Oral evidence

Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday 3 June 2003

Members present:

Donald Anderson, in the Chair
Mr David Chidgey
Mr Fabian Hamilton
Andrew Mackinlay
Mr Bill Olner
Mr Greg Pope
Sir John Stanley

__________

Memorandum submitted by Professor Wilkinson

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: PROFESSOR PAUL WILKINSON, Professor of International Relations and Chairman, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews; and MS JANE CORBIN, Journalist, examined.

Q310  Chairman: This is a continuation of our study as the Foreign Affairs Committee of the foreign policy aspects of the war against terrorism. Today we welcome for our first session Professor Paul Wilkinson, who is the Professor of International Relations and Chair of the University of St Andrew's Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. I believe that is still your position, Professor.

Professor Wilkinson: Yes.

Q311  Chairman: Indeed we welcome also Ms Jane Corbin who is a very distinguished journalist who has spent substantial time in the region, and I note that you are about to return to the region within the next few weeks. You have completed five Panorama investigations into al-Qaeda since 1998 and you have researched in detail the 11 September plot and have interviewed, we are told, most of the key players. Does that sound correct?

Ms Corbin: Some.

Q312  Chairman: Can I begin in this way with a question possibly addressed to you both. We know that on the 5 May of this year, President Bush said in a speech in Arkansas that, "Al-Qaeda is on the run...they're not a problem anymore", since when, as we say in Parliament, an amendment has been moved and now we have had the attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca. Is it your view that governments were becoming rather complacent about the threat of international terrorism and following the triumph in Afghanistan prior to the recent terrorist outrages?

Professor Wilkinson: I think that the American President was perhaps affected by the euphoria of the military success of his forces in the Iraq war, but I do not think that serious observers of al-Qaeda's activities really did believe that the organisation was a finished organisation or that it was in such a very serious state of disarray that one could really talk about it being on the run. The implication was that it was really falling apart. I do not think that that would be an accurate description. Certainly al-Qaeda was damaged, severely damaged by the war in Afghanistan, the removal of the Taliban regime which had sheltered it so carefully and given it the advantage of training areas and so on, and it was damaged by the capture of very senior people, like Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was caught pretty well a year afterwards in Pakistan.

Q313  Chairman: If we could then turn to Ms Corbin, do you broadly agree with that? How severely was the al-Qaeda organisation damaged as a result of Afghanistan?

Ms Corbin: I think in the immediate months after the Americans began their war against terror in Afghanistan, there was a huge effect on al-Qaeda. They were effectively at that time on the run. In fact President Bush used very similar words at the time. He said that they were a "spent force", that they were "on the run", and there was some truth to it then. Bin Laden himself made a last stand at Tora Bora, but was able to escape and there is every indication, certainly I was in Afghanistan at that time, that what was left were very much the remnants, but I think they had a strategy and they always had a strategy because they planned of course for 9/11 for between two and three years. They had a strategy to disperse the fighting forces that survived the war and to send them back, many of them of course originally coming from up to 60 different countries, Muslims from around the world, to send them back to those areas to regroup, to retrench and to reform cells and to wait for further instructions.

Q314  Chairman: And those areas would be particularly the Philippines, Indonesia ----

Ms Corbin: The Philippines, the Far East, North Africa and of course the Gulf itself, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. I think that those waves of fighters went back to those regions and formed, if you like, a second drive that we did not hear about for about six months. There was a six-month period when truly we believed they had gone to ground. There were isolated incidents, but then I think we saw very much the effects of that strategy with the Bali bombing which occurred in the autumn of last year and of course the bombing in Mombasa which thankfully was not as serious as it might have been where it could have killed at least 300 to 400 people if the hotel had been hit at the right time and if the plane had been brought down. I think we saw very much a year after the 9/11 attacks that they had regenerated and regrouped and were still a very ambitious and deadly force.

Q315  Chairman: Professor Wilkinson, you said that the comment of President Bush was in the aftermath of the end of the conflict in Iraq. How relevant was the conflict in Iraq to the war against terror?

Professor Wilkinson: Well, I think although all of us would breathe a great sigh of relief at the overthrow of the brutal Saddam regime, most observers on counter-terrorism would accept that there was a very serious downside to the war in Iraq as far as counter-terrorism against al-Qaeda is concerned because al-Qaeda was able to use the invasion of Iraq as a propaganda weapon.

Q316  Chairman: Did they need any such weapon or was the Palestine issue sufficient?

Professor Wilkinson: They have always wanted to latch on to issues that could be exploited in very dramatic terms, and the proximity of American forces to the holy places on the Arabian Peninsula seemed to be a very early issue that they were exploiting to the full. They exploited the Palestinian issue rather later. They did not come aboard with a tremendous effort on the Palestinian issue early in the propaganda.

Q317  Chairman: The links of the Saddam Hussein regime with al-Qaeda international terrorism, you are highly dubious of in your welcome memorandum to the Committee, saying in effect that the alleged meeting in Prague was highly suspect, that the Ansar al Islam on the borders of Iran was outside the control of the Saddam Hussein regime in any event. Do you see any connection between that regime and international terrorism?

Professor Wilkinson: The only connection that we can really say had substance to it is the connection that we all know about of Saddam's providing a safe haven for a number of secular terrorist groups which he aided over quite a long period, groups like the Abu Nidal group, and he did not of course favour helping groups that had the ambition of dismantling regimes like his, so extreme Islamist groups would be the last kind of group that he would welcome in his own backyard because they had chosen to identify Saddam as one of their key enemies, a person they wanted to remove because they saw him as an apostate.

Q318  Chairman: And no element of co-operation or overlap?

Professor Wilkinson: They did not have co-operation because their ideologies and political goals are so completely in opposition and I think that basically the story that there was a collaboration between them was dreamt up in Washington. I am not quite sure who first planted the stories, but I have found no substance to them when they are investigated.

Ms Corbin: I have found no substance either, though I have to say that when I was in Sudan investigating al-Qaeda's presence there, and bin Laden lived there for many years earlier on in the mid-1980s, there certainly was a sort of flirting with various groups trying to gain information from each other, to get together for discussions and I think it is true that there may have been feelers put out between al-Qaeda and the Iraqis and indeed the Iranians, a number of extremist groups both belonging to Sunni and the Shia persuasion, but that was a very historical background. I do not think anything came of it. I have never been able to find any concrete evidence of links between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime, certainly not organisational links. Certain individuals in al-Qaeda's camp may have passed through Baghdad and there have been allegations about one individual in particular who received hospital treatment, Mr al-Zarqawi, and yet it is possible. It is not impossible to say that an individual did not pass through Iraq at some time, but that is very different from organisational links. I agree with Paul that Saddam Hussein instinctively distrusted the kind of ethos that al-Qaeda has as being uncontrollable and I think the whole question of whether or not weapons of mass destruction would have been given by Saddam Hussein's regime to a terrorist organisation like al-Qaeda to be very unlikely because of the nature of Saddam's regime in that if he had these weapons, he would not wish to see control of them to an organisation like al-Qaeda which he had no control over, so I think that a lot of those claims were exaggerated. I, in my distinctive researches, have not found evidence of those links that are being put forward by many in America.

Q319  Sir John Stanley: Could I ask you both, do you think on the balance of probabilities that Osama bin Laden is still alive or not? Do you have any views, if he is alive, of where he is most likely to be located? Lastly, do you take the view that al-Qaeda are or are not managed to build back their organisation inside Afghanistan, notwithstanding the efforts of the US, ourselves and others to try to keep them out?

Ms Corbin: I believe that he is alive and he is able to operate with some degree of success. I believe that he never left Afghanistan, that he is still in the southern or eastern portion of the country or perhaps just over the border in what are known as the tribal territories in Pakistan. When you go to the region, you realise there is no such thing as a definitive border between those areas. Tribal allegiances run on both sides of the border and I think that those are more important rather than geographical considerations of whether he is in X country or Y country. It is all about tribal allegiances. I think he has never left, that he has somehow gone to ground and that he has the protection of sufficient people to ensure that he has not been discovered to date. I think the fact that Mullah Omar has also not been found is also significant, who moves in very much the same circles and could expect protection from very much the same kind of people. I think that the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated recently. We know that Hamid Karzai is at the moment trying to exert control over areas where warlords operate with impunity and I think that says something about the state of Afghanistan and the fact that little more than a year after the war against terror in Afghanistan we have not seen successful nation-building there and we have not seen security extended. This is the kind of environment in which al-Qaeda thrives and this is the kind of place that, if bin Laden were alive, he would wish to be, so I do not personally believe that he has travelled to Chechnya or sought refuge in the Yemen or any of the other theories that we have heard. I think that he never really strayed very far from where he was in the first place.

Professor Wilkinson: I would like to agree with that completely, so I will not waste the Committee's time going over the same ground. I think that is a very accurate assessment of bin Laden's likely whereabouts. I would like to add something on Afghanistan, however. I think that when one considers the very limited peace-keeping force that is now based in the Kabul area, it would be so much better if we had been able to devote some greater resource to assist the Karzai Government to try and gain control over the full territory of Afghanistan. When you think of the vast amounts of money that have been spent on the war in Iraq, and I have said earlier that I very much agree with the universal welcome to the overthrow of the Saddam regime, nevertheless, if we were looking at it from the point of view of defeating al-Qaeda as a network, then money spent on stabilising Afghanistan would have been, in my view, far more wisely spent. As Jane has said, the country is in a very serious state. Warlords are becoming deeply entrenched and are siding with Taliban and al-Qaeda residues and making it far more difficult for the Karzai Government to maintain credible authority, so I think the challenge to the Afghan Interim Government is really very serious.

Q320  Sir John Stanley: Would you wish to see a greater special forces effort outside Kabul than is taking place now?

Professor Wilkinson: Yes, I would. I think that that was really what was needed earlier and it is a great pity that there were not enough expert troops on the ground at the time of Tora Bora to ensure that the escape holes, as it were, were blocked. I think that is now widely accepted by strategists in the States looking at the record of the troops in the war, and I think that given that that was one of the failures, that we did not stop bin Laden escaping, we really need to look at the situation in Afghanistan again and put resources into stabilising that very fragile country because I think Jane's scenario of it falling apart and becoming really a safe haven for al-Qaeda again is all too credible.

