Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR DAVID
RICHMOND CMG AND
DR PETER
GOODERHAM
15 MARCH 2006
Q240 Mr Keetch: Indeed, and one which
I remember at the time commenting on. If that was necessary in
respect of the fight against terrorism in Northern Ireland to
do that, would that not be something you should consider in respect
of the ongoing fight against international terrorism? That would
actually assist not only in that campaign but also put to rest
once and for all accusations of rendition.
Mr Straw: This is about getting
access to the manifests of, I think, ships as well as aircraft.
I do not think it just applied to Northern Ireland. I think it
was more general, as I recall, because the purpose of that Act
was to introduce legislation to deal with terrorism worldwide,
whereas the previous legislation simply dealt with terrorism coming
from Northern Ireland. Just to deal with this issue of rendition,
the United States Government, or any other government, if they
were intending to bring people through UK territory or air space,
are under an obligation to seek our permission to do so, because
this is not bringing voluntary passengers through but people who
are by definition the opposite of volunteers. I do not think there
is a need for any further legislation. This would satisfy people
who believe that renditions have been taking place on a kind of
industrial scale because they would then say, "Well, the
United States have broken the rules." There is, as I say,
a minor industry out there which believes that this has been taking
place on a large scale. There is no evidence that it has. I am
quite clear that it has not, but it will go on for a period and
then it will fall away. As I say, the obligation is already on
a country like the United States if they are seeking to render,
which is why in the past when they have required permission they
sought it.
Q241 Chairman: I understand the European
Parliament has set up a temporary committee to look at these issues.
Are you going to co-operate with that committee?
Mr Straw: Yes. The Council of
Europe has already done so, and I had a long letter from Terry
Davies, a former colleague, the Secretary-General. I wrote in
reply to him saying we will co-operate with it, yes. I am sorry,
Mr Keetch, you asked me about whether I was stopping the Committee
from holding an investigation. What the Committee investigates
is a matter for the Committee. I will try and be as delicate as
I can. What I have given to the Committee have been as comprehensive
answers as possible on this issue. There is an issue about which
committee is appropriate for investigating the work of the intelligence
and security agencies, so I know it is a sensitive issue, but
it is the Intelligence and Security Committee. So it is not that
I am denying it—
Q242 Chairman: Foreign Secretary,
I think we will pursue this issue with you in a more detailed
way.
Mr Straw: Okay. Well, that is
the answer.
Q243 Andrew Mackinlay: He says it
is and I say it is not a parliamentary committee. There is no
parliamentary oversight—
Mr Straw: I was trying to avoid
it.
Q244 Chairman: There are issues here
relating to our status as a Committee and we will pursue it with
you rather than opening up the general issue now.
Mr Straw: Let me say, I try to
be very respectful to the Committee. I know that some concern
was expressed, I believe in a letter from you, Chairman, about
the fact that I had given answers to Opposition spokesman rather
to the Committee. It was simply that the Opposition spokesman
had asked me a series of questions. If you had asked the same
questions, I would have given you the same answers, but I always
make sure that if I give an answer to one colleague in the House
it is then made available for the Committee and more generally.
Q245 Chairman: We will come back
to this issue, I am sure. Can I take you back in the time we have
got left to an area we touched on with John Stanley's questions
earlier about Afghanistan? Are you confident about the way that
international communities' engagement in Afghanistan is going,
or are you concerned that some countries are very reluctant to
give support in the numbers and in the way necessary to make the
operation in Afghanistan a success?
Mr Straw: I think the operation
in Afghanistan will be a success. It is not without risk, of course,
and that was spelt out by John Reid. A lot of preparatory work
has been going on building this base, ensuring force protection.
Almost by definition you would not need this many troops with
this kind of equipment if there were no security challenge, but
I think it has been planned as well as possible. One could always
do with more offers of help from international partners and there
is a wider issue, which is that within Europe the nominal roles
of other European countries' armed forces are very large. The
numbers, however, from those nominal roles which came forward
for any active service is very limited, and the willingness of
their governments and parliaments sometimes is even more limited,
but that is a continuing problem which we have.
