| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
30 Jan 2003 : Column 1086—continued
Clare Short: I know that we are short of time, but I want to respond to the hon. Gentleman, because he may not be here later. Sanctions were imposed by the UN at the end of the war on the assumption that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons would be dismantled quickly, sanctions would be lifted and the country would return to normal. Instead, Saddam Hussein retained those weapons. That is the dilemma that the world faces. Saying that we should remove the sanctions because the Iraqi people have suffered is the same as saying that Saddam Hussein can do what he likes. I am afraid that it is not as simple as that. The UK has worked for the simplification of the sanctions regime so that nearly everything can be traded, and only things that could be used militarily are banned, but that has proved difficult. The UN expected a brief sanctions regime, the dismantling of weapons and a thriving Iraq—it was Saddam Hussein who was not willing to go for that.
Mr. Thomas: I accept the burden of the Secretary of State's comments. She is right to make those points. However, eight or nine years after the Gulf war, we realised that the sanctions regime was not working and that it did not put the right pressure on Saddam Hussein to make him do what we expected. We should have reconsidered it. I accept that the Labour Government did what they could to reform it, but if I have time, I shall mention one or two aspects that need further consideration.
Iraq is a modern state, and its resources mean that it could become a powerhouse in the middle east. In that context, the position that people face, especially young people and children, is dreadful.
I want to concentrate on water supply. The Department's policy emphasises water, and one of the few successes of the world summit in Johannesburg was an international agreement on water. It is dreadful to contemplate what might happen post conflict in Iraq.
The water supply currently fails to reach the majority of homes, and 65 per cent. of the water that does reach homes is untreated. After air strikes, matters will be even worse.It was pointed out in an earlier intervention that dual-use material such as electric power generators could be utilised for military and civilian purposes. There is continuing discussion about several hundred small rural-based generators for water supply. Under the current sanctions regime, the UN has not given them the go-ahead.
The Secretary of State referred to the oil-for-food programme. Clearly, the regime uses it as a tool to oppress its people. However, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that approximately 15 million people in Iraq depend on food aid and the oil-for-food programme. I appreciate that if the Secretary of State is winding up as well as opening the debate, she may have kept some of her powder dry. I hope that she will say more about the preservation of such programmes in a conflict and whether more can be delivered to the people of Iraq.
I want to consider our armed forces' actions in Iraq. If we go to war, we hope that they will act in a humanitarian way as far as that is possible within military constraints. I am especially worried that our forces may be under direct United States control and that weapons that we do not countenance, such as landmines, cluster bombs and depleted uranium may be used. The Geneva conventions provide that
- "any objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population"
- "leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force its movement."
I strongly believe that we can avert a humanitarian disaster in Iraq by avoiding war. I accept that the prime responsibility for that rests with Saddam Hussein, but the House and the country also have a responsibility. We must grant more time for the UN inspectors to do their work. We must not jump to conclusions simply because somebody finds a nerve gas suit or a biological or chemical suit. That does not mean that Iraq will use such weapons. We must allow enough time.
We must bear down on Saddam Hussein and the current regime and we must ensure that we go through the United Nations. The Secretary of State always emphasises the UN. I hope that she will give her view on actions without UN approval. My party and I would not approve of that.
We must avoid polluting the UN through browbeating it into going along with conflict in Iraq. Whatever the final decision, we must ensure that the UN is seen to be the international arbiter so that all countries, including Arab countries, continue to have faith in it and do not perceive it as a tool of US policy.
I hope that those comments will be considered not only in the context of humanitarian aid, but in our decision about whether to go to war with Iraq.
5.9 pm
Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow): I welcome this debate on humanitarian contingency plans for Iraq, and I am grateful to the Conservatives for their interest in this critically important area, although in my view that is almost as surprising as Dracula securing a debate on blood transfusions for haemophiliacs. I note that the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) made a somewhat personal attack on me. What he does not seem to grasp is that my attack on the Conservatives is not personal at all; indeed, I had a meeting this morning with Baroness Chalker, one of the most intelligent and sincere people ever to grace the Conservative Benches.
