Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
MR JACK
STRAW MP, MR
DAVID RICHMOND
CMG AND DR
PETER GOODERHAM
24 OCTOBER 2005
Q60 Mr Purchase: Over centuries we
have been used to dealing with people dissatisfied for one reason
or another, usually because of some massive inequalities in the
society the people inhabit. We have dealt with it because it is
rational and we can say that we can create an improvement. Now
we seem to be facing not a rational demand for improvements but
a demand from a religion which will not be satisfied until its
religion is accepted as the only religion throughout the world.
Are we getting to a point where we might just expect terrorism
to continue? We cannot prove that there is not a God and ask them
to pack up their terrorism.
Mr Straw: I do not think it is
a demand from a religion. That is to admit that these evil people
speak in the name of Islam, which no decent Muslim I know believes
and none of the rest of us believe. There is overwhelming warrant
from the Holy Koran to show that is simply not the case. If you
are asking is this appetite for terror by some of these individuals
ever going to be satiated, not by the key individuals I do not
think. I think they are as fanatical—to use a comparison—as
some of the Nazi leaders were at the end, they have tasted blood,
they have enjoyed it, and get huge power from killing and they
want it to go on and on and on. I think that we can succeed against
their foot soldiers, both in dealing with it on a security basis
but also in making it clear to people that this provides no hope
whatever for them. If you go back to where you started, which
was Iraq, we knew that there was likely to be an increase in terrorist
incidents in Iraq right through the democratic process, the elections
earlier in the year, the setting of the constitution, this referendum
and then if the referendum leads to a yes, the full constitutional
elections on 15 December. The terrorists are desperately trying
to stop this democratic process taking place. Why? Because they
know that if the democratic process in Iraq embeds itself then
their opportunities to rule this country through terror rather
than through democracy are much, much more limited. You will then
see that some of those who for odd reasons fear or—
Q61 Mr Purchase: What do they want?
What is the demand?
Mr Straw: For that you would need
to go on to the website of al Qaeda related apologist organisations,
and there are many of them. Some of them want to establish a caliphate
across the Islamic world, they want to exclude all infidel disbelievers.
Bear in mind, however, that these people claim not only that everybody
around the table—I do not see a member of the Islamic faith
around the table—and those of us of other faiths are infidels
but also those who do not follow their very extreme brand are
also unbelievers. It is fanaticism on fanaticism. It is for that
reason that there is increasing rejection by a vast majority of
people in the Muslim community of this hijacking of their religion.
Q62 Mr Keetch: Foreign Secretary,
I want to turn to Iraq because obviously we are here to discuss
the foreign policy aspects of the war against terrorism. I want
to place Iraq in that context. Obviously you and I took a different
view in the run-up to Iraq and you won the vote. I do not want
to re-rehearse those arguments, nor do I necessarily want to go
through the arguments about what is happening in Iraq at the moment.
There are some very good signs of political process, there are
some less good signs such as the bombings this afternoon, et cetera.
I want to put Iraq in the context of that overarching war against
terrorism. You were absolutely right when you said that terrorism
had occurred before then and certainly after 9/11 President Bush
assembled huge world support for that campaign. The front page
of Le Monde said "We are all Americans now".
My concern at the time, and my continued concern, is that Iraq
has been a distraction from that campaign against terrorism that
has led us down a path that has taken resources, money and effort
that should have been concentrated on that much wider picture.
Therefore, I firstly want to ask you, in the run-up to Iraq what
was your assessment of that engagement on its effect on the war
against terrorism? Did you actually believe that by invading Iraq
it would improve the security situation in the United Kingdom
and improve the war against terrorism? Or were you warned, or
was there a suspicion, that this attack on Iraq by itself might
in some way undermine the overall war against terrorism?
Mr Straw: I never, ever believed
that military action was a "distraction" from the war
on terrorism, let us be clear about this. Also, bear in mind—you
said you were not going to re-rehearse what happened but you have
just done so—we only came to the decision about military
action very late and very reluctantly. It was after the failure
of the Security Council on 7 March 2003 to agree a Second Resolution,
albeit the modified one which I put forward, and then the announcement
by the French President on the tenth that whatever the circumstances
he would vote no, that we were then into a situation when seven
days later after the Cabinet's decision and then Parliament's
decision the next day to take military action. I believed, and
I still believe, that the military action that we took in Iraq
was justified on the basis that was set out: non-compliance by
Saddam of about a dozen Chapter 7 Resolutions. By all means read
the speeches I made in the Security Council and the ones that
I made in the House. That was the focus of what I spoke about.