Q246 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Could I,
further to the Chairman's question, link Iraq and Afghanistan
in this respect: we have two cauldrons of violence made much worse
by a lot of external interference. We know that Iran is interfering
in Iraq. We heard in Washington that most of the suicide bombers
there are imported from outside Iraq. We have ferocious violence
between the two wings of the Muslim religion, and in Afghanistan
there is an echo of this and also a drug problem which they export,
and yet the two main countries engaging on this are predominantly
white, Christian countries from a very long way away. What reliable
support are we getting from our supposed allies in the region?
Are they in practical terms helping us sort out what is, after
all, a problem right on their doorstep, because it seems that
we are taking the casualties? We have nominal support from a number
of other regional powers, but what are they actually doing to
help?
Mr Straw: Could I just deal with
Afghanistan first, if I may? So far as their neighbours are concerned,
as I said in my speech on Monday, Iran has been constructive in
dealings with Afghanistan and with the international community
in Afghanistan. It is perhaps an illustration of some ambiguity
of Iranian policy, but it has been. They have, too, an identity
of interest with Western Europe and with the United Kingdom over
the issue of drugs because almost all the heroin from Afghanistan
goes through Iran and I am told that there are up to two million
Iranians who are heroin addicts, so it is a really serious problem.
Then you have the eastern border of Afghanistan and you have Pakistan,
where relations currently between the two governments are strained
and there would not be any case for there to be Pakistani troops
in Afghanistan. That would be very strongly resisted by the Afghanistan
Government. If you move further east, you have got India and relations
between the Northern Alliance and India are always very close
indeed, but as far as I know no request whatever has been made
to India to put its own troops into Afghanistan, and they would
be a target by virtue of being Indian, if you follow me, because
they would be seen as being quite partisan. So in that circumstance
you have got to look slightly further afield and it has been really
as an adjunct to the Bonn process that it was Western Europe which
provided the bulk of the troops for ISAF with the United States
providing the call for Operation Enduring Freedom in the south.
Alongside the United States, it is other NATO countries, plus
countries like Japan and Australia or South Korea which have the
greatest capabilities in terms of armed forces. Some of the other
states are involved in the United Nations peace-keeping operations.
Bangladesh has quite a number deployed in peace-keeping operations
and quite a number of others, so I do not think one should necessarily
criticise those countries because they are not involved in Afghanistan.
It is sort of horses for courses. We would like to see a build-up
of peace-keeping and peace-making trained forces in the Arab world
as well. Some are deployed and some are not.
Q247 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Would you
say that the Muslim world in the Middle East has not pulled its
weight in trying to solve what is at least in part a regional
problem?
Mr Straw: I would not put it in
that way. I do not think it is necessarily a religious specific
thing because, after all, Bangladesh has traditionally deployed
many forces. Whether it is a function of the instability of the
region is another matter. Mr Gooderham, do you have any comment
to make on that?
Dr Gooderham: I think there are
some instinctive suspicions, certainly in Iraq and I think the
same would be true of Afghanistan, of actually having forces from
neighbouring countries deployed in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, because
of concern about interference. I think you have got to be careful
about suggesting that Pakistan or Iran is not doing enough. I
do not think they would actually be welcome in terms of supplying
forces.
Q248 Ms Stuart: Just to return to
Afghanistan and the internal security, for a number of years one
of the things which we found was that it is all very well putting
in a code of law, training judges, but as I understand it they
still do not have any decent prisons which could securely hold
any of the warlords or the big drug dealers. If they caught them
and brought them to justice, they would still be able to buy their
way out. Until you have actually put something as fundamental
as secure prisons in Afghanistan, all the other efforts actually
will come to nothing. Am I wrong?
Mr Straw: I think they have got
some secure prisons. I am afraid I have not got detailed information,
but I could provide a letter to the Committee if that is okay.[4]
Ms Stuart: That would be helpful, thank
you.