Ms Corbin: May I just add one thing. I think that the importance of bin Laden himself as a figurehead and as a charismatic leader obviously should not be underestimated. It was said at the beginning of the war on terror that this man was wanted dead or alive. I think the Americans then managed to shift the emphasis away from bin Laden as the failure to capture him became more of an issue for the perceived success of the war on terror, but until he is apprehended or until he is shown to be dead, he will remain a charismatic figurehead and he will presumably continue to put out his messages, his tapes, his writings and he will act as a rallying point. It is not that he is necessary to co-ordinate the network or to give directions for each and every attack, but his importance his and always has been as the figurehead at the top of it, the man who inspires, the man who gives, if you like, the inspiration for the acts. His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is believed to be much more important in terms of the command and control, but bin Laden, I think his capture is absolutely essential for the war on terror to be judged a success and to have a real impact on the continued ability of al-Qaeda to recruit.

Q321  Mr Olner: Having said that, do you think then that there is some firm direction from the top of al-Qaeda on the recent terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco?

Ms Corbin: I think that they have their channels of communication. They are known to have stopped using anything like phones and even perhaps Internet communications because of the ability to be tracked, but they use couriers, they use a personal message system and I believe that that is still up and running to some extent, though I think it has been severely disrupted by the American success in seizing various individuals. My understanding is that an individual called Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian from Ayman al-Zawahiri's branch of al-Qaeda, which you will appreciate is an umbrella group which includes the Islamic Jihad within it, this individual is the person who has been a key figure in the Saudi attacks. He is known to be close obviously to Auman al-Zawahiri, so it would not be impossible for there to have been some direction from bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, out to Saif al-Adel and then to the bombers in Saudi. I think there is a degree of co-ordination, but I do not think it should be overestimated because the strength of al-Qaeda again has always been in enabling themselves to have a great deal of autonomy in the way that they act, their timing and so on.

Q322  Mr Olner: Do you not think it is a bit of an enigma really about the Saudis? The US Deputy Secretary of State, Paul Wolfowitz, stated that, "The Saudis are pursuing terrorists in their own country now with a vigour that we have not seen before", but surely the economic, political and social conditions in Arabia remain especially conducive to attracting terrorism and cells of terrorism?

Professor Wilkinson: I agree with you. I think that the Saudi situation is one where al-Qaeda has been able to recruit and plant a cell structure and that the Saudi authorities appear to have underestimated this danger is very clear from the security failures, the escape of the 19, I think, that were suspects that they realised were involved in a conspiracy, and unfortunately they did not capture them before the Riyadh bombing could be carried out. I think we need to distinguish, however, between laxity, incompetence, a kind of lack of counter-terrorism strategy and technical skill, and a kind of deliberate ambivalence or even a sympathy on the part of the regime for al-Qaeda. I think that the Saudi Royal Family know full well that al-Qaeda is, if you like, a sword pointed at them and that they are very much in danger from this kind of extremism, but they were hoping to keep the problem hidden and did not want it publicised outside the country or indeed even within Saudi Arabia, hence the idea of blaming this on criminal activity, you know, bombs in vehicles and so on blamed on to non-political crime, but given the fact that al-Qaeda was probably involved ----

Q323  Mr Olner: But given that Saudi is the paymaster for most of these organisations, can you really see the Saudi Government changing its attitude now so as to maybe bankroll some of these extreme Muslim organisations?

Ms Corbin: I think you have to draw a distinction between charitable funds which are administered by the authorities or the Royal Family and private donations made through mosques and there have been accusations that both of those are funding sources for al-Qaeda. Certainly the lawyers of the victims' families from the 9/11 attacks are very vigorously pursuing these various leads. The Saudis, I think, were undoubtedly shocked by what happened earlier in May in Riyadh. As to the thought that simultaneous attacks could occur in what is effectively a very securely policed state, the authorities have said openly that large quantities of arms and explosives were smuggled into Saudi and this seems to have shocked them almost more than anything else, that their own mechanisms for dealing with this did not come into operation this time and I think the sheer numbers of 19 or more that were involved will have sent a shock wave through the authorities. I think it is too early because obviously they are saying now that they are going to get tough and they are going to get real with this problem, so we shall see, I think, in the weeks to come, but I think it has been a salutary lesson to them.

Q324  Mr Chidgey: I would like to return, if I may, to the issue about the effects on al-Qaeda of the war in Iraq which you touched on a bit earlier. We took evidence from the Foreign Secretary a little while ago and we pressed him on this point at the time. He replied that the effects were completely benign and he could not understand why there would have been an issue about the war in Iraq having any implication on the war against terrorism and al-Qaeda. We had previously taken note of the comments from the Egyptian President, Mr Mubarak, and others who warned that an attack on Iraq, an invasion of Iraq would have very serious consequences with literally a rising on the Arab streets and would only boost al-Qaeda. There has not been a lot of evidence of that, has there?

Professor Wilkinson: Well, I think you have to recognise that it takes time for al-Qaeda to organise major attacks of a spectacular nature and often months are involved in terms of preparing the personnel, getting the weapons in place and so on, so we may not have seen the outcome of plans that were laid during these very recent months of the war, so I think it is a bit early to judge whether there has been an increase in planning of really major atrocities. However, Riyadh and Casablanca were, from the point of view of the Saudis and the Moroccans, major disasters because of course they had not experienced this in their major cities from al-Qaeda's affiliates or from al-Qaeda.

Q325  Mr Chidgey: Are you suggesting, Professor, that in some way, perhaps in every way, those particular atrocities were a retaliation by al-Qaeda to the war against Iraq?

Professor Wilkinson: I think that they were motivated by a number of things, one of which was to show that they were very much in business and capable of launching no-warning suicides, co-ordinated attacks, which is indeed what they did in both Casablanca and in Riyadh. I think that they also wanted to send a message to the governments of Morocco and Saudi Arabia that dealing with the "Great Satan" and the other "little Satans" in the West was something they were going to be paying a price for, that they wanted to show that they could undermine these governments which they regard as betraying the true Islam as defined by al-Qaeda's leadership, so I think there were a number of messages that they were conveying. Clearly during the period of the Iraq war, they had been busy preparing cells and instructing cells to plan actions. They had also still been receiving money and the intelligence community in Europe, I do not know quite whether the Americans would agree with this, I think they are somewhat puzzled still about the precise effects of the war on al-Qaeda, but if you speak to German, French, Italian and Spanish intelligence experts, they are of the view that recruitment and donations to al-Qaeda went up because the invasion of Iraq was seen as such a major propaganda boost for al-Qaeda that this was seen as what al-Qaeda had been warning about: "Here is a Muslim country being invaded by these wicked Western powers and we must leap to its defence". We have to remember that bin Laden, in an audiotape message, was determined to try and get some value out of this by calling upon Muslims to mobilise and to attack American and allied targets wherever.

Ms Corbin: I would agree with that and I think there were two moments at which bin Laden himself sent a message on the Iraq situation. One was in November last year and again in February. On both occasions he actually drew attention in his tapes to the coming war with Iraq and called on people to follow his lead and to attack the British, the Americans and he named a number of other countries as well. That was a deliberate call from him. From my contacts and discussions with various people, I know that there was debate within al-Qaeda about how they could use the coming war in Iraq to their own ends to boost the cause, if you like, and I think that this in turn was recognised by intelligence services around the world. There was a great deal of disquiet about exactly what al-Qaeda would do perhaps as the war with Iraq broke and that perhaps there would be big terror attacks to coincide with military action in Iraq. This did not happen and of course the coalition advanced with great haste and speed up to Baghdad and I think at this point that there was perhaps a little bit of complacency that we had not seen the feared attacks that bin Laden had called for, hence President Bush's remarks. I think for al-Qaeda it was very important that they were seen to follow up quickly with attacks which we then saw in Riyadh and Casablanca, so I think that they in effect will have viewed this as having fulfilled the promise that they made or the call that they put out to followers to come and follow them because of the action in Iraq. I do think that the action in Iraq has led to more recruitment and it has led to more prestige, if you like, in the eyes of those in the Middle East who will have watched the effects of the bombing and will have obviously watched al-Jazeera and other television stations and have seen the work of al-Qaeda and perhaps in the eyes of some it will be seen that bin Laden stepped in where other Arab leaders feared to tread and has done something to defend, if you like, the honour of the Iraqi people when others in the Middle Eastern region did nothing. This is always very important to al-Qaeda, this is the other string to their bow, that their enemy is always the West, the so-called "infidels" and the Jews, but their other enemies are the Arab regimes of which they disapprove and they seek to make capital in proving to would-be followers that they are the ones who really stand on their honour and dignity and not some of these Arab leaders.

Q326  Mr Chidgey: Can I just press a little further on the recruitment issue. You have both made it very clear, it is very interesting, the effect it has had on recruitment in the Arab world, but one of the issues we are interested in is what impact it has had on recruitment in the Muslim world outside the Arab region, particularly of course in Europe. If I can take one example where we have seen recently two UK citizens engaged in suicide bombing in Israel, though of course we have no idea if there is a linkage with al-Qaeda, it is interesting that that should have occurred some weeks after the war, so my question really is not so much the recruitment in the Arab world which may have been sparked or increased by the war against Iraq, but what impact it has had against the Muslim communities worldwide and whether there has been generated an increased involvement and recruitment to al-Qaeda from those communities which we would not normally see as the front-line target for recruitment to al-Qaeda.

Ms Corbin: I think the answer is that we do not know yet. We find out about these individuals sadly when these events become public knowledge. For example, the so-called "shoe bomber", Richard Reid, who was a British citizen, was a vulnerable and disturbed person clearly and was targeted by al-Qaeda and these are the kinds of people that they target. Their recruitment methods have been often through small religious groups, extremist groups operating in mosques, sometimes with the knowledge of authorities, sometimes without the knowledge of authorities in those religious establishments.

Q327  Mr Chidgey: In Western communities as well?

Ms Corbin: Yes. It is important to say that we should not give the impression that all mosques, all religious groups in these communities harbour recruiters for al-Qaeda. It is very small and very specific. They target vulnerable people and of course they use the instruments at their disposal and they use anger, they use perceived grievances and the more there are of those and the more recent they are, perhaps the more likely they are to find recruits given that they target vulnerable people to begin with, so there is every possibility that they will be able to further their recruitment because of events in Iraq, events in Gaza and the West Bank, but I do not think we can put a figure on it. I do not think we can say that they are twice as likely to gain recruits or to have a substantial number more, but we just know that that is the way they recruit, that is what they do and we know that they have a presence in many countries, including Britain, either directly as al-Qaeda or through affiliated extremist groups, GIA, GSPC, and others like that.

Professor Wilkinson: I think we have to remember that al-Qaeda is putting out a very universalistic message to Muslims. I am sure this Committee would not fall into this trap, but I think some observers have fallen into the trap of assuming that their appeal is to people who live in a number of Arab states or Muslim states which have provided a very large number of members, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen. I think that is a mistaken notion of al-Qaeda. It is aiming to try and mobilise Muslims all over the world. It sees itself as addressing both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, which is quite interesting because most radical movements within Islam in the past have really been either Shiite or Sunni and here you have a movement that is setting up the idea of a global and Islamist code effect and it seems very grandiose, it seems a long way away with us looking at the international situation as it is, but they really believe that that is what they are working towards and that Allah is on their side and that ultimately it will happen.

Ms Corbin: It is very important to al-Qaeda, because they are in the business of terror, in recruiting people who are able to escape the security net thrown round increasingly as we become aware of their methods. They deliberately chose Richard Reed because he had a British passport. A computer was later discovered in Afghanistan which was effectively a record of a particular operative who seemed to be controlling Richard Reed's itinerary and in it was stated quite clearly that brothers who have European passports can go to Israel and can do things which others cannot. I think that shows that al-Qaeda is deliberately targeting people who hold passports which enables them to travel more freely and not to fall under suspicion. I think that is another reason why we need to be concerned about the attractiveness of citizens in Europe or America or anywhere else to al-Qaeda, because they are perceived as being able to carry out terror attacks for them.

Q328  Mr Pope: I wonder if you could say a word about the links between al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It seems to me that there are a number of terror groups operating that have a number of things in common, for example Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad. Some of the Kashmiri terrorist groups all have in common that they are fundamentalist, fiercely anti-Jewish, anti-Western and have a cell-based structure. Is there more than a commonality of interest there? Are there actually links between them or are they more like Western-based extremist groups which tend to hate each other more than they hate their usual target? I am wondering about the level of co-operation between them.

Ms Corbin: I think bin Laden sensed very early on that the true power of his organisation lay in it becoming an umbrella organisation, he called it the base and he then called it the Islamic front for Jihad against crusaders and Jews. So I think he always conceived of it as an over-arching organisation and he worked very hard to bring other groups within that umbrella. Several years ago he sent his deputy to the Far East to scout out local groups who might be brought into some sort of affiliation and as a result the links with Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) have always been very strong historically with other groups in the Philippines. With other groups, they have not been brought under the umbrella of the base but tactical alliances have been formed. I can think of groups in Algeria who were already felt to have a strong presence in Europe.

Q329  Chairman: The GIA?

Ms Corbin: Yes, and the Salafist groups. There was a discussion at senior levels which went something like this: al-Qaeda will do the things that it can do and in the areas where you are strong you will continue to do the things that you are well placed to go, but we recognise that we have a common goal and we have a common enemy. I think al-Qaeda is quite flexible. Sometimes it has an affiliate and sometimes it teams up and shares operatives and sometimes in one particular country or place those two things may be going on in parallel which of course makes it even more difficult to penetrate and to defeat. On the Palestinian side, I personally have not seen evidence of direct links between al-Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories, but the Israeli authorities believe there are.

Q330  Mr Pope: The point that you are making is that they are co-operative rather than sectarian.

Professor Wilkinson: Yes, I think that would be accurate. I do agree with Jane that by and large the Palestinian groups have kept themselves rather distant from al-Qaeda. I think they recognised that they have a struggle which is fully occupying them, which needs all their efforts to be concentrated against Israeli targets and they have not wanted to get involved in this wider programme of al-Qaeda's. I think Arafat's rather angry assertion that al-Qaeda had been trying to hijack the Palestinian cause was interesting because it suggests that he was irritated at possible interference by al-Qaeda with the Palestinian movement in general. As far as the use of other groups is concerned, I think Jane is right to describe the structure or penetration of groups like GIA and the Salafist group for preaching in combat, which is the one that has so many European supporters. I think that they have used those organisations to a great extent as they have also created or helped to create organisations in other areas like Jemaah Islamiyah in south-east Asia. So they have groups that they have created by their own efforts with supporters in the region which they help with money and expertise. They have organisations which have been going for some time like the Algerian and Egyptian groups which have their own programme within their own countries but where they have supporters who are fanatically in sympathy with the al-Qaeda cause and they have used those, then they have people that they can move from one area to another with particular expertise and they are still able to do that. I think we ought to stress that although they are obviously devolving a great deal of work to the cells at local and regional level and giving them a great deal of initiative, they are still capable of deploying resources from the centre of the al-Qaeda organisation and they can still command financial resources despite all the very energetic efforts of the finance ministers' task force to block finances. I think it is $121.5 million that it is claimed is now blocked in Western banks, but of course that does not account for the money that they can send through the informal system of transfers in the Middle Eastern banking system which is still, unfortunately, a big loophole and it does not stop them from using organised crime which they are using extensively, things like credit card fraud, using front companies and then establishing the smuggling of various commodities as another lucrative means of bringing in money. So with all these other sources, bearing in mind that a terrorist organisation does not need as much money as a state, it does not have the same costs as a state, al-Qaeda is still far and away the best resourced terrorist organisation in the world today.

Ms Corbin: There is one other group which is the Pakistani extremist groups and I think that is particularly important for consideration in the British context because of communities here and sympathies with, for example, the issue of Kashmir, which is another one that bin Laden has sought to bring under the umbrella. In 1998 he first formed officially an alliance with Pakistani groups who were particularly unhappy about the issue of Kashmir and that has continued now as those groups have splintered, they have very close ties and because of the Pakistan/Afghanistan situation and the geographical closeness. I think there is a particularly close link between al-Qaeda and some of these Pakistani groups and we have seen that obviously in the bombing of a church in Islamabad last year, the killing of Daniel Pearl and a number of other incidents there and I think that has very profound implications for sympathies in certain sectors of the community here and perhaps recruitment as well. We know that the people who have ended up as al-Qaeda foot soldiers have talked about Kashmir as being the thing that draws them to bin Laden, it is another thing he speaks about frequently in his speeches.

Q331  Mr Pope: I want to touch on the leadership of al-Qaeda. It was on 5 May that President Bush made the speech that the Chairman quoted at the beginning in Arkansas. He said, "Right now, about half of all the top al-Qaeda operatives are either jailed or dead. In either case, they're not a problem anymore". Clearly there have been a number of events since then which would bring that into question. I just wondered how damaged an organisation you think al-Qaeda is by the fact that half of its top operatives are dead or in jail, if indeed they are?

Ms Corbin: Half are dead and in jail and half are not, it is the half full half empty syndrome. They show an ability to regenerate and to pass on responsibilities and for new groups and new individuals to rise through the ranks. It was not for some months until after the 9/11 attacks that the intelligence communities really understood who was the key figure in planning those, an individual called Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and although he had cropped up time and again and his name was known and he had been associated with things in the past, there was a failure to grasp how central he was to that particular plan. So I think there is a danger of seeing that repeated, so Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has now been seized and others, but are there other Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds coming up through the ranks who have responsibilities, who are sitting quietly somewhere working out a plan and the answer has to be yes. So although the organisation has been damaged, it does seem to have the ability to find new fanatical groups and individuals, not least of all the fact they have now admitted to having a department of martyrs, which I think gives you an indication of the strength of the recruitment that they have of people willing to give up their lives for the organisation, which is another key factor.

Professor Wilkinson: I think I would agree with all of that and add that we should not underestimate the sheer scale of this movement. I think movement is probably a better term to describe it than organisation because of its loose structure and affiliated organisations. As a movement it has more actual trained militants with expertise that can be used in terrorist operations than any previous international terrorist movement that we have known. We are talking about 17,000, that is probably a conservative estimate, who have been through various training processes, who have had access to the expertise and who can be mobilised in, the Americans are saying, 19 countries, but we only have limited resources in my research centre and we come up with between 50 and 60 countries. That is a terrifically high number compared to the geographical dispersal of any previous international terrorist organisation.

Ms Corbin: They also have used only low tech methods to date, so far they have not succeeded in the dirty bomb scenario that has been feared or the chemical or biological weapon, they have used car bombs, explosives, firearms, all fairly low tech solutions which in terms of training and passing on knowledge, yes, they still have to get those things, but in terms of passing on training and knowledge they are not that difficult. So given the thousands that have passed through the camps, even apprehending 5,000 or 10,000, it still leaves a substantial pool there for them to draw on.

Q332  Mr Pope: You touched earlier on the symbolic importance of Osama bin Laden to al-Qaeda, saying that it is not really the strategist who is going to decide what they are going to do next but it is of huge symbolic importance to them. There seems to be a consensus that Osama bin Laden is still alive and hiding somewhere. It seems to me safe to assume that he is top of the American Government's most wanted list and he is probably top of the British Government's most wanted list. What do you think the political ramifications for support for al-Qaeda would be either if Osama bin Laden is killed by the Americans or captured by them? It crossed my mind that the worst of all worlds would be for him to be captured alive because I could then foresee a wave of hijackings of planes and so on demanding his release.

Ms Corbin: I do not think he would allow himself to be taken alive, it does not fit with what we know about him or the organisation, but of course that does not necessarily mean that when the moment came and with the element of surprise they would not be able to capture him alive. I think it would create a problem first of all as you say because of the reprisals that would ensue and also the whole issue of the trial. How would you manage such a trial? Would it be a military tribunal or what? I think it would be a big problem. I do not think he would be taken alive. I think it is very important that he is captured or killed, but then of course you have the problem also, if he is killed - and we have seen this recently with Saddam Hussein and the various so-called decapitation efforts - how do you prove it? Do you produce a body? Can you produce a body? How do you convince people in the Middle East that he is dead? It is going to be a very difficult task..

Professor Wilkinson: I think it would be unwise to assume that if he is captured or killed that would mean the end of the al-Qaeda organisation, although some have concluded that. I think that is really not to understand fully the nature of the movement that has been established. They have a succession plan which would cover the deputy leader Aiman al Zawahri as well and the other key figures. Aiman al Zawahri's role is not to be underestimated, he is not only a strategist and a person with a lot of experience of the terrorism used in Egypt in the struggle there, he is also an ideological mentor, in some ways the ideologue of the organisation and I think his role is even more important today when we see him taking a very active part in propaganda efforts to make sure that the message is reaching sympathisers and supporters and so on. However, I think it would be a great blow to al-Qaeda, for the reasons Jane outlined earlier, if bin Laden was to be captured or killed. Although it would be an extremely difficult challenge, I would hope that he would be brought before an international tribunal because he has committed the most terrible crimes against human rights on a very big scale. It would be very important for the whole world, including of course the Muslim world, to see the case against him argued point by point. I think the tribunals that have been busily trying the war criminals from the Yugoslav situation have shown that they can cope with these very, very difficult situations and really produce extremely professional work at international tribunals. To my mind that would be the ideal way to deal with him if he is captured. I think if he could manage to avoid it he would try to be a martyr in the course of the confrontation with the police or the army.

