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8.40 pm
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot): We have had a candid, sometimes passionate debate, and I hope that neither Ministers nor the public will mistake criticism of some aspects of the conduct of the campaign for lack of patriotism among those who make the criticism.
There is a widespread feeling that we have not achieved our object--averting a humanitarian disaster. There is no point in going over old ground but, if we are to find our way out of the problems, it is incumbent on us to recognise that we have failed so far to secure the objective set by the Prime Minister.
We are faced night after night with an incessant stream of harrowing images on our television screens as people are driven out of their homelands and subjected to the most appalling treatment. No one can fail to be moved by those scenes; we are all horrified by them. However, those of our constituents who are urging us on to greater action should recognise that anger alone is not sufficient. As decision makers, we must try to reach balanced judgments, sometimes drawing conclusions that we would prefer not to reach.
My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) referred to advice from Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Graydon, the former Chief of the Air Staff. We should inform our debate with what Sir Michael said--that it was a grave error to rule out the use of ground forces at the outset. I do not single out the Prime Minister or my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for criticism, but there is an object lesson in what happened, and it should inform our discussions on how we make progress. That was a mistake.
The situation in the Gulf was very different. For months, we prepared a massive land force, making it clear to our enemy that we were doing so. We never needed to use the ground forces, but the fact that we were prepared to deploy them sent a clear message. Our message to Milosevic was that we would rule out the use of ground forces, and that was a mistake.
The hon. Members for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire) and for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) referred to the difficult terrain in the Balkans. Some hon. Members have visited the region. I confess that I have not, but I have looked at the map, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), and I have seen the nature of the difficulty. It is clearly inhospitable territory in which to move large formations of troops across the ground. Alternative options must be considered.
I have the privilege of representing Aldershot, the home of 5 Airborne brigade, which is comprised of the Parachute Regiment and other units. Its members are trained for precisely this type of operation. The idea that they would expect to be deployed by parachute is a myth constantly promoted by those in the service who do not like the regiment or who are jealous of it. They are dropped by helicopter--by Chinook--from a low level or on the ground. I have done it myself.
That is a possible way out and I will leave it at that, save to say that I know from talking to my constituents that they are prepared and ready to go. I talked with a member of the Parachute Regiment the other day and asked him, "What about Kosovo?" He said, "I'm not very keen, sir." I asked him why and he said, "I'm not keen on this humanitarian and peacekeeping stuff, sir. If it's a question of going to war, that's different and I'll be ready
to go." That attitude prevails among our service men. They have trained for war. They have seen the images on the television and we make a mistake if we do not recognise their resolve to do what the Government may call upon them to do.
Also, the House must face the reality that the United Kingdom cannot do this alone. I think that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) referred to the fact that the Germans and French had declared themselves hostile to the idea of deploying ground forces. The United States is extremely reluctant to do so. Our bombing campaign is largely determined by the fact that the Americans do not want to go in at low level. The Royal Air Force trains all the time to go in at low level--that is what our pilots do day in and day out.
I do not want to be partisan, but it is fair to say that the Prime Minister has been going ahead of American public opinion. Unless the Americans are on side, there is no prospect of our being able to deploy ground forces. The right hon. Gentleman can be as hawkish as he likes, but he has to understand that, without the support of the United States, he is extremely limited in what he can do.
We embarked on this conflict out of a genuine and rightful affront at the inhumanity of President Milosevic. Those powerful images on the television are fuelling the desire of the people of this country for action. However, I fear that there has not been a coherent strategy from the outset to determine how the conflict was likely to develop. Of course, no one could have foreseen at the outset exactly the pattern that it was likely to take. Nevertheless, one could have foreseen the difficulties that might arise if bombing alone failed.
Although an airman himself, Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Graydon pointed out that he believed in the deployment of balanced forces, and I entirely agree. Therefore, as I think that the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, what is plan B? The apparent lack of a clear plan B is worrying some of us.
The Government and the House must now face a number of brutal truths. First, this is not a Falklands or a Kuwait campaign. In those campaigns, we were seeking to eject an aggressor from someone else's territory--in the Falklands, it was ours and in Kuwait, it was that of a sovereign state--which is an entirely different matter. In Kosovo, we are seeking to remove, if that is the ultimate objective, people from land that is in part their own and to which they are deeply committed. We must recognise the reality of what we face if we pursue a deeper military commitment there.
The other brutal truth is that we and the United States have to be prepared to commit large numbers of troops. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham said, it is a question not of putting in a token force, but of committing huge numbers of troops. Again, there is no way that the United Kingdom can do that on its own. We require the support of the United States.
Also, we must be clear that we are prepared to take casualties--perhaps, in large numbers. There might be hand-to-hand fighting and, while at the moment we see images on television of people who have been raped, dispossessed of their homes and so forth, if we commit ground troops and there are casualties, overnight the
television images will switch--it will be our lads and what are they dying for? The House and the British people must be prepared to accept that brutal truth.
Finally, we must be prepared to accept that, as in Bosnia, this will not be a short-run operation. We are going to be tied down there for years holding the ring--and the peace--that Tito held for decades and that is now threatened.
Mr. Vernon Coaker (Gedling):
I rise in support of the Government's position and their prosecution of the war. I am no military expert. It is important for us to remember when members of the public ask us whether we should use ground forces that, sometimes, the honest answer is that we do not know. I realise that other hon. Members have a military background that I do not share. However, I have faith in the British military and its professionalism. We must support it with what whatever it takes to ensure success. My message for Ministers is that, having started this, we must see it through to a successful conclusion.
I want to outline my experiences from a humanitarian perspective, following my two visits to the area with UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund. In December, I visited Kosovo and Montenegro and in April, Macedonia. I want to describe what I saw in Kosovo in December, when a ceasefire--the so-called diplomatic breathing space under the Holbrooke agreement--had been negotiated and to share with the House some of the horror and terror that existed in Kosovo. The ethnic cleansing that we have seen since the start of the bombing campaign is not new, but has been going on for a significant period. I want to consider the humanitarian case for the war and for our action.
In Kosovo, I saw villages that had been bombed. I saw deserted villages, schools that had been shelled, and health centres and hospitals that had been attacked by tanks. Children would point out where they had been on the hillside. Houses had been destroyed and families talked of the terror that they suffered from the Serb army and police.
We did not take action then. The present action is not precipitate. Some may say that we should have acted then, but the Government tried to negotiate our way out of the difficulties. At the Rambouillet talks, we tried to avert war. After the failure of the Rambouillet talks came the launch of the Serbian offensive in the spring. That offensive and the failure of all the negotiations led the Government finally to decide to commit our Air Force, in co-operation with NATO.
This question has often been asked, but if we are not prepared to act after all that time, and with all the examples of people being treated in that way, what do we do? Do we just walk away? Do we ignore the ethnic cleansing, people being forced from their homes and the schools and hospitals that have been bombed, or do we take action? If we had done nothing, we would be debating not the Government's action, but why we had a
Government who were not prepared to stand up for basic human values and decency to bring about the Europe that we all want. That is what hon. Members on both sides of the House would be saying to the Government. It gives me no pride and no great feeling of macho achievement to say that I think that this is a just war. Many of us feel a great sense of sadness at arriving at that conclusion.
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