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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order.
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5.9 pm
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East) (Con): A large number of Members must be disappointed that they will be unable to participate in the debate, so I shall try to cut my remarks to the bone in the hope that at least one more will manage to do so.
I am happy to associate myself with the tributes paid to the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Iain Wright), who made a fine maiden speech. I should also like to say a word for the defeated Conservative candidate for Hartlepool, who put up a gallant fight in a difficult by-election. They both had a great deal of media pressure placed upon them and acquitted themselves very well.
My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said some kinds words about my time as a member of his Front-Bench defence team. As I have always believed in multilateralism, I must reciprocate by saying that it was a privilege and a pleasure to work with him, to watch the way in which he drives the business of the team forward and to note the irrepressible good humour, some of which was on display this afternoon, with which he always conducts himself in handling quite serious matters. The fact that that has culminated in his winning a financial pledge from the shadow Chancellor to make a very substantial real increase in defence spending under the next Conservative Government speaks volumes for his ability in his role.
My hon. Friend focused on platforms and numbers. I should like to quote the Defence Committee's report on the defence White Paper, which states:
"We believe that a policy of reducing the existing number of platforms in advance of acquiring the new capabilities (and of demonstrating their effectiveness) is potentially dangerous."
The Government's reply is frankly complacent. They say:
"As highlighted in the Future Capabilities Paper, there are certain areas where we judge our current capability is disproportionately high".
"We believe that if the number of platforms in certain key areas (such as large surface ships) was significantly reduced, the UK Armed Forces would be vulnerable to any significant combat attrition in future operations."
The Government respond that they are confident that lost assets could be replaced.
That is not what the First Sea Lord believes. He has said that we are piling risk on risk by taking these measures. One of those risks—it was once described to me by a senior naval officer as "a calculated risk"—is the decision to phase out Sea Harriers and thus have to rely on aircraft from other countries' aircraft carriers for the air defence of the fleet, at least until the joint strike fighter is introduced. Former Royal Navy Captain Ian Jenkins, the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Yeovil, has expressed to me his concern that the future of the royal naval air service base at Yeovilton, and that of people from Yeovil who work there, may be at risk partly as a result of the calculated risk that the Government are taking. Having recently visited that outstanding establishment as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I can testify at first hand to the excellent work that is done there.
Let me move on to the principal point that I hope to impress upon the Minister of State and the Under-Secretary. It is certainly the case that high technology
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can help to win fighting wars with fewer platforms and fewer people. The question is, what does one do when one has won the war and has to enforce the peace? In other words, what are the primary requirements for peacekeeping? I suggest that there are five. First, the establishment of civil institutions; secondly, the setting up of a force to protect them; thirdly, the maintenance of high military morale, which is not helped by corrosive criticism in the press and elsewhere; fourthly, the maintenance of strong political will; fifthly, and above all, victory in the battle of ideas.
Last night, there was an intriguing programme on the BBC. Its thesis, which I do not entirely accept, was that some of the conflict that went on in the cold war years, and is now going on in the post-cold war years, can be traced back to the ideas of extreme fundamentalism that had their generation in Egypt in the period under Sadat and the ideas of extreme neo-conservatism that, it was alleged, had their generation in America in the period under Ronald Reagan. The only ideas that were not really touched on were those of Soviet communism, which in my opinion also had rather a lot to do with the matter.
But the key point about which that programme was almost certainly correct was that the reason why people are able to get political results—whether they be terrorists mobilising people to join their cause, Soviet communists mobilising people to support their cause, or neo-conservatives mobilising people to back their cause—is that they have an idea. We must have victory in the battle of ideas.
I do not believe that the Government are doing enough to win the battle of ideas in representing to the country what is at stake in Iraq. Earlier this week, the Vice-President of Iraq was here, and I asked him whether the identity of most of the suicide bombers was known, and whether most of them were foreign insurgents. He answered yes to both those questions. Why is a better counter-propaganda information operation not under way to bring out such key facts so that people can see what is really at stake? If we do not win the battle of ideas, we do not win the hearts and minds, and if we do not win the hearts and minds, all the troops in the world will not be able to succeed.
5.16 pm
Mr. Clive Soley (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush) (Lab): I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Iain Wright) on a compelling and convincing speech. I want to comment on Iraq, particularly in the context of the remarkable achievements of our troops over the years in peacekeeping and war prevention. I mention that particularly because, in December, we will get Kofi Annan's high-level report on the problem of failing states and brutal dictatorships that destabilise their region. Unless we learn to have a sophisticated defence approach to this problem, we will find ourselves in the same situation again and again for much of the rest of this century. It is the key issue facing us and the rest of the world.
I do not believe for one moment—I almost could not believe my ears when people started arguing it—that the deployment of less than 1,000 British troops in Iraq would somehow or other affect the outcome of the
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United States election. We might have affected the outcome of the United States election when we sacked Washington in 1812, or when we deployed the Royal Navy to end the slave trade, but this issue will not even be reported in the United States. The reason for that should trouble us; the United States is in an insular mood and is not paying that sort of attention to the world outside. That is one of our problems in engaging with and keeping the United States engaged on wider issues than just the military actions that are necessary from time to time.
