Examination of Witness (Questions 260-279)
6 JULY 2004
RT HON
TONY BLAIR
MP
Q260 Donald Anderson: But the elections
are not until late in January. Who will provide those extra troops
in time?
Mr Blair: I do not know that you
will need extra foreign troops in Iraq. That is an issue and we
keep it open the whole time. The main thing is to build up the
capability of the Iraqis themselves, their Army, and their civil
defence—
Q261 Donald Anderson: That will not happen
speedily enough in the transition phase.
Mr Blair: You say that but you
have already got, in number, quite a large number of the Iraqis
there. It is true that you do not have the quality of training
and equipment yet, but we are rectifying that. There is a specific
American General working alongside the Iraqi Government to try
and ensure that happens.
Q262 Donald Anderson: That is all right,
but are we prepared to commit more troops ourselves?
Mr Blair: I cannot tell you more
than I have told the House of Commons, which is that we keep it
under advice and there have been no recent discussions about committing
more troops. It depends what the Iraqi Government desires and
it depends what the security situation needs.
Q263 Donald Anderson: Do you think it
is urgent?
Mr Blair: The urgency of the need,
Donald. There is no problem providing security for the UN. The
reason I am not saying who it is is that I know there are discussions
going on with the UN as to who is best to provide that. There
are sufficient troops there to do that. The issue, really, is
less to do with whether you bring in more foreign troops but the
speed with which you can equip and train the Iraqi security forces.
That is the issue. What I hope by the end of this month is that
the Iraqi Government and the multinational force will publish
a joint plan for the Iraqisation of security that tells us exactly
what Iraqi forces there are going to be in the coming period of
time.
Q264 Mr Beith: Prime Minister, you have
been quite open in setting out the importance of our relationship
with the United States, which happens to be a view I share—in
terms of a relationship with the United States, not necessarily
one with a particular administration, about which subsequent administrations
might take a different view. You came quite close to suggesting
that it really was not an issue about our relationship with the
United States, so great was your unanimity of view with the President
about the common purpose, that we were doing what we did because
it was what we wanted to do.
Mr Blair: It is more like this:
when you are in a situation where since September 11 we have been
closely involved in military action, I am not saying there are
not all sorts of discussions that go on about the role of the
United Nations—what the troops do and how, for example,
Afghanistan or Iraq is going to be properly policed—it is
not that I do not believe that you should be open about it, it
is simply that I think many of these issues are discussions where
we may come at it from a slightly different perspective or a different
point of view and we can resolve those better if we resolve them
in a sensible way. On the big picture, though, I have a very,
very clear view of what is necessary to do. My view is that it
is necessary to continue this push on terrorism and unstable,
rogue states with WMD; we should continue the push on that and
it is absolutely vital and important, but we should balance it
up with the action on what I would call the rest of the world's
agenda. That is where this whole issue to do with Israel and Palestine
and poverty and development, and so on, are extremely important.
It is part of my job, if you like, to try and make sure that we
bridge as many of the international divisions as we can to get
people to work together on that agenda. That is why we got the
UN resolution that transferred full sovereignty to the Iraqis
and why we recently had the NATO Summit where people agreed an
increase in the force development in Afghanistan and, also, for
the training of Iraqi forces. I regard my job, in a sense, as
trying to make sure—because I accept the basic position
that we are trying to achieve in terms of security and terrorism—we
maximise support for the positions that we have.
Q265 Mr Beith: You have put a lot of
effort into this. Is not the situation this: that when the crunch
issue comes and we have looked at several—Guantanamo, some
aspects of the administration in Iraq, and Israel/Palestine—the
administration in Washington, backed by the neo-conservatives,
says "Nice to have you with us, Tony, great to have your
troops, but at the end of the day we call the shots, we make the
rules"?
Mr Blair: That is not the nature
of the discussion. I know that is the parody of it, and I am not
saying there are not issues that we disagree on. We will have
a disagreement on Kyoto. If you take, for example, everything
that has happened post September 11, I will not be in a position
of saying "All these things are sort of quid pro quos
for the relationship we have", but I think if you look at
the role of the United Nations, both in respect of Afghanistan
and Iraq (I am not saying America would not have come to all these
positions in any event), I think our input has been reasonably
important in respect of it. Also, in respect of the full transfer
of sovereignty to the Iraqis and the way that we have now gone
for the option not of a dramatic increase in foreign troops but
building up the Iraqi security forces with the political control
in the hands of the Iraqis, which I think is extremely important,
I think we have played a constructive part in those decisions
and that has been important in giving Iraq the chance to make
progress.
Q266 Mr Beith: You have made several
references to 9/11 but was there not a fundamental confusion in
the minds of the American people, fostered by the Administration,
that the war in Iraq was an effective way of responding to the
devastation of 9/11 when there was, in fact, no link established
at all and it required a diversion of effort from the actual war
against terrorism which was being waged partly in Afghanistan
and partly in domestic security matters?
Mr Blair: I still regard this
as all part of the same struggle because I think the threat that
we face is the combination of these two things.
Q267 Mr Beith: Where is the combination?
The word combining is one you used earlier. Where is the combination
between 9/11 and the war on Iraq?
Mr Blair: I think the combination
lies in this area. In my view, the important thing about 9/11
and the important thing about this new form of extreme terrorism
based on a perversion of the true faith of Islam is that it is
terrorism without limit. These people killed 3,000 people but
if they could have killed 30,000 they would, if they could kill
300,000 they would. At the same time what you have got is this
network of unstable states, repressive states, developing chemical,
biological, nuclear weapons—
Q268 Mr Beith: This is not a network.
