Examination of Witness (Questions 140-159)
RT HON
TONY BLAIR
MP
22 NOVEMBER 2005
Q140 Malcolm Bruce: Does Parliament
not have a right to have a view?
Mr Blair: An absolute right. If
Parliament wants to say no it can say no. Parliament did say no
on the 90 days. There is no point in me speculating on what might
happen depending on what the House of Lords does because I do
not know. I believe that the police case for this was a good one.
There is no point in us going back over the argument now. That
is why I took the position I did; I think it was a mistake for
Parliament to reject it; but Parliament did and Parliament is
sovereign, so there it is.
Q141 Malcolm Bruce: You would not
use the Parliament Act in this context?
Mr Blair: I certainly do not want
to use the Parliament Act. There is no point in getting into a
situation where I start saying what will happen here and now,
but I do not think we will reach that situation; I hope we do
not; and I am sure the debate in the House of Lords will be reasonably
consensual—I hope it is. What we are trying to do here is
to give our police and security services the best fighting chance
of preventing another terrorist act. I do not say that the people
who took an opposite point of view from me on the 90 days are
people who are indifferent to this threat at all. People have
come to a different judgment about the civil liberties issue on
this point. That is what happens sometimes. I felt myself that
the case was so strong and so important that, as I said at the
time, I was prepared to lose having put it forward than to end
up openly compromising on the 28 days.
Chairman: People who understandably hope
that the type of terrorism we are facing at the moment will be
temporary is in the projection done in the middle of last year
by the collective American intelligence services looking at the
year 2020, when they envisage that al-Qaeda might or might not
exist but al-Qaeda-like structures would still exist, and that
was 15 years on from now. I think probably we are looking much
further ahead. Let us move to the third section: policy in the
broader Middle East.
Sir George Young: Prime Minister, we
want to spend the last session looking at overseas policy, in
particular the Middle East. There are two particular questions
we want to look at: firstly, is your policy right; and secondly,
if it is, is it working? We want to look at a number of countries
in the time available and just test those two issues. Can we start
off in Afghanistan which runs the risk of being overlooked?
Q142 Mr Arbuthnot: Prime Minister,
on "is it working?" do you believe that the security
situation in Afghanistan is getting better or getting worse?
Mr Blair: I think it is difficult
to judge that. I think in the medium and long term I would say
the prospects are good rather than bad. There is no doubt that
al-Qaeda are trying to re-energise people on the extremist side
there. No, I think overall it is a healthy prognosis because the
people have obviously had a taste of democracy and liked it; but
it is not going to stop al-Qaeda doing what they are doing.
Q143 Mr Arbuthnot: Do you have the
sense that the sort of insurgency we see in Iraq is beginning
to infect Afghanistan as well?
Mr Blair: No, I do not think that
is the judgment of our people there. I think Afghanistan is a
very different situation. The Taliban and al-Qaeda will carry
on doing what they are doing. For all I know, they may carry on
for several years trying to do it. The one thing that is for absolutely
sure is that they do not enjoy support amongst any section of
the population in Afghanistan. That is shown by the fact that
when people are given the chance to come out and vote, they come
out and vote. The whole point about terrorism and the purpose
of it is to cause chaos, instability and to cause a real sense
of people asking whether the stability that they perceive in a
situation can be dislodged by the terrorism, and that is why they
are doing it. It is not a failure of policy in Afghanistan that
terrorism is occurring. These people will try to kill the innocent.
We have just been discussing this. In my view, two of the most
single most important factors in defeating this terrorism everywhere,
including here in this country, is if Iraq and Afghanistan become
stable democracies. If they do, how are these people going to
go into the Muslim community and recruit people on the basis of
saying, "Look at the terrible things that are happening",
when you have got two Muslim countries that would be stable democracies
for the first time in their history.