Q333  Mr Hamilton: Professor Wilkinson, earlier you alluded to the fact that al-Qaeda does not need as much money as a state in order to carry out its terrorist acts but nonetheless it does need finance and one of the strategies that both British and UK governments and other governments indeed adopted after the 11 September 2001 was to try and kerb the flow of terrorist finance. How successful do you think governments have been in co-operating with each other to try and stem that flow of finance to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups?

Ms Corbin: I think it was very important that governments took the action that they did and for it to have been an international push. It had the effect in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 of making a number of countries in the region examine the transparency of their banking rules and regulations. I know this happened in the Emirates where I was shortly after 9/11, where it was explained to me by the authorities and by the Governor of the Central Bank that they will take every possible step to lay open what happened and, as you know, a substantial amount of the funding for the 9/11 operation did pass through Dubai. I think it was important to take those steps and to be very clear that everybody had to lay their records open. I think in the months following there was a great deal of money that was stopped and frozen, but I have never believed that the international banking system is the place where al-Qaeda has trusted large amounts of its funds. Certainly in the contacts that I have had and the people that I have interviewed things like gold have been very important, currency trading, the informal methods of barter, private donations, cash is very, very important to al-Qaeda and that is what they use. They also do not require, as Paul said earlier, large amounts of money. The whole 9/11 operation cost only a few hundred thousand dollars to mount and it ran for two or three years. The real value added that al-Qaeda has is not its funding but the fanaticism of its followers, that is worth more than money can buy. It is important to take steps, but I personally do not believe that what we have seen in terms of the stopping of money flows has made a substantial difference to al-Qaeda. They still seem to be able to buy and smuggle explosives and surface-to-air missiles with deadly effect.

Professor Wilkinson: I agree that they are still able to use these informal methods of getting money, but I think that the banking system has made a very useful contribution and I think it would be a very serious setback if countries were to retreat from this set of measures that they have taken. If they are going to work then the names of companies and individuals provided in the UK Security Council list must be of a kind where evidence can be conveyed by one government to another to back up the case for putting them in the list otherwise - and we have seen it happen in Canada and Sweden and various other countries - inevitably individuals who are named in the list but believe they have been unjustly named will challenge this in the courts of the country concerned and if there is no evidence available to the national legal system then nothing can be done to uphold this structure. I think we need to put greater emphasis on exchanging financial intelligence. There is already a great deal of stress on political intelligence about the movements of terrorists and their linkages and so on. In my view much more should be done on the financial intelligence side because of course to reduce the amount of funding that they can get is a major contribution, there is no doubt.

Q334  Mr Hamilton: The Islamic banking system relies very heavily on trust rather than on written records and obviously not on the payment of interest. Even if we use the international banking system to try and stem the flow of funds, if you are relying on fanatics to raise money, those fanatics will raise that money and raise it in cash. If you do not have huge amounts, I think you have said a few 100,000 over a period of two years to mount the attacks on the United States on 11 September, then how can we ever hope to defeat al-Qaeda through stemming their finances?

Ms Corbin: I think there is another method that al-Qaeda use which is simply a criminal method and it is very important for law enforcement to be across this and they are increasingly, which is that they have a huge racket going on with credit card fraud, they clone them and use them and this has happened in Spain and in other countries in Europe and in Canada to raise cash for operations. So that is a question of policing, to find these people and to find these illicit credit card fraud rings. That is another thing that can be done and I would say that that is the level at which they are operating together with their cash and small amounts of transfer and their donations, it is the credit card fraud as much as the big international banking transfers.

Professor Wilkinson: And it is the charities. We have to try and get the countries of the Middle East as well as the countries in the European Union who have already been thinking about this problem to register charities and scrutinise their finances more closely because undoubtedly al-Qaeda has also used that to siphon money off charitable organisations sometimes without the knowledge of the charity's trustees. So tightening up in all these respects is not going to end the financial resourcing of al-Qaeda, as Jane has said, but it is going to put a greater squeeze on them and I think we have to accept that it has to be a multi-agency, a multi-pronged effort which ultimately will undermine and gravely weaken, we hope ultimately unravel, the al-Qaeda network. We are not going to do it by financial measures alone and, as Jane said earlier, we are not going to do it by military measures alone. We need high quality intelligence, good, well chosen criminal justice measures, law enforcement, co-operation, we need to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world to show that we are not conducting a war against Islam but a war against terrorism and that message has been got across by our own Prime Minister and by other leaders in the Western world, but I do not think it has got across internationally with enough force and we do need to get that message really strongly across particularly in the wake of the war in Iraq where a great deal of propaganda working in the opposite direction has set us back in the hearts and minds campaign in my view.

Mr Hamilton: I wanted your views on the way in which established norms of civil rights are being contravened in the fight against terrorism and I wanted you to answer the question as to how justified things like Guantanamo Bay are because clearly the argument that is used is that we have got to use extreme tactics to defeat the extremism that terrorism has launched all over the world and therefore it is justifiable to kerb the norms of civil rights by keeping people in detention without trial in places like Guantanamo Bay. How far do you think those means are justified in the war against terrorism?

Q335  Chairman: Professor Wilkinson, you have published extensively on this issue so perhaps you should answer first.

Professor Wilkinson: As the Chairman has kindly said, I have spent a great deal of my working life trying to find ways of dealing with this problem internationally which do not involve the suppression of human rights, the suppression of democracy and the rule of law. In my view, if we adopt policies that are going to undermine those values that we so greatly treasure in democratic countries then we are actually assisting the terrorists, that is what they would like to achieve. Therefore, we should be very careful about the legislation that we introduce to deal with this problem. Of course there is a need for special measures such as finance measures. If you have a sophisticated organisation that is using the financial system there are laws in the Terrorism 2000 Act which I think were absolutely necessary because of the increasing sophistication of terrorism, so there is a contribution to be made from terrorism legislation, but I think what was important about the Terrorism 2,000 Act in Britain was that we did not favour going for the suspension of habeas corpus or other ways of damaging fundamental civil liberties and I think it is possible to act firmly and with effectiveness against terrorism without suspending fundamental civil rights. I think it is very dangerous if we do and I am on record as criticising the Guantanamo Bay effort. I think it is a great shame in a country where the law system has been widely admired, people admire the independence of the American criminal justice system all over the world, if it is not being used. These people are left in a kind of limbo where they are not being charged with anything, they cannot defend themselves, it appears some of them are juveniles. There may be people there who are guilty of the most awful terrorist offences. If they are, why on earth can they not be brought to trial in the United States where people like Ramsey Yousef, one of the master terrorist of the modern age, was put on trial and very effective evidence brought forward and the criminal justice system showed that it could deal with a complex case like his and with those who were involved in the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam Embassy bombings. Four of them were put on trial in New York very successfully in the sense that the judicial process was seen to be working properly and justly, justice was seen to be done and I think that is a far better way than suspending human rights.

Q336  Sir John Stanley: Can I just ask two final questions to you both, if I may. First of all, how close or far away do you judge al-Qaeda are to getting weapons of mass destruction and do you judge, if they are getting close, the greater threat to be from some form of nuclear device or chemical device or biological weapon? The second question is do you have any specific recommendations to the Committee as to what greater specific measures the British Government should be taking to protect the people of this country and British interests abroad from further al-Qaeda terrorism?

Ms Corbin: Al-Qaeda has long been in the market for both enriched material for a possible nuclear device and for biological and chemical devices. As far back as their time in the Sudan they were actively seeking this. I personally do not believe they are close to acquiring it. I think they have done a lot of preliminary work, but it is at a very low level involving very crude devices, basic research, although I think there is some evidence that they have an interest in things like anthrax which is very worrying. So we know the intention is there. We have seen no evidence yet that they have got near to achieving it. However, I think the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a few months ago has put more concern in the minds of the authorities because as I understand it, certain computer discs and other documents were discovered with him which showed that he had perhaps got further down the road with crude biological poisons, ricin and things like that, than we had imagined. I also think the fact that some of the people associated with the 9/11 plot, particularly Zacarias Moussaoui who came from Britain, he was a French-Moroccan but he had lived in Britain, there is evidence that he had been looking at crop-spraying aircraft, and we know what they are used for. There are a lot of indications there which we should have concern about but I do not personally believe they are about to launch a dirty bomb or to spread ricin or anthrax. It remains a possibility but I think we should be aware of scare tactics. The second point is, what advice would we give to the British authorities? I think it has to be close intelligence cooperation. We have seen the successful attempts to round up the group in Woodgreen who were interested in ricin in this country recently and other such successful operations by our own security forces. As I understand it they had very much a continental element, there was a lot of intelligence sharing with France, with Belgium, with Spain and other countries, and that is absolutely essential because they are a Europe-wide network, if not a worldwide network. At the moment intelligence sharing is the single most important thing and the ability to act promptly when they get that information.

Professor Wilkinson: I agree with Jane that they have shown a great interest in pursuing these weapons. I would disagree about how far away they are from actually carrying out an attack involving chemical weapons. I think that we can already see, and I have outlined them on the fourth page of text in the paper that I have provided to the Committee, a number of instances where they have already used poisons and chemicals. For example they were thwarted in an effort to use a nerve gas in an attack in Strasbourg; a cyanide attack on the water supply of the US Embassy was thwarted; Volumes 11 and 12 of the encyclopaedia of the Jihad, which al-Qaeda use for training purposes, are about CBRN weapons; we have video tape evidence from Afghanistan of the experiments they were doing with a cyanide based gas. Some of you may have seen some exerts of it shown on news programmes, dogs being subjected to this gas. I do not doubt that they have the capability of using a crude chemical weapon device now and I think it is quite possible that they have the means to conduct a dirty bomb attack, after all all that you need is a high explosive technique, which they have obviously mastered fully from their recent experience of massive bombings, and coat that with radioactive isotopes, which we know are very badly secured in most countries and many areas of life, and you have a dirty bomb. I think the Americans were very concerned when they made an arrest in the States of an individual who was suspected of involvement in reconnoitring a target for a dirty bomb. I do not think we are so far away from that, unfortunately, which is why I believe one of the things we need to do in addition to this increased intelligence coordination - which Jane rightly stresses is the key to the whole business - is we should also be examining our measures to prevent and, if necessary, sadly if we are too late in our preventive tactics, measures to deal with the consequences of a chemical or biological weapon or possibly a dirty bomb using radiological materials. I think it is unrealistic for us to assume that al-Qaeda and its affiliates are not really interested in doing this and will not take the opportunity of using it when they see the chance. I think we need to be realistic. We therefore need to do emergency planning and make sure that we do it. I believe a big emergency exercise was put off because of the Iraq War. I do not think it is wise to delay. We need to train our first responders, our police, all of the emergency services because they could save very large numbers of lives if the worst happened.