I do not happen to think this is an either/or. Also, although
self-evidently there are, and remain, security challenges in Iraq,
I believe that the only way we are going to get relative peace
and security across the Middle East is through democracy. We are
seeing the beginnings of this. Some of the things that have happened
are quite remarkable, such as what is happening in the Lebanon.
Who would have said that the Lebanon, whose nationhood has been
and is still denied by Syria, it was run by Syria as a fiefdom,
would now be emerging into full independence. Some of those who
kept the Lebanon as a fiefdom are now under the most serious spotlight
from the international community.
Q63 Mr Keetch: I am sorry, I asked
about our action in Iraq and the effect of that action against
terrorism.
Mr Straw: What I am saying is
we are seeing the beginnings of a movement for democracy which
I believe is the only sure way of eliminating terror and alongside
that the lack of progress in the Arab countries, which is another
cause or contributor to the environment in which terrorism can
breed, is through democracy. We would not have got to where we
have got to in Iraq, a release of Iraq from tyranny, and the most
terrible tyranny, state terrorism, to a situation where just two
and a half years later we are awaiting the results of a democratic
referendum in which, according to the latest reports, nearly 10
million people have voted; up from 8.6 million in January. It
is going to be hard going in Iraq, the terrorism will continue
for some time, but I also believe that historians are likely to
judge that this has led to the establishment of a democratic and
stable state. I would also add this: nation building is never
easy. There are those who think what happened after the war was
what was left of the German Government surrendered and then, hey
presto, very quickly after that you had the building of a German
state. That is not true. There were no national elections in Germany
for four years. The Marshall Plan after two years arose because
of the real concern about the chaos of reconstruction. Austria
was under Allied rule for 10 years and it did not become a nation
for 10 years. There was a similar situation with respect to Japan.
In all countries which have emerged from such tyranny you are
going to have a period of transition. All are different. I am
not saying that Iraq is Germany or Germany is Iraq, but there
are lessons from each.
Q64 Mr Keetch: In terms of my question
I assume that the Foreign office did consider what the effect
of the war on terrorism would be by invading Iraq. Your assumption
was that it would not make the overall war on terrorism worse.
Mr Straw: In the run-up to as
serious a decision as military action you are bound to look at
all possible consequences. Did we believe that taking military
action would make the overall terrorist situation worse? No, we
did not. That was our judgment. Others around the system may have
taken a different view but I know that we did not.
Q65 Mr Keetch: I am grateful for
that. We had some very interesting evidence last week from Professor
Paul Wilkinson from the University of St Andrews. Let me just
quote what he said in his paper to us: "One of the most significant
developments in the evolution of al Qaeda since 2003 has been
the way the movement has exploited the allied invasion and allied
occupation of Iraq. Whatever view one may take on the decision
to invade Iraq, it is simply ignoring the reality to deny that
the invasion and occupation have been a big boost for al Qaeda
and a setback for the coalition against terrorism." What
Professor Wilkinson is suggesting is that the images of British
and American troops in Iraq are fuelling abroad what he calls
a "domestic jihad" and increasing the unhappiness and
frustration felt by Muslims in our own country and other countries
and that process has increased and has made the overall war on
terrorism worse. I presume you would disagree with that?
Mr Straw: It is self-evidently
the truth that al Qaeda et cetera are exploiting what is going
on in Iraq. They are also exploiting what is going on in Saudi
Arabia, in Indonesia, in Egypt and in Russia.
Q66 Mr Keetch: But there are not
British troops there.