Q144 Mr Arbuthnot: Moving to the
issue of troop deployments. Next year we will be deploying the
Allied Rapid Reaction Corps into the Helmand Province, which is
a much more dangerous area than the area in which we are currently.
Are you sure that we are going to have enough troops in the area
to do the job we need them to do?
Mr Blair: We will have the troops
that our people seek for it. We will not send them in unless they
have got the numbers that they need. I think there is still a
discussion going on as to exactly how much that is. It has always
been foreseen that we would deploy the ARRC for 18 months or so.
There are all sorts of discussions with other countries about
their troop requirements as well.
Q145 Mr Arbuthnot: You are sure that
we will have enough?
Mr Blair: I am sure that we will
do what our senior generals say is necessary, because it would
be wrong to send our troops in without that. As I say, the exact
number I do not think is decided yet, but it depends in part on
what help we get from other countries.
Sir George Young: It is also crucial
that our NATO partners play their part in discharging this responsibility.
Can we move on to heroin.
Q146 Mr Sarwar: Prime Minister, you
said four years ago that 90% of heroin originates in Afghanistan
and this is another part of the Taliban regime that we should
seek to destroy. Can the Prime Minister tell us what progress
has been made in this respect since the fall of the Taliban?
Mr Blair: Not nearly enough is
the answer. Actually I think the poppy cultivation, according
to the UN, is down 20% this year, but I would not read a lot into
that either. I think we were too optimistic about an eradication
policy. That has to be done over a significant period of time.
I think we have got a better process in place now; and in particular
we have got the new Government very much more focused on eradication
of the drugs trade, which is important for Afghanistan and also
important for our country.
Q147 Mr Sarwar: According to the
United Nations Office on drugs and kind, during the last years
of the Taliban 185 tonnes of opium was produced, last year it
was 4,200 tonnes and this year it is 4,100 tonnes. Do you accept
this is an unmitigated and complete failure?
Mr Blair: No, I would not accept
that. One of the reasons why the Taliban figure was very low just
before the Taliban were removed, is that the Taliban had decided
that they wanted to horde a certain amount of the drugs in order
to drive up the price. I said to you a moment or two ago, we have
not done nearly enough and, yes, we have to do it. Obviously some
of the methods that were available to the Taliban to control this
drugs trade—because after all it is the Taliban that drove
the drugs trade—are not open to us. They are written whatever
way they want it. The international community now sees this as
absolutely central to getting Afghanistan on its feet. It is important
that when we are talking about Afghanistan sometimes you get almost
a wholly negative picture, but if you talk to the President of
Afghanistan or any of the people who have been there and seen
it, they are basically still optimistic about the future. Their
country is changing the entire time as a result of liberation
from the Taliban. The countries, Afghanistan and Iraq that were
failed states, were failed in every single respect.
Sir George Young: I think that is a good
point at which to move on to Iraq.
Q148 Mr Ainsworth: Prime Minister,
you said on 12 February 2003 "before we take the decision
to go to war the morality of that should weigh heavily on our
conscience because innocent people die as well as the guilty in
war". Can you tell us how many innocent people have died
so far in Iraq?
Mr Blair: We cannot be sure of
the exact numbers. You know the estimates that the Americans have
given, the estimates that the Iraqi Minister in Health has given.
I just want to make one thing very clear, the people who have
died in Iraq since Saddam fell have died principally as a result
of the insecurity and the terrorism coming about as a result of
the activities of those that want to disrupt the democratic process.
It is not American and British troops that are going out to kill
innocent people. On the contrary, we are there with a UN mandate
trying to protect innocent people.
Q149 Mr Ainsworth: Do you not think,
given our heavy involvement in Iraq, as somebody whose conscience
carries the heavy weight of being responsible for innocent deaths,
you should actually make more effort to find our how many people
have died?
Mr Blair: We do make efforts.