I am not looking at Conservative Members' personal qualities; I am looking at their record. Eighteen years in office and what did they do? They cut aid to the world's poorest people and linked it to trade. That is the record. It is a shameful legacy, which this Labour Government have consigned to the dustbin of history. I would be very happy to leave it there, if only Tory MPs would stop acting as though they ever did anything useful when it mattered: when they were in power.
Alistair Burt: If that is the hon. Lady's view, perhaps she might enlighten us as to the tone of her conversation with Baroness Chalker this morning.
Ms King: I am an executive member of the newly formed all-party group on Africa, which the hon. Gentleman is very welcome to join. However, he might also want to think about a reconciliation and truth commission within the Tory party, in order to come to terms with its shameful past on this subject.
How urgent are our efforts to prevent blood being spilt, and to minimise any civilian casualties? Our first and foremost aim must obviously be to minimise the loss of human life. For the purposes of the current debate on Iraq, there are four possible causes of loss of life, all of which are more or less interlinked: first, military action; secondly, the development and use of chemical and biological weapons; thirdly, the poverty that faces most developing countries in that region; and fourthly—a particularly lethal cause of loss of life—Saddam Hussein himself.
The latter is not a flippant point. I made the same point during a debate on sanctions in Iraq some years ago, and it was eloquently restated today by my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). The worst infant mortality and malnutrition in Iraq is in areas under Saddam Hussein's control. In northern, Kurdish-controlled areas of Iraq, which face greater sanctions and shortages, loss of life is less. Saddam Hussein kills more Iraqi children than anyone else, but that does not mean we can abdicate our responsibilities to those same children. Saddam Hussein has built and used chemical and biological weapons, but that does not mean we can abdicate our responsibilities towards the prospects for their future use.
The dilemma that we face is that if we permit the development of chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons, at some point we are inviting a terrible loss of human life. Yet if we take military action to disarm Iraq and enforce UN resolution 1441, we risk a more immediate loss of life. For this reason, it is my
fervent, although perhaps futile, wish that we avoid military action. None the less, the decision rests with Saddam Hussein: it is up to him whether he wishes to do what he has been requested to do by the UN.So I agree with the Government's actions so far. Threatening Saddam Hussein with military force has been the single most effective thing that we have done in the past 11 years to get him to accept UN authority. And it is UN authority that is at stake. I trust that the UN will be given more time to carry out its work. If military action is taken, humanitarian risks are grave. As we have heard, 16 million people rely on food aid through the oil-for-food programme. That is 60 per cent. of the Iraqi population.
Other humanitarian risks that have been set out include regional factionalism and bloodletting—we have seen terrible examples of that in Afghanistan, post conflict—risks to sanitation facilities; the deliberate or inadvertent use of chemical and biological weapons; and the terrible legacy of land mines and cluster bombs. Will the Secretary of State make representations—perhaps she has already done so—to the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister to ensure that those types of weapons are not used? Will she also let us know what further humanitarian aid the British Government are making available to Iraqi civilians? It might come as a surprise to people to hear that the British Government are one of the largest donors to Iraq, and that since the Gulf war we have committed nearly £100 million for water, sanitation and basic health provision. We also run a programme to help Iraqi refugees in Iran.
However, the worst-case scenarios facing Iraqi civilians as a result of military action could dwarf the terrible problems that they have faced so far. That is why any military action must take account of humanitarian risks, perhaps in a way that challenges current military thinking. In the past, the vulnerability of the civilian population has not usually been at the top of the military's agenda—but if it is not at the top of the agenda this time, I have no doubt that the military will win the battle but lose the war.
Half of Iraq's population are children under 14. If we do not protect those children, all the military hardware in the world will not protect us from the justifiable anger of the Muslim world—indeed, from the anger of all those who hold sacred the value of human life. This Government are renowned for having developed one of the world's most effective humanitarian programmes. For that reason, we have a responsibility to make every possible effort to ensure that humanitarianism is at the top of the international community's agenda.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |