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2.48 pm

Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire): The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) said that this is not the time to consider Iraq in any depth, but I am afraid that my speech will be entirely about Iraq. At business questions, I called for a debate on the reconstruction of Iraq after the war, including discussion of how a democracy will be put together and how its society will be rebuilt. I shall not enter that debate now, although I might set out some of the problems with which we must deal. A debate on reconstruction will involve us all, irrespective of our position on whether the invasion should have started, because we should all be equally concerned about Iraq's future. Those of us who oppose the war must face the fact that it is progressing and unlikely to be abandoned. We must therefore consider the consequences and what should happen when we reach the end of the war.

I want to use a book by Dilip Hiro, entitled "Iraq: A Report from the Inside", which I recommend to hon. Members. It is currently available in bookshops; it has hit the market at the right time although it was written before the war started. Its points about the risks are relevant because they are now being experienced, and we should examine them.

Dilip Hiro has written about the middle east, India and racism. He has produced some 20 books, although this is the first that I have seen. I shall read more of his work, especially his background to the current position in the middle east, Iraq and more widely. I want to consider some of his points about the danger of engaging in the sort of invasion in which we are involved.

First, he states:

"Iraqis are known as staunch nationalists. They mounted a yearlong popular uprising against the British mandate in 1920."

We should be conscious that we are the old imperial power in Iraq. I shall speak about the problem of the United States of America being our partner later. Its involvement is perhaps even more problematic. The United Kingdom's involvement creates great problems. We drew Iraq's boundaries, and did so deliberately in our interest. We excluded Kuwait from the Basra area and added the Kurdish area to it to create an area that we believed we could run and control, and perhaps divide and rule. We gave it a limited port facility in the south of the country, which is its only access to the sea.

The League of Nations handed us a mandate to run Iraq. When it gained its independence in the 1930s, we retained Crown territory for 25 years or so under a treaty arrangement. It included the camps of Habbaniya, Shu'aiba and Basra. Basra was a movements unit, where I did my national service from 1954–56. There were Iraqi levies with British officers, who operated in the country. The agreement ended in

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1955, and Harold Macmillan, as Foreign Secretary, did a deal in the Baghdad pact, which allowed our troops to remain. They were there, for example, during the Suez crisis in the following year.The Crown territory was handed over, the Iraqi levies were disbanded and given the opportunity, which most of them took, to join the Iraqi army.

The Suez crisis in 1956 had a big impact on Iraq. In 1958, a revolution took place under Kassim. It was a free officers' movement, which enjoyed popular support. The Iraqi communist party was one of the major underground movements, which had been active in the docks and oilfields for a long time. It has often expressed the views of the Iraqi labour movement. For five years, there was great hope, until a coup took place. After coup and counter-coup, matters degenerated to the position under Saddam Hussein.

Iraqis are staunch nationalists, whether they are Shi'a, Sunni or from other groups. Perhaps it is less true of the Kurds, who are loyal to Kurdistan. The point is important because it makes it difficult for Britain to be accepted as the shaper of the future in Iraq.

Secondly, Dilip Hiro writes:

"Saddam is unlikely to repeat the blunder of exposing his armed men and material in the desert as he did in the Gulf War. Indeed, he is reported to have planned urban warfare".

We are clearly in that position and may have fallen into a trap in the gallop to Baghdad, which has left Basra and other areas under siege. We have not been able to tackle the problems there and will have to return to them later. It is a mistake to believe that taking over Baghdad means that the rest of the country will automatically fall into line with the so-called coalition—which in fact would be better described as a collusion between us and America, with a small involvement from Australia.

Thirdly, Dilip Hiro states:

"The key difference between now and the Gulf War is that in 1990–91, the Arab governments had a monopoly over the broadcasting channels and most of the print media."

There is a considerable extension of Arab media facilities, which matter tremendously because of the attitudes that subsequently develop in the Arab world, the middle east generally and further afield among Islamic groups throughout the world. They perceive a position that reinforces their views about what is occurring.