As I say, there are estimates given by the Americans; there are
estimates given by NGOs; there are estimates given by the Ministry
of Health. The fact of the matter is the reason why innocent people
are dying is because there are people committing exactly the same
type of terrorism that we see in other parts of the world. The
only way that we can deal with this is to stand up to it and make
sure that these terrorists should not disrupt the ability of the
Iraqi people to decide their future in a democratic way. When
people talk about the innocent dying in Iraq, as if somehow it
was because of the British and American forces, that is absurd.
The British and American forces are there with the consent of
the Iraqi Government, itself the product of a democratic election,
with a full UN mandate, unanimously given by the UN Security Council,
and we are there with the troops of 25 or so other countries in
order to make sure that that democratic process, which will culminate
in the December elections, can take place.
Q150 Mr Ainsworth: I think it is
incredible to argue that the state of Iraq today, with its persistent
bombings, multiple deaths, terrible political instability, is
in some way not related to your decision to invade the country
in the first place.
Mr Blair: I did not say that.
What I said is it is absurd to say that the British and American
troops are the ones that are causing the death of innocent people
in Iraq. You could have taken the decision, I could have taken
the decision that it would be better to have left Saddam in charge
of Iraq, but I think if you were to talk to many of the Iraqis
that I have met they would also tell you that, although it was
never given the publicity of death and instability there is now,
there were many hundreds of thousands of innocent people, four
million in exile, as a result of his regime. The point is now
that the only thing that requires the presence of the multinational
force in Iraq is the presence of this terrorism. If it stopped
the Iraqi people could elect their Government in the way they
have indicated time and again they want to, and the country could
make progress, and the multinational force could withdraw.
Q151 Mr Ainsworth: You implied earlier,
in answering a question from Andrew Dismore, that the post-World
War II human rights settlement may need to be revised and is a
bit out of date. You suggested, talking to Alan Beith, that the
rules of the game had changed in terms of domestic civil liberties
and the threat of terrorism. Do you agree with Colonel Tim Collins,
who was quoted at the weekend, saying, "We're into a new
form of warfare, and I think the world should wake up to that"?
Mr Blair: I do not know what he
means by that, meaning what exactly?
Q152 Mr Ainsworth: It was in the
context of something called Shake and Bake, are you familiar with
that?
Mr Blair: Yes.
Q153 Mr Ainsworth: What do you think
of that?
Mr Blair: I do not think that
we should do anything other than abide by the conventions that
we have always abided by, both ourselves and the rest of the multi-national
forces, and as far as I am concerned we do. Peter, let us be clear
about this, when you put the points as to what is happening in
Iraq, what we should be saying, even if people totally disagree
with the original decision to go to war in Iraq, is the fact is
for the last two years we have been fighting a different type
of conflict. It is a conflict that is driven, firstly, by former
Saddamists, secondly, by insurgents who believe they do not have
a place in the political process—I personally think we need
to convince them they do—and, thirdly, by foreign Jihadists,
exactly the same people who are killing people worldwide. Now,
that is the battle we have been fighting for the last two years
and the reason multi-national forces are still there is that until
the Iraqis have got their own capability, the country would then
be unable to control the security situation and these terrorists
and insurgents will take over unless the multi-national force
is there to safeguard the democratic process. In December there
is going to be a democratic election. Why should the Iraqis not
be able to decide their own future and why should we not, from
the international community, instead of pointing fingers to America
or Britain and saying "Isn't it terrible what we are doing
there" actually say "It is terrible that these insurgents
and terrorists are trying to disrupt the democratic will democratically
expressed by Iraqis"?
Q154 Mr Leigh: Just one question:
nothing justifies terrorism and there were terrorist attacks all
over the world before the invasion of Iraq, we accept that. The
question which has to be asked, Prime Minister, is how many Muslim
attacks were there on London before the invasion of Iraq? In other
words, in the minds of these people, was the invasion of Iraq
a contributory factor towards their evil acts?