Q249 Mr Hamilton: Again on Afghanistan,
Foreign Secretary, I know this may sound quite trivial given what
we have been talking about, but it seems to me one of the ways
we are going to stop the drugs trade and improve the lives of
ordinary Afghans is through economic activity, legitimate economic
activity, with trades and skills which can be exported. I do not
know if you were there yesterday, but in the Strangers' Dining
Room there was a sale of Afghan carpets—it is kind of Fair
Trade carpets—made by trainees being trained through a charity,
a British-based and Afghan-based charity, where the trainees were
making the rugs and exporting them direct to people like us or
anybody else who wants to buy them. It is very small-scale, but
I wondered whether it is something which the Foreign Office together
with the International Development Department could pursue, because
it seemed to me that if we can afford the prices they are charging,
which are a lot less than anything you would find in retail shops
in London, and the money is going straight to the people who are
learning these skills, if we can magnify that up not just in Kabul
but in other parts of Afghanistan, you could really start to have
a level of economic activity which would completely see out the
drugs trade and make people want to concentrate on legitimate
trade, something they are really good at doing and are skills
which can be learnt. At the same time, by the way, the charity
is educating the young men and woman to learn to read and write.
Mr Straw: I was not aware of it,
and it is very welcome. I am sorry I missed the chance of buying
one.
Mr Purchase: We bought the stock up between
us!
Mr Hamilton: He bought the stock.
Mr Purchase: For my wife.
Q250 Mr Hamilton: But this is brilliant,
do you not think?
Mr Straw: Yes, it is very good.
Q251 Mr Hamilton: But it is too small
a scale at present. It needs a lot more help.
Mr Straw: A great deal of thought
and money is going into the creation of alternative livelihoods
in Afghanistan and it is something which we are leading on for
the UK, an awful lot of work and money, and there is no doubt
that the long-term solution to drugs is the general raising of
living standards and the creation of alternative livelihoods,
as well as creating a secure environment. So I applaud this and
the more we can do the better. Other countries which have been
relatively successful in dealing with the drugs trade—Thailand
is one—have shown that you have got to raise overall living
standards if you are to have any chance of eliminating reliance
on drugs. I have just been passed a note in partial answer to
Ms Stuart's question, which is that the United Kingdom is a major
donor, £1.1 million to the United Nations' Office on Drugs
and Crime project to build a secure detention wing of a Kabul
prison. Her Majesty's Prison Service are advising the wing is
due for completion in August of this year. The UK has also deployed
a five-person prison training team to train three-quarters of
60 prison officers in high security techniques. I will send more
details about the prison situation.
Q252 Mr Keetch: I understand there
is a new detention centre being built at Bagram as well, I think,
in addition to what is going on in Kabul. On the drugs, the situation
is clearly very, very bad. The opium harvest in 2006 was as big
as 2005 according to the UN and in the Helmand province, where
we are deploying, 72% of the interviewees of a survey done by
the UK Foreign Office said that they had actually increased poppy
production over the last 12 months, and yet British ministers
say that we are not going there to knock down crops. I accept
that it is not primarily the role of the British Army in its deployment
to Helmand to actually get rid of opium production, but surely
if we come across it while we are there that is something we should
do, because until this trade is stamped out certainly Afghanistan
will not be secure, it will not be prosperous, and it seems to
many people ridiculous that we are deploying a large number of
troops for understandable reasons but almost trying to avoid knocking
down the poppy crops if they come across them?
Mr Straw: I am not familiar with
the detailed rules of engagement of our troops, but again I can
get information—[5]
Q253 Mr Keetch: I was quoting Kim Howells,
one of your ministers.
Mr Straw: I am not suggesting
you were being inaccurate. I will let the Committee have a note
about that. We have been careful on the issue of forced eradication.
We have certainly opposed aerial eradication because of its indiscriminate
nature and the fact that it can eradicate other crops as well.
I think it will be for the commanders on the ground, in consultation
with the local authorities, to make judgments about any particular
case if they come across a field full of poppies, what efforts
are made to deal with that immediate problem, but I will get the
Committee a note on that.
Mr Richmond: I think it is just
worth making the point that I think there is a distinction to
be made between eradication and interdiction. There is some eradication
going on at this very moment in the Helmand province, but it is
being carried out by the Afghan authorities themselves and I think
the judgment is that eradication is best done by the Afghans,
and that is indeed what is happening at the moment, but the interdiction
of the actual trade in narcotics production of the opium, and
so on, that is an area where I think British forces could play
a role.
