Examination of Witnesses (Questions 55-59)
MR JACK
STRAW MP, MR
DAVID RICHMOND
CMG AND DR
PETER GOODERHAM
24 OCTOBER 2005
Q55 Chairman: Good afternoon everybody.
This session gives us an opportunity to question the Foreign Secretary
and senior officials about the foreign policy aspects of the war
on terrorism. We are very pleased to have you before us, Jack,
I know you have been travelling across the Atlantic, no doubt
that might come up at some point in our questioning. Can I just
ask you briefly to introduce your two colleagues?
Mr Straw: On my left is David
Richmond, who is Director-General Defence and Intelligence and
on my right is Peter Gooderham who is Director Middle East and
North Africa.
Q56 Chairman: Thank you very much.
If I can begin by asking about the current increase in terrorist
attacks both in this country and worldwide. We have just got news
of these appalling bombings in Iraq today. It is clear to us,
and we had evidence last week from Peter Taylor and Professor
Paul Wilkinson, that the fight against international terrorism
is going into a new phase and is probably more difficult. Could
you tell us, do you think we are winning in this fight against
international terrorism and have things changed since the period
around 9/11 to the current situation?
Mr Straw: First of all, we have
just had news of this bombing of a hotel in Baghdad, one which
is used by journalists. The fact that there appear to have been
at least 15, if not many more, fatalities indicates the indiscriminate
nature of these terrorists, who really do not mind who they kill
provided they kill somebody in the name of a totally perverted
ideology. It is a further illustration of the evil which we are
dealing with. I do not want to use the phrase that you used and
it will be for historians to judge whether we have been successful
in this overall fight. What I do believe is that the strategy
which we have embarked on—which is dealing directly with
terrorism in this country and anywhere else—where we have
a direct involvement, indirectly by international engagement and
sharing of intelligence and resources with our international partners,
as well as seeking to deal with the causes of terrorism, for example,
in the work we have done over many years to support the Middle
East Peace Process, the very act in engagement of the United States
and United Kingdom Governments, Colin Powell, Secretary Condoleezza
Rice, myself in the Peace Process in respect of Kashmir, many
other theatres, and the work which we and the UK Government are
doing both with the Home Office and the Foreign Office to improve
understanding of Islam and to give those who are of the Islamic
faith greater confidence to stand up against these evil people;
all of that is the only strategy that is sensible to follow. One
other thing I simply say, in preparation for this session I was
looking down a list of all the sites where there have been terrorist
outrages over the last 12 years. It is everywhere: Tokyo, Saudi
Arabia, Tanzania, Kenya, Aden, obviously the World Trade Centre,
Karachi, Bali, Mombasa, Riyadh, Casablanca and Jakarta. This is
a worldwide problem and it requires real international effort.
Q57 Chairman: You referred to the
causes, one of the things that strikes me is the way in which
the people who justify these actions use all kinds of different
excuses or reasons and one of the things they are very effective
at is a propaganda campaign whereby they talk about events that
happened in Timor or Kashmir, you mentioned, or the Middle East
or even Andalusia and the 1450s in the period in Europe. Do you
think we are doing enough to counter this propaganda?
Mr Straw: I think we can never
do enough to counter the propaganda, it is a most extraordinary
moral relativism. We have to counter it and we have to say there
are some absolutes in our society. Society cannot work unless
we are clear what the differences are between good and evil and
this terrorism is evil. I was reflecting on this in the context
of the visit I made over the weekend to Birmingham, Alabama. They
had the most appalling racism there which escalated until a church
was bombed, four little girls got killed. You could offer explanations
as to what was in the minds of the people who planted those bombs,
but whatever explanations you offer you cannot conceivably justify
that. You could offer explanations as to why there was a climate
in which extremism came to the fore in Germany before the War
and plenty of historians have said that the international community
shared responsibility for making the situation worse than it might
have been following the Treaty of Versailles. All that said, you
cannot possibly excuse or justify Naziism. It was simply a straight
forward evil and the evil that was being carried out was far greater
than any of the problems it was designed to overcome; the same
is true with this terrorism. What I know, having charted it before
and after September 11, is that these people are so evil they
will seize on any excuse or none. They will seize on an excuse,
injustice in Palestine, injustice in Chechnya, injustice in Kashmir.
Those excuses have gone and we are working very hard, certainly
in respect of the Middle East, and in respect of Kashmir we have
some influence, obviously it is for the Russian Federation to
resolve the Chechnyan situation but if they have gone, they will
seize on some other excuses. Now, for sure, in order to ensure
that their recruiting sergeants are less successful, and for many
other reasons, we need to secure a just settlement between the
Israelis and the Palestinians in respect of the Middle East, and
for example, between the Indians, Pakistanis and the Kashmiris
in respect of Kashmir. We would be naive if we thought if we eliminated
those problems, this infection will go, it will not.
Q58 Chairman: We are spending billions
of pounds in various theatres on military activities, Afghanistan,
Iraq and elsewhere, yet we do not spend even a very small percentage
of that on propaganda, communications, media. I will give you
one example: the BBC Arabic television service which has not yet
been established and would cost far less than we spent even in
a very short period in pursuing the war in Iraq. Do you think
we get our priorities right? Should we be shifting resources more
into the other areas?
Mr Straw: There will be an announcement
by the BBC World Service tomorrow about the future of their programming.
I do not want to pre-empt that, but I think this Committee will
find that of interest. The second thing is that, however, we should
not see the BBC as part of a "propaganda effort", there
is a strong case for a BBC Arabic television service, but the
BBC's credibility will be severely undermined if people thought
that it was simply a mouthpiece of the British Government or even
of the British Parliament. Yes, we fund it, it is on my vote but
we have got to be very, very careful about the nature of the relationship
in order to preserve that independence for the BBC which is a
watch word around the world. We spend quite a lot of money—£10
million—on a programme called Engaging the Islamic World,
which I do in my part of the Islamic world on a day-by-day basis.
I have received none of this £10 million, let me tell you.
We spend £10 million and that is a big increase in the amount
we have been spending in terms of engaging the Islamic world with
all sorts of programmes, and we have given you details of those.
I am also clear that if we want to engage the minds of people
in the Islamic world we need to see better progress, for example
on the Middle East Peace Process and, knock on wood, the prognosis
is much, much better than certainly it was two years ago or a
year ago.
Q59 Ms Stuart: Can I follow on this.
Given that it is an engaging of the minds in the long-term and
we need to work with the BBC, and you say we have spent £10
million on this but we also need to build nation states in some
areas like the Balkans, is it therefore wise for the Foreign Office
to withdraw grant-in-aid for organisations such as the British
Association for Eastern and Central Europe, which has got a proven
track record in terms of money spent, it spends very little money,
but does exactly what is needed and has shown that they can do
it?
Mr Straw: By pure chance, I am
going to have a short meeting with Lord Radice straight after
this session if it does not go on too long and I am not caught
up in a vote. With particular grants-in-aid it is likely there
will come a moment when there will be a judgment that maybe their
usefulness has run its course, and that is the issue here. I need
to talk to Lord Radice before coming to a final view.
Ms Stuart: I think as a matter of record
I had better declare that myself and a fellow Member of the Committee,
Paul Keetch, are trustees of the organisation.
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