There is an underlying fear about this deployment that we must address, and which I ask our Government to address; first, that we might be losing control of the situation in Iraq and secondly, that the United States troops are not as good at peacekeeping and war prevention as some of ours. The movement of the Black Watch is one of quality troops with quality training, who not only can fight effectively but have a track record in peacekeeping. There is a problem for the United States, not because it does not have any troops who are good at peacekeeping and war prevention—it does—but because it does not have sufficient of them, and above all, because it does not have them in sufficient numbers in Iraq.
The big problems that we are faced with now are down to a couple of basic mistakes. The first was the disbanding of the Iraqi police and army, which the British and Americans had never done before. The second is the lack of effective troop numbers, particularly peacekeeping troops, which is why we are losing the battle for hearts and minds, to which the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) has just referred, in a couple of key areas of Iraq but not all over Iraq.
In my area, I have not only a Territorial Army regiment but probably more Arabs in my constituency than almost any other Member; possibly more than any. The Arab Labour group is established in my constituency, and is not only fast growing in numbers but fast growing in influence, which I welcome. The Arab-Jewish forum, which I set up as a result of my discussions with Arabs in my area, is being successful.
Iraqis in particular will tell those who talk to them, very clearly, that although they were divided among themselves on the issue of the war—like those in the rest of our country—they all wanted rid of Saddam Hussein. [Interruption.] The Liberal Democrats should listen to this, because the Iraqis had a different approach from the one that they suggest. They asked, "Why can't you send the SAS in to kill Saddam?" That would of course have been illegal, but if it could have been done, it would have been morally preferable. It could not have been done, but I want the Liberal Democrats to understand that Arab opinion is much more divided than they give it credit for.
Why is it that so many British and American troops could be deployed in Arab countries without any major trouble? Why could I—with, if I remember rightly, a Liberal Democrat—fly over Syria a couple of months before the war in an RAF plane, with the full co-operation of the Syrians? The answer is very simple; they were scared witless by Saddam Hussein. That is why the Arab countries were prepared to go along with it and why there were no riots in the streets of many Arab countries.
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One of my Iraqi constituents told me the other day that the advantage that the British have is that we have the brains to deal with this as a peacekeeping operation as well as a war-fighting operation. He said that the problem we had was that the Americans had the muscle. The United States must get better at war prevention.
I make no bones about the fact that we must deal with Falluja. If we want an open, free society in Iraq, as the vast majority of Iraqis and other Arabs do, Falluja cannot be allowed to continue as it is now. It has become a hotbed of support for Saddam Hussein and for the terrorists. That is why I have no problem saying that we must co-operate fully with the United States in deploying our forces to achieve the desired outcome.
Earlier I spoke of Kofi Annan and his all-important high-level panel that would report in December. As Arabs—at least in my constituency—understand, if we can secure a stable and open society in a place like Iraq, it will spread to other areas. More importantly, we shall have a chance of dealing with the poison at the heart of the middle east; the lack of an agreement on Palestine and Israel. Some Members on both sides of the House have said that we ought to deal with that, but we could not have dealt with it when Saddam Hussein was there. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) pointed out, we cannot deal with it without the United States being fully engaged.
By deploying our troops as part of a coalition that has now been recognised by the United Nations in order to bring stability to Iraq, we create the chance of a stable middle east. It may not seem like that now, but the people who are fighting us in Falluja and a few other areas are not there to win a stable, open and modernised society for the Arab people; they are there to stop that happening. We need to be crystal clear about this. We need to see the process through. Whatever our thoughts about the war may have been originally—and I could argue about that—we must see it through, for the sake of the Palestinians, for the sake of the Israelis and for the sake of a more stable and prosperous middle east. That is perfectly possible, but it will not be possible if we walk away, and if we do not behave like a responsible member of a coalition delivering that outcome.
We can carry out our post-mortems over what went wrong at what time, who did what and who did not do what. However, our troops are doing a magnificent job, not just in war-fighting but in peacekeeping and war prevention. If we do not see this through, in a couple of months all the efforts of our opponents will succeed. They are also the opponents of a vast majority of the Arab people, as is recognised by my Arab constituents, and they want to defeat us.
So anything that says that we should stand in the way of the sensible deployment of our troops simply plays into their hands. This is not intentional; I know that the Liberals are not saying that they want Saddam Hussein back. Of course they are not. Unless we recognise, however, that this is an ongoing struggle and that it is going to become particularly intense in the next couple of months, we shall lose something that is far more important to the people of that whole region than it is to us in this House or in this country. We owe it to the people of the middle east to settle the problems of that region after so many years; the world needs that to
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happen. It cannot be done by walking away from the problem. It can be done by the sensible deployment of our troops, with their good peacekeeping skills.
5.25 pm
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