Q337  Chairman: One final question before we see Mr Keane, it is this: Ms Corbin, I was interested in what you were saying about the links with organised crime, credit card fraud and front companies. Organised crime also have networks for bringing in drugs, highly successfully from their point of view, into this country. To what extent do you know of any linkages between organised crime, narco groups and those terrorist groups which can constitute a serious threat to the UK?

Ms Corbin: I think there is some evidence that in the years in Afghanistan when the Taliban ruled there was some evidence that bin Laden and al-Qaeda profited from the heroin trade or at least helped the Taliban in the organisation of some of the distribution of drugs. I do not personally believe it is a big threat because al-Qaeda's extreme religious beliefs rule out that kind of organised crime linkage with narcotics. I think it has been much more narrowly defined in terms of raising cash for their own ends through credit card fraud. The drug issue is less important. However, we do know that organised crime networks, particularly the Russian ones, have been cited as pathways through which dirty bomb material and uranium could pass from one country to another, and there are many examples of that. One individual was apprehend in the States who is believed to have had links to organised crime, an al-Qaeda individual called Jose Padilla. There have been incidents of al-Qaeda individuals arrested and found to have those linkages. It is a threat but personally I believe as far as drugs are concerned there is not too much of a linkage as yet.

Q338  Chairman: Professor, are drug networks being used?

Professor Wilkinson: I agree with Jane's assessment and I have nothing to add to that. I think they are really into financial crime rather than drug crime.

Q339  Andrew Mackinlay: Forgive me if this is a naive question, for all their fund raising activities they have to deposit it somewhere. Traditionally gangsters have front organisations, the entertainment world and businesses large and small, perhaps even old factories. Where is the cocoa tin for al-Qaeda? One of the things I find astonishing is it seems to me to be able to master all this fundraising and to deploy it, distribute it and hide it requires a massive organisation, and it amazes me how it cannot be stumbled upon. How do you suspect they are able to hold this money? Is it true, they get much more in cash, unlike other organised gangsters, or is throughout the world in some very respectable corporate organisations?

Professor Wilkinson: Some of it is investigated in what appear to be legitimate business organisations, some of it in shipping, some of it in agricultural concerns, some in small industries like construction.

Q340  Andrew Mackinlay: That is a big portfolio to manage.

Professor Wilkinson: We have to remember for much of bin Laden's life he was part of a big business empire, the bin Laden empire that his father made fortune with gave bin Laden a lot of knowledge of how businesses operated and how you could develop new techniques for making considerable sums of money. I think that has been part of the reason for their success as an international network. They were never dependent on a single state for financial support in the way that the terrorist movements of the 70s and 80s were, the clients of Libya, Syria and Iraq would go round in a sense with a begging bowl and when they were kicked out by one they often would go and beg for sponsorship from another. Here you have an organisation which because of bin Laden and his colleagues having some business knowledge is able to succeed as a business conglomerate. They can evade a great deal of the effort made by America and other western countries by using their business connections and operating what appears to be a respectable business front.

Chairman: We have gone well beyond our allotted period for the first half. It is my pleasure to thank you, Professor Wilkinson, you have been a good friend of the Committee and been extremely helpful. Thank you very much, Professor Wilkinson.

Witnesses: MS JANE CORBIN, Journalist and MR FERGAL KEANE, OBE, BBC Special Correspondent, examined.

Chairman: Can I now welcome to the second part of today's session Mr Fergal Keane, who has been a good friend of the Committee and given valuable evidence in the past, joining him is Ms Jane Corbin. We hope to concentrate on post-conflict Iraq and the regional repercussions knowing that both of you have made extensive visits to the region and can in effect be the eyes and ears of the Committee having seen at firsthand what is happening in Iraq. I would like to call on Mr Chidgey to open the questioning.

Q341  Mr Chidgey: It is good to see you again, Mr Keane. Can I ask a couple of questions regarding the immediate post-conflict period and then link that to what is happening now? I am very interested to hear your views about the failure of the coalition forces to prevent the widespread looting that followed the immediate overthrow of Saddam Hussein. We took evidence from the Foreign Secretary a few weeks ago and when he was questioned on that his reply was: "It is greatly to be regretted that there was disorder and looting on that scale. If anybody is at fault, it was the fault of the Saddam regime for failing to have a climate of natural law and order." Donald Rumsfeld was more succinct in his response, he said "stuff happens". You will be familiar with the report in today's Independent, Mr Keane, from one of your colleagues, which spells out in some detail the extent of the looting that has gone on. It is worth pointing out for the record that we are not talking here about the destruction of the national library and the national museums in Baghdad, which, of course, resulted in the destruction and looting of a huge number of artifacts there, we are now talking about the destruction of two or three ancient Sunnarian cities occupying areas of 10 square miles or more and destroying the remains of a civilisation which goes back more than 5,500 years, that is our civilisation. In that context, and recognising the responsibilities that the occupying powers have under the Geneva Convention I would like your response to a series of questions regarding coalition: Should they have done more to prevent the looting in the immediate aftermath of the war with Iraq? Should they have been doing something by now to have met their obligations as occupying powers?

Mr Keane: I drove into Iraq probably about 24 hours after the Saddam statue came down in the centre of the city and I was immediately struck on approaching the city itself by the fact that road blocks had gone up, with armed men wearing green headbands, who I later discovered were Shia resistance movements, who had taken over security on the edge of the city. There were American checkpoints but there was a preponderance in areas of the city of these Shia-controlled checkpoints, and that struck me as something odd that already within 24 hours a factionalisation like that had been allowed to occur. That impression was very much strengthened that afternoon, the following day and indeed on many subsequent days when I drove to what was at that time called Saddam city, the main Shia area of the city, which had clearly been taken over and come under the control of the local religious Shia leaders and they had placed their men with guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers on various street corners. I have to say there was no anti-western feeling displayed towards us. They were perfectly comfortable with our presence but they were very clearly in control. When we pushed them on why they were on the streets with guns they said it was in direct response to the failure of the allies to curb the looting which had erupted within minutes of the battle for Baghdad beginning, once people had a sense that the regime was crumbling. On that looting I have been in many, many wars and I have seen worse looting. I have been in many cities which were bombed in a much more severe way than Baghdad was. I have seen a great many more civilian casualties, but that really is not the point with this war. What struck me very strongly as an observer was the most modern military force and the most powerful military force in the world had arrived in a relatively sophisticated city and that under the noses of this powerful force the city had been reduced to the most extraordinary scenes: we witnessed heart monitors being ripped out of hospitals; hospitals being stripped bear; patients being turned away; nurses carrying assault rifles to keep the looters away from hospitals, everything that could be taken being taken. When one approached American troops about this they did express concern, it certainly was not a caviler attitude on the part of troops on the ground, they wanted to able to help, but two things were apparent: One, the soldier that you spoke to on a checkpoint two blocks away had no information and no idea of what was happening in another sector of the city because the information was not passed on to him; secondly, his commanders had clearly not been given instructions to interfere. Quite a few American officers at the level of captain and major said to us: "Look, our view is they have earned the right to do this, they have put up with the regime for long enough". That was an initial response. As the days went on they clearly became much more concerned about it, there were some efforts to restrict the kind of looting that was going on but nothing, nothing of the order that was needed. It had two very, very profound impacts, one was clearly a physical one, the population was left in a situation where all essential and vital services has disappeared. They could see this immensely powerful army doing nothing about it and they had to suffer the physical consequences. There was a second psychological consequence, which was certainly unintended from the American point of view, people watched American troops at checkpoints looking very frightened a great deal of the time, unable, in most cases that I came across, to speak the local language because they did not have interpreters with them. The message a lot of people I suspect took from that, because they said it to us, was that this army was in some way scared, it was not going after the looters, it was not going after the armed gangs because it was frightened. Whenever there was a situation where I witnessed American troops coming under fire there would be a massive reaction, a massive reaction. That was always in a situation where they were attacked. There was very little attempt to police Baghdad in these crucial five or six days after the statue came down. When people look back at the history of this time they will regard those days as one of the great missed opportunities. There was certainly huge relief on the part of almost every person I spoke to about the fact that Saddam was gone. This was not people saying, "death to American, they have overthrown our beloved leader", far from it. I think there was a real opportunity missed in those days to stabilise the situation and to allow people the thing they have wanted to feel all of their lives, and that is to feel safe.

Q342  Mr Chidgey: Before I ask Ms Corbin to add her comments can I just put another question to you, you have mentioned that you have been in many wars in your career, can you tell me whether you felt on this particular occasion the reasons for the failure to police, control, or whatever, the civilian population and the extremists in it was something which could have been foreseen, something which could have been catered for in terms of having sufficient resources? Was it just this particular style of army which was so efficient and so high-tech but so slim in terms of numbers? Was there something that you could link to that happening? One assumes that it was an accident, it was not planned that it should be that way, it was perhaps lack of foresight? What was your impression?

Mr Keane: I think one would have to do the impossible and gaze deeply into the inner mind of Donald Rumsfeld to give you a correct answer - I am not able to do that. Did we know there was a possibility of a serious breakdown of law and order in Baghdad? Yes, of course we did. We knew this was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. In any situation where you remove central control, whether that is Yugoslavia, Rwanda or indeed Iraq, where you remove what has been a heavily repressive centralised control there must the danger of an upsurge in violence and lawlessness. Having known that, were adequate preparations taken to combat that? Of course not.