Mr Straw: That is my point. There
are no British troops there but they are exploiting them. Indonesia
was against the Iraq War; it has suffered continuous al Qaeda
inspired terrorism. Saudi Arabia was not happy about the Iraq
War; it suffered terrorism. Egypt was not happy about the Iraq
War; it has suffered very recently serious terrorist outrages
within its territory. The Russian Federation was against the Iraq
War; it has had to deal with the most appalling terrorism. In
each state these people seek to justify their terrorism by anything
that they can find. On your point about is this affecting the
Muslim population in this country, opinions will differ. I keep
in very, very close touch with communities of the Islamic faith
in my own constituency; if I did not I would not be here. It is
the third largest Muslim population in a constituency proportionately
of any in the country. There were several candidates at the last
election, six against me. All six said they opposed the Iraq War,
including a Conservative, let me say. This will all be in published
official documents. All six said they opposed the Iraq War and
all six said that the way to emphasise opposition, particularly
among the Muslim communities, was to vote against me and vote
me out of office. My majority went down from 9,000 to 8,000. I
ended up with a very significant level of support amongst the
Muslim communities. Why? Yes, if you did an opinion poll amongst
the Muslim communities in Blackburn they would disproportionately
say they opposed the Iraq War but they are not taken in by all
this propaganda from terrorists, apologists for terrorists and
others, and they were able to make a mature judgment. They could
see what we had been doing in respect of the Middle East, in respect
of Kashmir and much else, and came to the conclusion they did.
Q67 Mr Keetch: I am grateful. The
other answer to a question last week from Mr Taylor of the BBC
was that Iraq was also providing a training ground for terrorists,
that they were able to get involved in terrorism and then come
back from there to Europe and, indeed, a senior French judge made
a similar point last week. Again, is it your belief that people
actively involved in terrorism against coalition forces in Iraq
are gaining from that experience in their perception and then
returning back to the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe?
Mr Straw: I have to say—Mr
Richmond can correct me if I am wrong—I have seen no evidence
at all to suggest that people have been trained within Iraq and
are coming back here. The potential areas of training and potential—Have
you seen any?
Mr Richmond: No. I think it is
something that we worry about but we have not seen any evidence
of it.
Q68 Mr Maples: The Iraqi constitution
has been rejected by the overwhelming majority in two of the Sunni
provinces. If it is rejected in a third, which looks highly likely
in Nineveh in the next two or three days, what are we going to
do?
Mr Straw: We say this is democracy
and if you invite people to vote—
Q69 Mr Maples: I have asked you what
we are going to do if it is rejected.
Mr Straw: We then allow the constitutional
arrangements to go ahead. There will be elections in any event
on 15 December. This is factored into the constitution. If a referendum
fails it may be something which people regret but this is democracy.
What we will also do is point out to Sunnis who may have been
reluctant to have been involved in the elections back in January
that it is far better for them to make use of democratic arrangements
to resolve the conflicts which they have with the Shias and the
Kurds than it is to support violence. This is democracy working.
Q70 Mr Maples: Of course I understand
it is democracy working but our collective policy has been to
develop the constitution and to get it approved. If it is rejected
and there are new elections for an assembly, are you saying that
new assembly is more likely to be able to reach a constitutional
settlement?
Mr Straw: Even if the referendum
passes and the constitution comes into force, there will have
to be quite a number of further amendments made to the constitution
almost certainly. I think that there is a provision—I can
be corrected on this—that these changes would have to be
put to a further referendum within four months. If there is not
a yes vote then there will be a further interim government elected
on 15 December and the constituted assembly has a year in which
to come forward with changes to the constitution which will then
go to a further referendum. Those who are busy seeking immediate
stability, particularly those in the Shia and Kurdish populations,
obviously would have wanted to see a yes vote. It is also the
case, and we know this for certain, that there will be a very
large majority of Iraqi voters who will have voted yes in the
elections but this arrangement by which two-thirds of voters voting
no in three provinces could block a constitution was agreed, ironically,
for the benefit of the Kurds originally when the Transitional
Administrative Law was developed in the summer of last year and
there is no reason at all why other groups, particularly the Sunnis,
should not be allowed to use it. You were then asking what I think
will happen. What I think will happen is that there will be further
negotiations between the Sunnis and the Shias to try to arrive
at a solution satisfactory to both sides. Interestingly, things
were moving in that direction in the run-up to the referendum
so that there were further amendments made. They were supposed
to be signed off in the middle of August but all through last
month and the beginning of this month further amendments were
made. We will see that process continuing, I think.