Iraq was sui generis.
Mr Blair: Hang on. I think this
is where one has got to look ahead in relation to this. Of all
the things that have happened since Iraq, the one that has got
the least publicity but in a sense is every bit as important as
anything else has been the network of AQ Khan that has effectively
been shut down. Now that was a network of people who were basically
trading this WMD technology right round the world. Now, in my
view, the reason why I think it was important that we took a stand
on the WMD issue, and the place, as it were, to take that stand
was Iraq because of the history of breaches of UN resolutions
and the fact they used WMD, the reason why I think it was important
to do that is that if you carry on with this proliferation of
WMD with these highly repressive states developing it—states
like North Korea that literally have their people starving but
are spending billions of dollars trying to acquire nuclear weapons
capability—at some point you would have this new form of
global terrorism and those states with WMD coming together.
Q269 Mr Beith: Is it not easier for terrorists
to acquire WMD through routes from the powers which have them
already rather than from those powers which are still themselves
struggling to get them?
Mr Blair: No, I think it is both
that matter. Look, there is a reason why you have got al-Qaeda
in Iraq now.
Q270 Mr Beith: As the intelligence warned
and was reported, once the regime collapsed al-Qaeda would be
into Iraq and we would have a new set of problems.
Mr Blair: We do but they are the
problems that, if you like, all arise out of the fact that they
see a vital part of their strategy ensuring that countries like
Iraq and Afghanistan do not become proper functioning democracies.
What they know is if you have these states that are unstable,
repressive, which are brutalising their people, that are trying
to develop a range of unconventional weapons, they know that if
you have those states into that arena—as they did in Afghanistan—they
can use it as a training camp with the other countries in the
region. They know that in that climate they prosper. They know,
also, that if those countries become democratic and prosperous
countries, stable countries, they have not got a hope and what
is more they have not got a hope of persuading the rest of the
Muslim world that somehow America is repressing Muslims. That
is their case. Their case is this is a war that is basically a
war of civilisations; it is a war by the West on the Muslim world.
The biggest rebuttal you can give to that is Iraq on its feet,
Afghanistan on its feet as functioning democracies.
Q271 Donald Anderson: But Iraq was not
the arch proliferant, North Korea was.
Mr Blair: The reason why I thought
that was the place to take, it had used them against its own people,
it had used them against another country in the region, and we
had a history of some 12 years of United Nations' resolutions
in respect of it.
Q272 Sir George Young: Can we look briefly
at Africa? A few years ago you made a speech at a Labour Party
Conference saying we will not allow Rwanda to happen again but
when I look at my television at Sudan it seems it is happening
again.
Mr Blair: The situation in Sudan
is certainly very serious. I spoke to Kofi Annan about it again
yesterday. He told me that they have worked out a programme now
with the Government of Sudan. He will set up what is called a
high level monitoring mechanism in order to make sure that the
aid and the help that is necessary comes into Sudan and in particular
that the issues in relation to Dafour are tackled. Now I agree
it is a very serious situation but we are working on it very hard.
Q273 Sir George Young: In that same speech
you made some other fairly heroic ambitions about putting evil
to right. Have you had to temper some of those ambitions in the
light of difficulties we have been talking about this morning?
Mr Blair: I think we are doing
our level best in Africa. In terms of our own aid commitment—as
you know we will have tripled our aid to Africa by this time next
year, or shortly after that—and what we are doing through,
firstly, the NEPAD concept, the partnership for African development,
and, secondly, in respect of the Africa Commission that will be
the main part of our G8 presidency next year, we hope to set out
an agenda for the future of Africa with the support of African
countries and also with the support of the G8. Now that would
be a huge step forward. I think if you look at the role we played,
for example, in the Congo, in Sierra Leone and indeed, most recently,
in Sudan, when one of the first people there was Hilary Benn with
not just aid money but also an attempt to negotiate a settlement
and then bring in the UN behind it, my view of Africa remains
exactly the same. I think people would be hard put to point at
any country around the world that had made a greater commitment
to Africa than the UK.
Q274 Mr Leigh: Could I draw a line on
this question of influence. Geoff Hoon said recently "The
Government is not always successful in influencing US policy",
fair enough. Can you tell us in which areas you have been successful?
Mr Blair: I think I just went
through—
Q275 Mr Leigh: You mentioned the point
about sovereignty, and are you seriously saying that but for us
there would have been some further delay in handing over sovereignty?
Mr Blair: No, I am not saying
that. What I am saying is that the partnership that we have with
the United States allows us to manage these issues in a way that
I think is important.
Q276 Mr Leigh: Those are vague words,
that is rhetoric which you are very good at.
Mr Blair: It is not vague words.
Q277 Mr Leigh: What we want are specific
areas.
Mr Blair: It is not vague words.
Q278 Mr Leigh: All right. Give us examples.
Mr Blair: What has happened in
both Afghanistan and Iraq, in relation, for example, to the UN
influence and role there, has been immensely important. I am not
going to sit here and say to you that but for Britain being there
the Americans would have often done something completely different.
All I am saying to you is that if you look at what has happened
in Iraq recently—
Q279 Mr Leigh: Have you modified a heavy
handed approach with Iran and Iraq? Have you had influence on
that in Fallujah?
Mr Blair: I think we have had
a very great deal of influence in respect of all of this.
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