Q254 Chairman: Foreign Secretary,
did you want to add anything to that?
Mr Straw: He is more or less word-perfect,
actually!
Q255 Chairman: I saw the paper and
I just wondered.
Mr Straw: It says: "UK troops
are being deployed in support of a UN authorised NATO-led mission,
the International Security Assistance Force as part of the international
coalition. They will work to counter insurgency and help appropriate
authorities to build security for government institutions to continue
the progress of recent years. Above all, their presence will help
the Afghans create the environment in which economic development
and institutional reform, both essential to the elimination of
the opium industry, can take place."
Q256 Chairman: I want to ask a different
question, which relates to the wider war against terrorism. How
do you react when a major ally which is very helpful in the Gulf
and which has played a big role in helping us in, for example,
the training of the Iraqi forces is prevented from owning ports,
or companies from that country are prevented from owning ports
in the United States? We were really surprised, when we were in
the States, of the huge American media about this Dubai Ports
takeover of P&O, which was a non-issue in this country and
yet in the United States has caused enormous furore and led to,
in effect, the government of President Bush having to find ways
to get off the hook. Are you as surprised by that as we were?
Mr Straw: It reflects the much
greater concern in the United States about their internal security.
It all goes back to September 11, and I simply say that if September
11 had happened here that kind of concern would have been reflected
by British parliamentarians. So I was not really surprised. There
has always been a sort of higher propensity to protectionism in
the United States than there has here, and of course that has
very strong echoes across the Channel as well because we are seeing
this what is called economic patriotism (aka protectionism) now
being followed variously by France, by some other European countries
and by Spain. All I would say is that generally the United States
is open with its economy, notwithstanding some of the protectionist
pressures. As far as Europe is concerned, I think it ill-behoves
France (whose utility companies have sought to buy up utility
companies elsewhere in Europe, including the United Kingdom) to
be as protectionist as it is, nor Spain either, and I think these
countries need to think very carefully. There is, of course, a
wider economic argument, which is that certainly as far as the
United Kingdom is concerned—I think these countries need
to learn the argument for themselves—the evidence is that
where there are foreign buyers of British companies, those companies
then have high levels of productivity and overall output, and
of course in turn bring in capital which can then be used elsewhere
in the British economy.
Q257 Chairman: I am more concerned,
though, of the signal it sends to the Arab world and to those
countries in the region which are actually our allies in this
process that somehow because they are Arabs they are not to be
trusted to own American assets.
Mr Straw: I understand that, and
I think the United States Government was alive to that, which
is why it resisted suggestions that there should be restrictions
put on the Dubai Ports company from buying up P&O and running
these ports in the United States.
Q258 Andrew Mackinlay: In fairness,
Chairman, it was not the United States Government, it was the
Legislature—
Mr Straw: You are absolutely right,
but even the United Kingdom does not have an entirely compliant
Parliament!
Q259 Andrew Mackinlay: I asked a
Parliamentary Question of you recently and I did not use this
word in the question, but subsequently from our visit to the United
States it is about patriotic hacking from China. The distinct
impression I got from your parliamentary reply was that your Department
did not want me to go there. This is where there has been from
China deliberate sabotage or intrusion of government computers,
including, I understand, this Parliament's, and others. The reply
I got kind of closed us down. We then raised it in the United
States and they were very alive to this and what is incontrovertible
is that from China this is happening. I cannot help feeling that
the Chinese Government authorities are either the inspirers of
this or with full knowledge and with full consent allowed this
to happen from China and that for wider foreign policy reasons
your Department—I make the distinction between yourself
and your Department—do not want this raised. This is a very
serious matter. It is an act of terrorism and it is emanating
from China. What say you?
Mr Straw: I do not recall the
details of the answer, but I recall the question. You will have
to excuse me, but I am not intending to add to anything I have
already said on this issue, which I know is not a great deal.
I note what you say about the reaction of the United States, but
if you will excuse me I will not comment further on it.
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