Q71 Mr Maples: It seemed to me that
it was entirely foreseeable that this was going to happen, the
Sunnis not participating fully in the constitutional process,
and that the result of this will be the deferral of a solution
for at least a year, if not longer, and during that time the stability
will get worse, which will encourage the terrorists into thinking
that they have succeeded in one of their objectives, and the likelihood
of the country breaking up into these three or perhaps more constituent
parts will be far greater.
Mr Straw: I do not accept that.
Q72 Mr Maples: You do not think any
part of it will break up?
Mr Straw: First of all, we do
not know what the result is going to be. It is clear that in Ambar
97% of voters have voted no, we are told, and in Salahuddin it
is 82%. There is an issue at the moment about what has happened
in Nineveh which is the area around Mosul, which is a mixed area,
and we do not know whether or not there is going to be a yes or
a no vote and, if it is a no vote, whether it is a no vote by
two-thirds. I spoke to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan—
Q73 Mr Maples: We are working on
the basis of if it is a no vote, what will happen?
Mr Straw: I spoke to Secretary
General Kofi Annan yesterday and on Saturday about this because
it is in everybody's interests that the process of checking should
come to a close as quickly as possible. I do not accept your rather
apocalyptic view about what is then going to happen. I just say
this: you have to trust the people to come up with the result
that they want.
Q74 Mr Maples: The result they may
want is three separate constituent states.
Mr Straw: One of the things they
are all agreed on is that there has to be a single Iraq. It is
also fundamental to the international community. The Kurds are
not campaigning for a separate Kurdistan. They know in any event
the consequences of that in relation to Turkey and Iraq would
be very, very severe. If you talk to Mr Barzani, President Talabani
and the other leaders of the state KDP, they know that whatever
historical aspiration they may have had. The Shias also know that
once a full democratic system of government is established, because
they are 60% of the population, where the politics turns on people
being Shia rather than Sunni or Kurd, it is going to hold sway,
so what on earth is in it for them to break up this country which
anyway has been a single unity since the break up of the Ottoman
Empire. My point back to you, Mr Maples, is this: from the point
of view of the international community there is plainly a hope
that the electoral and constitutional processes can proceed smoothly
if there is a yes vote but if you give people a vote you have
to accept the answer that they come up with. It is not the end
of the world at all if the answer is no. It is anticipated in
the drafting of the Transitional Administrative Law and in the
constitution. Also, when I talk to our people in Baghdad what
they say to me is in practice the difference between having a
yes vote in terms of time and tidying up the constitution then
and having a no vote and having to make some amendments to agree
to a further consensus would not be quite as long as people anticipate.
Q75 Mr Maples: They would be radically
different outcomes. Can we turn briefly to Basra because we were
congratulating ourselves until quite recently that we had done
rather well in the southern part of Iraq and it was much more
stable and we seem to have done that by working very closely with
the main Shi'ite group. However, now we seem to have a situation
in which the various Shi'ite groups and militias have fallen out
among themselves stirred up by Iran which was not happening until
a few months ago and the same animosity towards British troops
is now being demonstrated there as it has been for two and a half
years in the other parts of Iraq against the Americans. It seems
to me that we have got almost as bad a situation there as the
United States has got in the Sunni triangle.
Mr Straw: I think it is very important
not to generalise and that also applies to the areas under the
direct control, as it were, of the American troops. American troops
have got a relatively good level of consent in some provinces
and some parts of some provinces and obviously poor consent in
other parts. My understanding so far as Basra is concerned is,
yes, there was a particular problem with this section of the Iraqi
security forces and some dominant individuals, but it is by no
means universal. I would also just say to you, Mr Maples, although
I think all of us are very proud indeed of the way in which our
troops have operated seeking to build consent, they have always
made it clear that if necessary they will be very firm and very
tough, and that was why they took the action that they did about
three weeks ago.
Q76 Mr Maples: Obviously we hope
that will be the outcome. We now have a situation in which the
insurgency seems to be worse in most Sunni parts than it has been
before, the constitution is almost certainly, I would suggest
to you, going to get rejected, and we now have chaos and fighting
in Basra with Iran stirring up trouble there in a way that I do
not think any of us had foreseen. Is it not really time that we
admitted we went to war here for all the right motives but, nevertheless,
there were not any weapons of mass destruction. We have fundamentally
miscalculated and misunderstood the nature of Iraqi society and
the potential for divisions within it and the potential for insurgency.