The book's fourth point is as follows:

"To imagine that a people who have suffered grievously at the hands of the United States for twelve years . . . would turn out in thousands to greet American soldiers and their Iraqi cohorts as liberators seems unrealistic."

America's position in Iraqi eyes is anti-Palestinian and linked to Israel. Whatever the details of those matters and however we would finesse them, that is the understanding of the Iraqi people. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein has often played that card. He once even cut off all oil exports from his country to western nations because of Israel's actions, stealing a march on the rest of the Arab world.

Fifthly, the book states:

"When a country is attacked, its citizens rally around the leader",

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and that is true however disagreeable the leader is. The Secretary of State for Defence pointed out that 50 per cent. of the Iraqi population had been born during the reign of Saddam Hussein. It is difficult to get a handle on different perceptions in such circumstances.

Dilip Hiro's sixth point is that

"Saddam would have no qualms about deploying chemical or biological agents if he possesses them".

Citing such weapons as a ground for taking action is dubious. Either there is not much there, thus making action unjustifiable, or there is something extremely dangerous there, which is liable to be used in the circumstances that now pertain.

Seventhly, the book states:

"The task of locating Saddam and/or his close associations and/or renegade generals will be long and hazardous."

It will be long and hazardous even if we take over Baghdad because the mopping up in other areas will be a big job.

The eighth point is that the war will end up diluting and complicating our commitment to pursue our war against terrorism. I believe that any response to terrorism needs to be intelligence-led. We need to be able to draw on the intelligence in the wider world—in areas such as Pakistan, for example—to defend ourselves against potential terrorist activity, rather than giving it a field day as we have done by engaging in the actions that we are currently pursuing.

The ninth point is:

"In the economic field, the disruption of oil supplies from the region will hurt the economies of the United States, the European Union and Japan".

Saddam Hussein has used that weapon on a number of occasions in the past—to advance his position against the Clinton regime, for example.

The 10th point states:

"Politically, unlike in Afghanistan or Yugoslavia, there is no Iraqi leadership waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum left by Saddam's overthrow and initiate a democratization process."

This is something about which we need to have a debate. It is tremendously difficult to see what bits and pieces there are to place together. If Members look in "Europa", which gives information about different nations, they will see that the section on Iraq includes a list of 20 different political groupings that have formed together in six different alliances on different occasions. That probably just touches the surface in terms of what is around and who is attempting to work together. In the Kurdish area, the two main Kurdish groups have often been in battles with each other. Sometimes one will form an alliance against the other using Saddam Hussein; at other times they will use Iran or Turkey. It is not easy to place these elements together.

The 11th point is that there is a chance of anarchy and the break-up of Iraq. In a debate initiated by the Opposition on 30 January, the Secretary of State for International Development pointed to the potential humanitarian nightmare that could occur if the war took place. The first point that she made in relation to that was the danger of large-scale ethnic fighting breaking out in Iraq. There will be many scores to settle with the old regime and against different groups, and to keep the lid on all that will be quite difficult.

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The 12th point is the danger of the destabilisation of the post-Saddam regime from Iran and Syria, which is presumably why we have already heard threats from the United States in terms of its extending its redevelopment of the middle east by attacking those nations.

The 13th point involves the problem of Iraqi Kurdistan. The great difficulty is that the Kurds want a nation to be put together that includes the southern sections of Turkey, bits of Syria and areas in Iran, as well as northern Iraq. That is their objective and it could produce great destabilisation in the area.

The final point is this:

"If democracy is delivered to Iraqis by the Americans arriving in tanks and helicopter gunships, then the local people and other Arabs will perceive it as a consequence of a defeat inflicted on them by their nemesis, the Israeli-American nexus."

That is the perception that will exist in the area.

Those are the massive difficulties and problems that there will be. We need to try to handle them in some way, and to overcome them. We also need to draw these matters together in terms of talking about how on earth we can achieve something democratic in these circumstances in Iraq, and how on earth we can achieve reconstruction and bring decent standards of life to a people who have suffered grievously over many years from the actions of Saddam Hussein and from our reactions to him.

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