Ms Corbin: I will not repeat what Fergal has said about the situation in Baghdad, perhaps I should speak a little about the situation in the south, in Basra, which is where the British troops were and came under British control. Similar things happened there, by the time the British troops entered into Baghdad through the final ring into the centre of the city looting was well under way, it had been sparked by the belief of the local people that so-called Chemical Ali, Saddam Hussein's cousin, who was the strong man in this city, was dead. This was the signal for the looting to start. In the early days the looting in Basra was directed at the regime, offices were stripped, palaces were stripped, places where the regime had been powerful were stripped. The hospitals were less of a target, but the banks very rapidly also became a target. The looting there was much more directed at the perceived areas where the regime had been powerful. Again the British were unable to control it. British troops told me very freely they were frightened by the way in which the scale of the looting threatened to overwhelm what had been a victorious entry in to the city. There were round 8,000 men from the Desert Rats, the Seventh Armoured Brigade and Basra is a city of getting on for two million people, absolutely vast, and also vast geographically, a huge, sprawling city and it was impossible for that number of British troops to effectively police the city. One of the reasons this had not been given adequate thought beforehand was there was a hope right up to the last minute that there would be an uprising from within, both in Basra but also in other major cities, like Baghdad. Perhaps there was a forlorn hope that somehow a strong regime would arise from within that would extend outwards so that the troops could come in and would then find some degree of control within the city, that did not happen, there was a vacuum. The regime fled, the Americans and the British had not quite reached the centre and looting was the end result of that. That certainly happened in Basra. I think the worst effects of the looting in Basra, which quickly became apparent, were the destruction of the water system and the electricity system. A consistent problem has been the looting of copper wiring within the electricity system, so when people say, why do they not have the electric system up and running and the answer is that the wiring simply gets looted all of time, the most basic problems. There was no plan to deal with that. However, it has to be said that the British Army very quickly spread through the streets of Basra and they took a very different attitude from that of the Americans troop, they took off their flak jackets and their helmets as soon as they were able, they moved out and they mixed with the population and they took a very different hands-on approach. Talking to many citizens in Basra that was appreciated, it was felt that the British were not holding the Iraqis at arm's length. There are lots of reasons for that, obviously our colonial history in the area the British troops felt more comfortable. There was a noticeable difference in approach in Basra. I still believe that not enough forethought was given to what would happen in the vacuum that would almost inevitably arise in Basra. Basra is a city which has been systematically starved by the regime of infrastructure, totally different from Baghdad. It is a pathetic and sad sight and it was even before the troops got there, and therefore the looting that has taken place in Basra will set that city even further back because they had nothing to start with and now they have less than nothing. It will take some time for it to be built up. The last thing that remains to be said is that Saddam's militias planned for such an event, they melted into the population, many of them were not killed, they took off their uniforms and they went home and they still persist as a very disruptive element. Their hope is that they can outstay the Americans and the British, they can ferment trouble, they can continue to ferment violence and looting and ultimately they will be able to take control again in certain areas. It is a problem that has to be tackled, it is not something that we can hope will just go away as the situation reasserts itself because those elements of the militias are still out there and they need to be dealt with.

Q343  Mr Chidgey: Turning to the local police in this regard, we have been advised in evidence that the local police are on side and we now have 2,000 local policemen in Baghdad working in joint patrols with the Americans, I just wondered how effective you felt that was? As recently as last week the Chief Constable of Hampshire, who was previously the Chief Constable of the RUC, which is relevant in terms of dealing with handguns on patrol, has just come back from Baghdad and he described what he saw there, "the local police are not what we describe as police officers. They are basically corrupt thugs". However he did add that some did show willingness and enthusiasm to be trained as proper police officers. That was one view.

Ms Corbin: In Basra the same thing happened while I was there, the police took over joint patrols with the British military. What I found, and I went out on night patrols with the military, and it was very revealing because at night people's fears are heightened, people were defending their own houses, their families, they were taking matters into their own hands. They told me did not want the old police because many of them were members of the Baath Party at best, if you like, and at worst were actually extorting from people anyway and had been responsible for all sorts of human rights abuses. I think there is a problem in bringing back in its entirety the old police force because of the perceptions about that police force in the minds of the people. It is going to be a long-term project to find and recruit suitable people and it is all part of the de-Baathification of Iraq, which is going to take a long time in Basra.

Q344  Mr Chidgey: How long do you think?

Ms Corbin: People wanted the British soldiers to stay.

Mr Keane: I think what is happening is that people are not being patient and are not waiting for the de-Baathification. Alternative means of security are being organised, that is what we saw in Saddam city, it is what you are seeing in many Shiite areas, remember they are the majority of the population. People are organising security for themselves. One thing that was very striking, it was just 24 hours after the statue came down, we were seeing very active street patrols by Shiite organisations. All of us, the intelligence services, journalists and politicians clearly underestimated the degree of underground organisation which existed amongst Shiites. Now the whole question of how security is brought to the streets, the bonus that will be given to anybody who does bring security has been seen and seized upon by various different elements in the Shiite community, they are actively attempting to provide the security which the United States in particular has failed to provide.

Q345  Mr Chidgey: Given the obvious chaos in the civil society with the break down of law and order can I ask you, in the context that exists now within the civil society and within Iraq generally if weapons of mass destruction had existed in Iraq during the war could they in this environment have been sold and smuggled to terrorist organisations in the post-war period?

Mr Keane: If there was, as we were told, an imminent danger of that happening before the war I think it is valid to pose the question that in a situation where there has been a complete break down of law and order, where the country's borders are more porous than they have ever been, particularly those with Syria and with Iran, less so Jordan, is there not the possibility that a can's worth of anthrax or sarine, or something like that, could be taken out. If it is possible to smuggle out priceless artifacts and a great deal else is it not equally possible to smuggle out a weapon of mass destruction or a component for a weapon of mass destruction? If those materials do exist within the country then in all probability it is possible.

Ms Corbin: I agree theoretically it is possible for them to be smuggled out. The borders are completely open, you do not even show a passport, you can move in and out at will. My own personal view from having studied the weapons of mass destruction issue for some years is they would not have been in a readily usable form for a terrorist or somebody who wished to buy them, ie a phial of anthrax or a ready-made chemical weapon. It would have been in precursor form and I myself feel that a very small group round the leadership would be the ones that would have known of the existence and the whereabouts of these things and therefore they would have been kept safely. I personally feel there is less likelihood of them being smuggled out to the highest bidder or to a terrorist. If they existed I believe they were kept very closely under the control of a very small group of people.

Q346  Mr Chidgey: The pack of cards people?

Ms Corbin: The pack of cards people and some of the military intelligence and bodyguard elements around some of those key figures.

Mr Keane: Presuming they existed!

Ms Corbin: Presuming they exist and also presuming they were not destroyed before the war.

Q347  Sir John Stanley: Can I just follow what you have been saying, if the weapons of mass destruction had not been destroyed before the war started and if they were closely held do you have any views as to whether or not it is the case that they could have been in a situation where they could have been deployed within 45 minutes?

Ms Corbin: I think it is very difficult for a journalist to know that information. We are told that information has come via intelligence and not open sources. We have been led to believe in the past and certainly from what we know of the security organisation that control these, the SSO, under the control of Saddam Hussein's son Qusay that it was a very small group of people and that orders could be given directly within that small group. It may be reasonable to suppose that orders could be carried out in fairly short time if such weapons existed. I would not wish to put a figure like 45 minutes, which seems to me to be an extremely precise figure, I simply do not have that knowledge. There is a lot of speculation and debate about where that knowledge came from and what its basis is.

Q348  Chairman: Can you add to that knowledge?

Mr Keane: I unhappily cannot. I would rather leave that to Jane.

Q349  Mr Hamilton: Mr Keane, I wanted to pick up on the point you made about the level of underground organisation - actually Jane probably made that point - the point I wanted to pick up on was the thing you said, that support would be given to those that are able to secure the streets to make people feel safe and it is actually the Shia groups that seem to be the best organised in that respect. Do you think that US attempts to try and get a balanced representation will simply play into the hands of religious extremists?

Mr Keane: I think what one needs to realise is that in a country like Iraq when you get an eruption of this kind on the streets the Mosque becomes civic society in effect, it is the place to which people will look for security and for comfort. I think that was always going to happen. Certainly in the absence of an attempt to prepare to impose law and order that was always going to happen. Can America have a balanced government that leaves out the reality that Shiite-led groups and religious-led groups will form the majority. I do not think so. That was tried in Algeria when they had an election and Islamic groups came to power and were then denied it and Algeria was then plunged into a long and vicious war. Can America deny the religious demographics of Iraq? I doubt it. I very much doubt it. I would add there are two things we must realise: the Shia politics in Iraq are not a monolith, there are different groups with varying degrees of willingness to cooperate with the West. All of these groups realise that the United States is going to be a big part of their reality for the next 10 or 20 years, that nobody can hope to rule Iraq without the support of the United States, certainly the economic support of the United States. That acts as a powerful incentive not to frustrate American efforts but to create what you have described as a balanced government. Will they cooperate? I tend to think they will.

Ms Corbin: I think it is important when we talk of Shia groups to make it clear that those range from extremely religious groups to extremely secular groups, 55 per cent to 60 per cent of the population of Iraq is Shia and as one person put it to me that goes from people who will drink alcohol on one level to people who pray five times a day and obey very, very strict religious guidelines. There are many Shia groups. I am personally more optimistic having been in the South where the Shia groups are at their most numerous. What we are seeing is after 30 years of repression for the first few days people could not believe it, nobody wanted to say anything or do anything. After 30 years being told you could not speak freely people were afraid. We are now in the phase that came after that, which is a great thirst for knowledge, for discussion, people are holding meetings, there are newspapers being published, new groups are being formed. People are revelling in a certain amount of freedom. There is chaos as a result of that. I am more optimistic that the Iraqi people will choose the leaders that they want and they will find some way of making what they want felt. I think the British authorities in Basra have made that absolutely clear, they will not choose - in fact there have been some disastrous attempts when they have attempted to nominate people - the Iraqi people will choose. I am little more optimistic about what will happen, particularly in the South, and how the balance of these parties will work out. I think there is an air of realism about the Shia and knowing where their interests lie in the future. After 30 years of dictatorship from the top in Iraq they are not about to hand themselves over to the dictates of, for example, Iran. The Shia character in South Iraq is an Arab Shia character, it is not a Persian or an Iranian Shia character, the two things are quite different and I think we have to keep that perspective when we think about the situation there.

Q350  Chairman: What is the evidence of any intervention by Iran?

Ms Corbin: Certainly because the main Shia groups under Hakim, who was sheltered for many years in Iran and has strong links with certain individuals in the Government in Iran because he is still seen to be a very major figure and he has now returned to the South from exile people suspect that through him the Iranians are exerting influence. Certainly the speech that he has made so far publicly I think has sought to allay those fears and to try to put people's minds at rest. Of course it is early, we do not know exactly what is happening behind the scenes. I would say that the signs are not all bad by any means.

Mr Keane: I would like to agree with that. I am not a pessimist, I believe where the danger exists is if the United States believes that it can pick the leaders, even in the short-term, who are suitable for the Iraqi people. There is no doubt in my mind that the sort of key figures in the Shia community are willing to do business, the question is whether the United States are willing to do business with them and recognise they will have a very significant role in the future of the country. Quite how that is organised is still a matter for much debate. The idea that you can postpone, as we are seeing at the moment, the idea of meaningful representation of the people I think is very, very dangerous.