Would it not help us to get from here to a satisfactory exit if
we admitted that we had made those mistakes?
Mr Straw: If we thought that,
and evidently you do, yes, but I do not happen to think it.
Q77 Mr Maples: You do not think we
have made any mistakes?
Mr Straw: That is a separate issue.
If you are asking me whether I think we made any fundamental mistakes
in the overall strategy, no, I do not. If you are asking me day-by-day
whether there are things we could have done better with the benefit
of hindsight, of course that is the case, it would be arrogant
to say otherwise. You could come up with a catalogue of bad news
but what you omitting in all of this is the most important message
of all this year, 2005, which is this: the Iraqis have embraced
democracy. People said we did not understand the nature of Iraqi
society, meaning that we did not understand that they did not
really want to be democrats; that they did not have any interest
and they just wanted to be dominated by tyrants. Well, eight and
a half million Iraqis proved those people wrong on 30 January,
and 10 million proved them wrong again on 15 October. The Iraqis
want what we take for granted, which is the right to run their
own affairs; and it is called democracy. We are seeking to support
that process, a process that is also backed by the United Nations.
Although you are right to say that there were big divisions in
the international community and nationally over the rightness
or wrongness of military action, post-war we have been there on
the basis of United Nations Security Council resolutions. The
key resolution now, Resolution 1546, was passed in June last year
unanimously, and it is that which provides the mandate for the
multinational force and the electoral timetable and institutions.
Q78 Richard Younger-Ross: Pursuing
the point on Basra, I had the privilege to visit there just after
the fighting finished and saw what an excellent task our Forces
were doing. I have to say that they were clearly not fully prepared
for the task in front of them, because the Government had clearly
not thought about the fact that it needed extra DFID help and
advisors in relation to police and other areas. However, the Forces
did a magnificent job in dealing with the local tribal issues
and working with the local community. There has clearly been a
deterioration in the relationships between our Forces there and
the local authorities. What is being done to build those bridges?
Mr Straw: A great deal, and I
can let the Committee have a detailed note about that, if you
wish, Mr Chairman.[1]
Our people, both in the military and in the Consul General in
Basra, as well as in associated government agencies like DFID,
are alive to the need to have the best possible relationships
with local leaders. As Mr Maples has indicated, part of what happened
is that, in his phrase, some local leaders "fell out",
and there is going to be a lot of vying for power because people
see that power is shifting from the rather tyrannical arrangements
that people knew about under Saddam and what has been there subsequently
to democratic processes, which are far better but slightly less
certain. There will therefore be a lot of vying for power going
on, and that is what we have had to cope with. For reasons I have
already explained to Mr Maples, I do not take an overly pessimistic
view about the longer-term prognosis there.
Q79 Richard Younger-Ross: Are we not
in a position where the clerics and the extreme clerics will say,
"They came here; they promised us water and electricity;
they have failed to do those on time and they are still not working
properly; they promised us this and that, and they have not delivered"?
Are we not, particularly in terms of security, actually giving
extra credit to the clerics to put us in a bad light?
Mr Straw: There are two things:
to the extent that the reconstruction process has lagged behind
is all down to security. The other thing that has happened for
the good—and this has been, again, a very big change in
the last year—is that approximately 170,000 more Iraqi security
forces have been trained up. Their ability to operate independently
of the US, UK and other coalition forces varies considerably.
There are two battalions that can operate entirely independently,
but a great many can operate effectively with backing from the
coalition. That has been a big change. The progress with the defence
forces has been better than progress with the police in some areas
where problems remain. On the point about the clerics, it is quite
important to appreciate that some of those whom you describe as
clerics are a very powerful, moderating force within Iraqi society,
in this case amongst the Shia. Without Ayatollah Sistani's great
wisdom and judgment, I think that we would be in a rather more
difficult position. It is the nature of that society that a lot
of the leaders are clerics. Let me say that it certainly was the
case in my party, and in yours, for a very long time, that the
protestants and non-conformist churches played a leading part
in our—well, this is true! People used to say of the Church
of England that it was a Conservative Party of prayer. It does
not lie in our mouth to pretend that we are a wholly secular society
where organised religion plays no part in politics, because it
does play a very important part.
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