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2.2 pm
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): Throughout the shadow Defence Secretary's speech, I hoped to hear one constructive suggestion of something that the official Opposition might do that would differ from the policy that the Government have pursued. Not once, in any part of his speech, was there the slightest indication that they would do other than pursue that policy.
Mr. Jenkin: I will tell the Secretary of State what we would have done differently. We would have had a plan at the outset for the post-conflict reconstruction of Iraq. The Government clearly have no such plan, as we have been told by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short).
Mr. Hoon: I will deal with that point in a second.
The House is all too aware of the tragic events in Iraq over the summer months. The bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad on 19 August, in which the UN special representative Sergio de Mello, Fiona Watson and 19 others died, was a horrifying attack on an organisation dedicated to helping the Iraqi people. The bombing of the Imam Ali mosque in An Najaf, which killed more than 100 innocent people, demonstrated the contempt in which those responsible hold the future of Iraq and the lives of even their fellow citizens. No less tragic are the deaths of UK and other coalition troops, and the deaths of those—including
members of the new Iraqi police force—who have been targeted for working with the coalition. We are determined to find those responsible for the atrocities and bring them to justice, whether they are former regime loyalists or members of other extremist groups. We will not let them succeed in their efforts to destabilise Iraq.The security situation in Iraq is undoubtedly difficult. We face challenges even in the south, where Shi'a hatred of Saddam and the Ba'ath party has generally made the population more welcoming of the coalition's presence. Organised crime has increased since the collapse of the old regime, partly because of the amnesty that Saddam granted to prisoners as coalition forces entered Iraq. Sabotage, copper theft and fuel smuggling are all damaging the local economy, and the consequent need to guard infrastructure until the Iraqis are fully able to do so for themselves diverts effort from the primary task of creating a generally more secure environment.
Yesterday I told the House of the outcome of the formal review of UK forces and resources in Iraq undertaken by the UK divisional commander in theatre. That review identified an immediate requirement for two additional battalions, 2nd Battalion The Light Infantry and 1st Battalion The Royal Green Jackets, together with some additional specialist personnel. Those additional forces, numbering some 1,200 people, are now being deployed to Iraq. Indeed, the 1st Light Infantry Company arrived in theatre over the weekend.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North): Can the Secretary of State give an indication of how many more troops he expects to send to Iraq in the next few months, under whose command and for how long British troops will be in Iraq, and when he expects all British and American forces to be withdrawn and to end the colonial occupation of the country?
Mr. Hoon: I do not accept my hon. Friend's conclusion, but I will certainly deal with his questions during my speech.
The extra forces will give commanders in theatre a range of additional capabilities to meet the growing number of military tasks that we face. Those tasks will include providing the coalition provisional authority with additional protection and improving our information-gathering capability in the divisional area of operations. Crucially, our extra personnel will also be involved in initiatives such as the training of additional indigenous Iraqi security organisations, in particular the Iraqi civil defence corps. Plans are being developed for a significant acceleration of the forming of 18 battalions of the ICDC, and we envisage their being able, over time, to take over many tasks from coalition forces.
It should be emphasised that we are deploying additional forces to Iraq to allow commanders to undertake more military tasks. The situation in Iraq is constantly evolving, as are the kinds of tasks being undertaken by UK forces.
Mr. Salmond: I thought that the reason for deploying extra forces to Iraq was to avoid strategic failure, to quote the Foreign Secretary. But given that it was the Government's bypassing of the processes of the United Nations that led us into this morass, might not ceding
full authority to the UN now help us to get out of it? If the Government do not do that, we will face not strategic failure but the needless loss of many, many more lives.
Mr. Hoon: I do not accept that we bypassed the United Nations; and, as the hon. Gentleman well knows, discussions are taking place again in the UN about a further resolution to support the effort being made by the international community in Iraq.
At the end of July, General Lamb's review concluded that force levels were about right for the tasks at that time, although we rebalanced them slightly with the deployment of a small additional number of troops. That shows that we keep force levels under constant review to ensure that we can move the right capabilities into theatre at the right time to undertake tasks as they arise. Our flexible approach allows us to minimise the effect on our forces by ensuring that troops who do not need to be in Iraq can take some well-earned time off. I am sure the House agrees that it would be wrong to keep troops away from their families for any longer than necessary. We will continue to keep our force levels under review and to adjust our force numbers as necessary to meet United Kingdom and coalition military objectives.
We also intend to deploy a number of armoured patrol vehicles at the same time as the additional troops. That, too, is a requirement identified in GOC 3 division's review of the evolving situation in Iraq and the likely future capability requirements for UK forces. A full investigation of the incident that led to the tragic deaths of three members of the Royal Military Police on 23 August is continuing, but commanders constantly review the security situation, adapting protection measures to reflect different circumstances.
We have always said that local commanders are the people best placed to identify the capabilities that they require and how to use them. It is obviously crucial for service personnel to be issued with the right equipment, but force protection is as much about tactics, techniques and procedures as it is about specific items of protective equipment. While inevitably carrying an inherent risk, those tactics—described by some as a softly, softly approach—have been tried and tested in operations around the world and are crucial to achieving our objectives in Iraq.
No one ever suggested that it would be easy to restore stability in Iraq, certainly given the time frame that we have had since the end of hostilities. In the south particularly, the basic utilities—power and water supplies—were in a dreadful state as a result of the former regime's policy of deliberate neglect. The situation is now further complicated by looting and sabotage. I should emphasise, however, that that is the activity of a small criminal minority, not the population of the south as a whole.
Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax): I have been talking to some young people who have just returned from serving in Basra. What those soldiers have told me in my surgery certainly does not reflect the rosy picture that the Secretary of State paints of the south. Three soldiers
who had done a six-month stint out there said that pressure is being brought to bear for them to go back. They said:
- "The situation is getting much worse. They tolerated us at first; now they deeply resent us."
Mr. Jenkin: I do not necessarily disagree with a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but will he clarify what the Foreign Secretary meant when he said on the radio this morning that the key task is to make use of these troops to get the infrastructure back up and running? Can he confirm that, as he seems to be saying, British armed forces will be concerned with security tasks and military training to enable the civilian agencies and contractors to come in, rather than with providing soldiers to do civilian jobs?
Mr. Hoon: Essentially, there is a need to ensure adequate power, for example. That can be achieved by moving in mobile generators, but there is not a lot of point in moving such generators in to the south of Iraq if they are then stolen and the metal sold in the scrap metal markets of Kuwait. The forces will be working with those providing the generation capability to ensure that such capability is providing electricity, not simply disappearing from the south.
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