Q351  Mr Hamilton: You do not think we have anything to fear from the increasing role of Shia clergy?

Mr Keane: I think we have something potentially to fear if the process of democratisation in Iraq is delayed unreasonably, then these people will say: What did we tell you, they came here for our oil and they came here to oppress us and occupy our land, then they will get a greater hearing. At the moment I do not feel, and I did not feel talking to people on the ground, that most people believed all of this was about oil or humiliating them. They were glad to see these people gone. What everybody said, and I was in Karbula during the greatest Shia demonstration seen in the country's history, over one million people, and speaking to a great many people over several days, all of them said we are glad, without exception, you came and got rid of Saddam and now we went you to go home soon. They did not say straight away but soon. The danger is that because the United States does not the find the kind of people it feels it wants to work with it will work with the wrong people and then the extremists, the remnants of the Baath Party will crawl out of the woodwork.

Ms Corbin: It is a bit unfortunate as we have heard in the last 24 hours that elections may be put off for a year now and in the mean time there will be an appointed political council to act alongside the coalition, the British and the American individuals there are who the occupying authority. I think a year is a long time to wait to allow the Iraqi people to decide who their leaders will be. I think there should be a bit of disquiet about that.

Q352  Mr Hamilton: When Fergal was talking about Baghdad and the American troops not having interpreters, not being able to speak Arabic, and you mentioned the different way that British troops treated the people of Basra, did British troops have interpreters?

Ms Corbin: They did, yes. There was a shortage of interpreters, not everybody did. Moving round the city and encountering different groups, for example the Irish Guards to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards to the Black Watch each of them had at least one or two interpreters with them and quite frequently British troops who spoke Arabic.

Q353  Mr Hamilton: Were there British officers or troops who spoke Arabic?

Ms Corbin: Yes, there were. A lot of people were volunteering at the gates of the palace where the British headquarters were to work as interpreters and they were being taken on and put to work straight away. There did seem to be a reasonable number of interpreters.

Q354  Mr Pope: I am really perturbed by this. I did not realise what Jane just said, they put back for perhaps a year---

Ms Corbin: It has not been settled. The indication is, perhaps for the record that ought to be checked, it may take up to a year to hold elections and that in the mean time an appointed council will sit with the occupying authorities to decide how to run the country. There is a problem because you have to balance against that the desire for de-Baatification, which means that within the ministry it has been decided that certain individuals and certain ranks will not be re-appointed or allowed to have any power again. You have to fill those vacancies. It has obviously been compared to de-Nazification in Germany, the Baath Party is an all-pervasive power, if you remove those officials you remove large elements of the civilian and civil service, etc so there are practicalities to be overcome. Perhaps originally they thought they could still appoint people who were associated with the past regime, that backfired, there were a large number of demonstrations in the streets, it became clear they could not do that and they therefore passed an edict saying they would no longer allow them to serve and now they have a problem filling those seats. There are undoubtedly practical problems. To wait a year for the people to choose is perhaps a long time.

Mr Keane: I do not believe that the idea of an appointed council is necessarily a disaster, it depends the people who are appointed. If they are seen as legitimate representatives of the people and if they are over the process of six months to a year seen to be able to work together before elections then that idea of a breathing space might not be a bad thing. We are not talking about 30 years or dictatorship here, we are talking almost the entire history of the country being lived in an undemocratic, anti-democratic context. The idea of a year as a breathing space is not necessarily a disaster as long as the people whom you are work with are genuine representatives of the people. If they are not that year does turn into a vacuum in which all kinds of extremist groups and old party officials can thrive.

Q355  Andrew Mackinlay: How does the currency work? There are markets and there are shops, presumably the currency will suddenly have no value, there will be nothing to back it. Is it working? Are they using dollars?

Ms Corbin: In Basra the British became bankers effectively because of the looting situation, people were taking the money for safe-keeping with the British troops. They showed me there were huge problems, there were two forms of the currency already in circulation before the war, which was an old form of the dinar and a newer form of the dinar. The newer form of the dinar with Saddam's face on it very rapidly lost currency because of the war. As I understand it, and I read a report in the Times today, they are running out of money and therefore they are having to print more notes and because there is no decision about what currency will replace it they have had to start reprinting new notes with Saddam Hussein's face on which in turn has not really filled people with a huge amount of confidence.

Q356  Andrew Mackinlay: It struck me that the occupying forces really ought to do what they did in Germany and produce a note that will be worth so much, like the Ostmark, and at least you will start from a scratch. If they have not done that it seems to me foolhardy in the extreme.

Mr Keane: The poor use these Saddam notes but the rich use dollars.

Andrew Mackinlay: This is something that we should flag up, we should be mindful of.

Q357  Mr Pope: I wanted to go back to this issue about the gap between where we are now and an interim authority being set up. It may not be a year but it is clearly a way off, it is not about to happen. Into this vacuum we already have Shia clergy in Baghdad operating a kind of interim form of justice, settling property disputes, divorces and who knows what else. The danger I wanted to suggest is if an interim authority is delayed by many months, up to a year, we will essentially have a de facto justice system. The old Baath system has gone, there is not a system to replace it on the horizon and in to this vacuum you will end up having Islamic justice which in a year's time will be entrenched and very difficult to replace. We will end up having a de facto Islamic state by the time we get round to setting up an interim authority. Following on from that, should we worry about that? Should not the bench mark of us creating a free Iraq be that if they want to choose to be an Islamic state they should able to do that?

Mr Keane: When we use the phrase Islamic state the instinctual reaction is that is either Iran or the Taliban. There are many vanities and variations on the theme of an Islamic state. I think the question is it is up to the Iraqis to decide it. Whether we say that or whether I say that that is what they are going to do. The long-term reality of this is that the Iraqis will one way or another decide what kind of government they have. The religious leaders amongst the Shia are by no means amongst the most extreme people you will meet in the Middle East and they are pragmatic. We were approached by a representative in Karbula, it was a private approach so I would rather not give his name, and he said, the message you must get across to your Government and to people in the West is that we want to work with them. This was a person of significant influence. I think they are pragmatic, they know that it is impossible to run the country. They look next door to Iran and see the economic consequences of being an enemy of American. They look at other countries and see what happens to you when you are a long-term enemy of America. They do not want to be saddled with massive debt, no economic cooperation, probably divisive wars against the Kurds and other groups in the country, because that will be the consequence of an American abandonment of Iraq. I am not pessimistic on that front. There is a great deal more political sophistication and shrewdness than we perhaps allow.

Ms Corbin: It is also worth saying that Iraq is the sum of its constituent parts and it has a great deal of pride as a nation, although it is fairly recently formed as a nation. Again a result of the British drawing of maps earlier in the century people in Iraq see themselves as Iraqis, they do not say I am a Turkmen, I am a Kurd, I am Shia and I am a Sunni, they see themselves as members of an Iraqi state and that is going to be very important for what comes next, very important indeed. The thing you hear constantly, the refrain you hear at all levels of society is they feel they have been isolated and ostracised for years through sanctions which have bitten very deeply into the fabric of society, through a lack of cultural exchange, the lack of ability to travel. All of these things they feel have isolated them. They will be very aware of the consequences of further isolation by driving a government in an extreme direction. They want to rejoin the world. They want to be able to travel. They want to be able to send their children to be educated abroad. All of these are positive things that will weigh heavy in the balance when it comes to them deciding their own future. I agree with Fergal Keane that the key thing is that they will decide and they will choose. There is no sign they want to perpetuate or continue their isolation in any way, shape or form.

Q358  Sir John Stanley: Sir John Stanley: As you are aware the prime responsibility of this Committee is to produce an assessment of the performance of the British Foreign Office, I would like to ask a number of questions in that area in relation to the British Foreign Office's performance in post-war Iraq. First of all, as we all know, there are very clear legal responsibilities placed on occupying powers and those are coupled with clear definitions of their rights. Probably as far as the rights are concerned it is as important as to what rights do not exist under the relevant legislation as to the rights that do exist. As we know the key documents are the Hague Regulations that were published before the First World War and the Geneva Convention governing the rights of occupying powers after the Second World War. The question I would like to ask you both from your time in Iraq after the war is how well or not did you form the view that British personnel, both civilian and military, had been briefed as to the rights and responsibilities of members of occupying powers in the post-war situation?

Ms Corbin: Speaking from the perspective of Basra, certainly when I arrived, which was as the troops entered the city, some of their responsibilities with regard to prisoners of war, for example, were I think well understood and well appreciated to the extent that there was often an attempt to keep the media from filming or interviewing these people, understanding their rights, that was very clear then. I also think that the British officers in charge were also very concerned about the water situation. As an occupying power the responsibility was to make sure that citizens had access to basic things like food and water. I think they were very concerned with that as well. Mr Pope raises the legal question about what happens in a vacuum with the legal system, I must admit I do not know what is happening in Basra with regard to law and order. I presume that military rules are still being followed when looters are apprehended. They have had a big problem with banks in the Basra area, there was a lot of shooting and deaths occurred while people were looting banks. I must say I do not know what the situation is, I presume it is still in the military phase there. We have not given way to what comes after it, that is something that should be looked at, and what the rights of the people are caught up in this situation in Basra. Those are specific instances that I noted of the British being aware of their responsibility.

Mr Keane: I was in an area controlled by American forces and I would make one general observation, that is about the political priorities in terms of the British Government in post-war Iraq and the question which was put to me by several Iraqis, in somewhat dire straits, was, why is your Government doing nothing to get our power back on? Why is your Government doing nothing to get law and order restored? They did see American troops on the streets of Baghdad but they were certainly sophisticated enough to know that this was a joint enterprise politically.

Ms Corbin: The Deputy Commander in Baghdad is of course British.

Q359  Sir John Stanley: Have you any comments you want to make to us as to the adequacy and the speed of sending out senior British diplomatic representation? As you know, the decision was taken that initially the senior person representing the British Government was going to be a military figure, Major General Cross, who is the effectively the number two. Do you have any comments on that particular decision and also on the related question as to whether the British Government took steps as early as it might have done to establish diplomatic representation or a diplomatic presence in the country after the war?

Ms Corbin: I believe that the British Embassy was secured quite quickly after the toppling of the regime, I think within a matter of days. Being in Basra I do not think they would have looked for representation there, it would have been through Baghdad but of course Basra was effectively a British area of operation. I do not have any comment on General Cross's position, I do not really have anything more to say about that.

