which our forces do not have the men, equipment and freedom of action to pursue a strategy that they believe will succeed. That is the assurance that we seek. It is the assurance that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition sought last week. It is the assurance that we must have.
"commanders are not being allowed to make decisions. It is all being run by the press people. They are the real War Cabinet."
We have all grown familiar with the situation in which the Government are run by the press people--we have been told about it often enough--but we do not want a war to be run by the press people. If that is happening--there is a shrewd suspicion that it is--it must stop immediately.
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