Mr Blair: Edward, this is my very
point which I was making earlier. I have got absolutely no doubt
at all—and you can see this from the websites they use to
recruit people—they will use Iraq, but not just Iraq—incidentally,
a lot of the discussion that the media wants to do is focus it
all on Iraq—they use Afghanistan, actually they use Kashmir,
in fact they use Palestine a lot, and if all of those things fail,
they will use America or the existence of Israel. That will happen,
they will do that. What is the conclusion we draw? The conclusion
I draw is that we go out and challenge them, not just their methods
but their ideas and say "For you, when the same type of terrorism
is killing innocent people on their way to vote in Afghanistan
and blowing up innocent people in Iraq who just want to make their
country better, when you use what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan
then to justify further acts of terrorism here or in Egypt or
India or wherever else you do it, we are going to say to you `No,
you are not justified. It is obscene for you people to pray in
aid Iraq or Afghanistan'."
Q155 Mr Leigh: Of course it is obscene.
So it was not a contributory factor in their minds?
Mr Blair: What is a contributory
factor in their minds is not the judgment in the end anyone is
able to make. That they will use these issues I have absolutely
no doubt at all, and that is why when people have said I said
or Jack Straw said "Oh, it has got nothing to do with Iraq",
I never said that. Of course these people will use these issues
but what is the conclusion we draw, that we end up having them
determine our foreign policy? No, you would not say that and I
would not say that. In the end what we have to decide is—this
is the real heart of this whole debate basically, and it has gone
on certainly to my mind since September 11 2001—is this
a new phenomenon? Is this something different? Is this something
worldwide? Is it a global threat? Or, is it something where if
we keep our heads down and try and calm everything down it is
going to go away? My view is it is not going to go away. It is
not going to go away until we uproot it, and the only way we uproot
it is by challenging them at every single level: their methods,
their ideas, their supposed sense of grievance to the extremist
preaching, they engage in the whole works. In the end, even if
you eliminated Iraq, eliminated Afghanistan, eliminated Palestine,
Chechnya, Kashmir and all the others, it would come down to the
way of life we have here and the way of life that they want to
impose on other Arab and Muslim countries. In the end you are
not going to defeat them other than by defeating them, if you
see what I mean.
Sir George Young: On that theme of a
haven for terrorism in this country, Malcolm.
Q156 Malcolm Bruce: Prime Minister,
since the invasion of Iraq, we have seen a great upsurge of insurgency
into Iraq. We have now something like 550 insurgent attacks a
day, civilian casualties have continued, as has already been said,
and since the war 35,000 Iraqis have been detained by US forces.
Can you indicate, first of all, what is the role of the British
troops in terms of detainees? Do we detain them ourselves? Do
we hand them over to the American authorities? How do we deal
with people who are lifted at, say, brigade level or field level?
Mr Blair: I can get you the exact
numbers on this, Malcolm, but I think we have only got a handful
of detainees, if that.[6]
Most of this done in the south is now done with the Iraqi security
forces themselves. The Americans are trying to release the detainees
as they can.
Q157 Malcolm Bruce: That was really the
point, 35,000 people have been lifted, only 1,259 of those have
been tried, 636 have been convicted and 21,000 have been released.
Mr Blair: Yes.
Q158 Malcolm Bruce: How do you think
these people feel when they are returned to their communities—I
know this is only by Human Rights Watch—having, according
to Human Rights Watch, suffered systematic abuse and torture?
Mr Blair: What is the purpose
of the terrorism? The purpose of the terrorism is to create a
situation in which the multi-national force and the Iraqi forces
react. The reaction then creates its own victims and then the
spiral continues.
Q159 Mr Beith: You said we should
not exaggerate earlier when I asked the same question in relation
to Britain: "The known strategy of the terrorist to promote
a reaction".
Mr Blair: Yes, exactly. It is
important that we take account of not driving them into that situation
but, on the other hand, it is important also we take account of
the fact that you cannot just let the insurgents and terrorists
do what they want to do.
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