Mr Keane: The impression in Baghdad, certainly amongst most of the journalists who were present, was that the garner team was having a very unhappy experience. All of the information being leaked out suggested a somewhat chaotic atmosphere within the garner team and many disagreements within the team itself and between the team and Washington in particular. Certainly when news was announced that a senior British diplomat was moving from Egypt to Iraq there was a sense of relief and a belief, what I spoke about a few moments ago, of a sense of political prioritisation. What one invariably finds happening in the wake of wars is that the level of enthusiasm and sharpness and energy tends to drop by about two-thirds, it is not unique to the aftermath of this war. The importance of prioritising the political way forward tends to fall away, nothing like the attention that is paid to the build-up to war. To me that is a tragedy because within that lies the seed, as we have seen, of future war.

Q360  Sir John Stanley: The last question I would like to put to both of you is, in the way ahead as far as the British Government's involvement is concerned clearly we are the minority partner as far as the occupying powers are concerned and it is self-evident that the United States has far and away the bigger clout, however, I think we in this Committee are inclined to believe that the British Government has a significant role to play. I would like to ask you whether you have any degree of confidence looking ahead in this extremely difficult evolutionary stage that we are now in in trying to achieve the ultimate of a unitary Iraqi government which is a representative body and which commands the confidence of the people of Iraq, do you believe that the British Government is so far positioning itself to be able to exercise a material influence on the American Government in trying to assist that evolutionary process or are we just going to be very much bit players in this very, very important situation?

Mr Keane: I think the British Government is somewhat preoccupied at the moment, that is all understandable and part of the democratic process. Has the current debate over the justification for war distracted from prioritising the re-building of Iraq? I would say that it has, yes. In that context when all of your energies are focused on dealing with what happened beforehand then it is hard to see how the urgent task of re-building Iraq has been given the kind of priority that it needs politically. That is only one reason for that.

Ms Corbin: There is no doubt that the Americans are leading the efforts there, and I think they have made that quite clear. In Baghdad there is very little sign of any British presence or active participation day-to-day in events there. I think the British role is very much restricted to the South, that was the intention, that was the plan and that has been stuck to. I think that British will have influence in the South and I think it will be pretty much restricted to that. I think we will all watch with interest the outcome of the Iraq Survey Group, which is a joint body between Britain and America which will be looking at human rights abuses and the whole issue of the weapons of mass destruction. Britain will play a part in that but again, my observation is that is very much an American-dominated organisation, although of course its findings will be of interest on both sides of the Atlantic.

Mr Keane: All of that being said if it does go badly wrong and the year does turn in to a yawning vacuum in which all kinds of groups emerge and start fighting with each other Britain will take a lot of the blame in the eyes of the Iraqi people.

Q361  Sir John Stanley: Ms Corbin, do you judge the decision by the US Government to establish the new US survey group as being effectively a vote of no confidence in those who have been looking for weapons of mass destruction up until now?

Ms Corbin: I think that the priority for the troops was to fight the battle. I do not think they were equipped to really search all of those sites with the necessary experts or the numbers of people. I think an organisation much more similar to the UN, with a large number of experts able to spend several months there is what is needed. I think they were overwhelmed, particularly with the looting, that became their priority. They were war fighting. We are now in a different phase.

Q362  Mr Chidgey: I would like to ask a supplementary to one of Sir John's question a moment ago, when we was asking you about awareness of the occupying powers, of their responsibilities under the Geneva Convention and you mentioned specifically that it was clear that British troops were aware of their responsibilities to prisoners of war and British officers were aware of their responsibilities to re-connect the water supply. I would just like to take it a stage further, under the Geneva Convention the occupying powers do have a responsibility: "Pillaging is formally forbidden". It also sets out the requirements for the protection of cultural property in the event of an armed conflict. We have already debated the issues of the looting that took place, and I mentioned earlier the destruction of the ancient sites. I wanted to ask you whether you had seen any awareness amongst the occupying forces, particularly our own, of those wider responsibilities beyond the immediate ones that were clearly hitting them in the face?

Ms Corbin: In Basra there was an appreciation that the security situation was something that was very much for the army to tackle as soon as possible. As I say it was expressed to me within 48 hours of arriving, there were fears the situation was getting away from them, then they did manage to reassert control, this is in Basra, and the looting was prevented with in about five or six days to a week. My indication was they were very much aware this was something that what was job of an occupying power to sort out. Of course it took some time.

Q363  Mr Chidgey: The issue was resources to do it.

Ms Corbin: The issue was resources, there were 8,000 troops in a city of nearly two million people. That is as far as the British were involved. That was a very real concern.

Mr Keane: The American troops on the ground expressed on many occasions to me after about a week when they could see how serious things were, what a dire state the hospitals were in, a willingness to go out there and do it. On a number of occasions their commanders did send troops to guard hospitals. Yes they were infinitely better resourced but they were still in no position to move through that you city and impose the kind of law and order that was needed.

Q364  Mr Chidgey: It is rather different from showing a willingness to try to resolve the situation, general concern you would expect from anybody, to recognising a responsibility to that. That is the distinction, responsibility to the occupying powers?

Mr Keane: We saw this during the Kosovo conflict, there is a deep awareness of the responsibilities that exist not only under the Geneva Convention but under international customary law. They are well aware of their responsibilities. To take it from that, does the American, major or colonel have the wherewithal to ensure the security of Baghdad in those crucial five or six days after the city fell? The answer was no. That is a political matter.

Mr Chidgey: As Mr Rumsfeld said: "Stuff happens".

Q365  Chairman: I would like to conclude by doing a tour of the regional effects of the conflict. Some claim that there was a positive effect on Israel and Palestine because Israel no longer felt threatened and that had a positive effect on the Middle East Peace Process. Do you accept that?

Mr Keane: I am not sure I do.

Ms Corbin: I think that the effect on the Israel-Palestinian situation has more to do with the willingness of the Bush administration to now engage with the Peace Process, I think from that point of view that is a positive effect because I think that the war on terror against al-Qaeda, followed by the war against Iraq and all of the sensitivities that were aroused about that in the Middle East and in the Muslim community generally did very much push the Bush administration, who had been disengaged from the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process, back on track and a feeling they had to get to grips with it. That is the effect more than what Israel's view was vis-a-vis Iraq. That has been positive. It is early days and we await the outcome and there are lots of pitfalls on the way. Personally I think there are problems with the Road Map. Doing a quick tour of the other areas, the effect on Syria and Iran has also been salutary in that they have received a very strong message from America, in the case of Syria, do not harbour a remnants of the regime and if there are weapons of mass destruction do not allow them across your borders. That message came across loud and clear. Similar messages have been received by the Iranians and we have seen a rise in levels of rhetoric between America and Iran as a result of that. Jordan could be said to have backed the right horse this time, in the first Gulf War they perhaps backed the wrong horse in backing Saddam Hussein. King Abdulla has suffered a lot of public disquiet, riots and demonstrations on the streets of Jordan for the stance that he has taken because there has long been natural sympathies between the Iraqis and the Jordanians. I detected a real ambivalence in the Middle East on this whole question of Iraq, at street level people were angry at American intervention, angry that their rulers had not stood up against it. In the middle-classes, many of whom were business people who understood what the regime had done and knew about human rights abuses and had lost family members there was a feeling they wanted him out but they did not want to say so openly. There is a real ambivalence there. Mixed messages coming from the regime. The big question has to be Saudi Arabia now.

Q366  Chairman: Can you comment on Saudi Arabia and Egypt?

Ms Corbin: With Saudi we have had the withdrawal now or the declared withdrawal of US troops and I think it is quite interesting that the so-called hawks in the administration have now admitted that was always intended to be a by-product of tackling Saddam Hussein, with him out of the way they would be able to withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia as the oil fields would no longer be under threat. It is interesting that is now out in the open. It will give the Saudis pause for reflection on their role post the Iraqi conflict because of the oil reserves in the area and now, of course, Iraq with the second biggest reserves is effectively in the American sphere of interest and influence. That is bound to give Saudi pause for thought. Lastly, Egypt, to my mind they stayed on the sidelines this time, Hosni Mubarak did say that war in Iraq would create another 100 bin Ladens, beyond that we did not hear very much from Egypt. I think they played a quiet role deliberately. That is the view that I take on Egypt. That is the sort of brief overview of the region. The big question is whether this makes the whole region any more stable or safe, it is far too early to tell.

Q367  Chairman: It is to early to tell but can you tell us?

Mr Keane: I believe it is in a state of fascinating flux at the moment. I think the security of the region is dependent on a number of things, the Middle East Peace Process, as Jane has pointed out, the Road Map, that is a discussion for another day, it is hugely problematic in terms of how it will be made to stick on the Palestinian side in particular. If there is progress and a real sign that America continues to be engaged, that this is not just seen as a spasm of generosity post the Iraq war then there can be positive effects right across the Middle East. Secondly, and I think critically, if what emerges in Iraq over the next year is something that approaches a genuine representative government that speaks to the will of the Iraqi people then I think much of the kind of propaganda, much of the argument which I heard on the streets in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt day after day can be countered and something more helpful will emerge. There is the third question that leads into the previous set of questions, that is about terrorism and the effect of all of this on terrorism. Has it created 100 more bin Ladens? We simply do not know. What it has done in the short term is created a greater constituency of support or comfort, not necessarily people who will carry out terrorist acts themselves, but the kind of people who for a long period in Northern Ireland became sympathisers, people who were willing to look the other way, who were willing to carry a bag here and carry a bag there, that is definitely going to be a short-term by-product of the war.

Ms Corbin: I would just add, the democracy angle is the most important. If democracy can arise in Iraq and there can be a government of the people by the people for the people it will send a powerful message to the other governments in the area which are in the vast majority not democratic and that can only be a force for good. That is the single most important thing we should hope will come out of this conflict when all of the arguments about cause and effect, what happened and what the reasons were if a democratic functioning Iraq can emerge then it is an outcome to be wished for that will have big repercussions in the area.

Mr Keane: Let us not assume, as Algeria showed us, if we have genuine democracy across the Middle East the kind of governments that come to power will be ones that we will like but rather than get engaged in the business of trying to subvert them and fight them through different ways I think one clear message of all of this is that ways need to be found of doing business and dealing with these governments.

Chairman: That is a very helpful element on which to end and a real challenge for us. I wish you could both come back at six monthly intervals to look at your predictions and to comment as you go along. On behalf of the Committee your contribution to us has been extremely valuable, I have had comments from colleagues already. We are most grateful to you both. Thank you very much.