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The right hon. Gentleman therefore appears to have accepted the argument that we advanced last October that now is perhaps not the time for his proposal to take effect. For our part, we also remain of the view that this is not the time to send a signal of potential disunity—whether it be to the courageous Government and people of Iraq, or to our own immensely courageous armed forces—or indeed to commit ourselves to an inquiry in the form that the right hon. Gentleman has proposed. I accept, of course, that that was the form of the Falklands inquiry—but in the 25 years since the Falklands war, important things have changed in the way in which Parliament works.
Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): I understand the right hon. Lady’s reasoning, although I may differ with her about the case for an inquiry now. Does she nevertheless agree that at some point we have to get clarity on some of the big issues? For example, there is a huge debate about how many people have been killed in Iraq since 2003. Does she agree that at some point we need to get clarity, and that we are arguing about a timetable rather than about the fundamental case for finding out the truth about those vexing questions?
Margaret Beckett: Judging from the range of different statistical methods that people have used, I am not sure whether, on that matter, any inquiry will ever come to a conclusion of which there will be general acceptance—but of course I share the view that it is important that we remember the civilian casualties that have occurred during the conflict, and that we do everything we can both to minimise them and to encourage the accurate keeping of records, so that understanding is not lost.
Chris Bryant: I am sure the Foreign Secretary would accept that it is almost certain that when eventually there is an inquiry, all parliamentarians will want to examine force protection, whether involving body armour or the physical environment in which our troops are protected. Does she agree that it will be difficult to do that in an open environment now, without further compromising the security of our troops?
Margaret Beckett: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Those who are approaching the debate with an open mind and a proper realisation of the dangers of the course of action being urged on us by the Opposition will certainly take heed of his remarks.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: Why is it necessary to continue to block the memoirs of Jeremy Greenstock, our man in Baghdad, when his American counterpart, Paul Bremer, published his memoirs a couple of years ago and the sky did not fall in?
Margaret Beckett: I am not responsible for the decisions of the American Government. They decided to allow Mr. Bremer to publish his memoirs. We have not made such a decision.
As I say, events have changed—
Mr. Redwood: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
Margaret Beckett: I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, and then I must get on.
Mr. Redwood: Why is it not possible to accept the proposal in principle, while leaving it to the Government to choose the date for dealing with all the issues that the Foreign Secretary has raised? To refuse that makes the Government look as if they have something to hide, and I am sure that they would not want that coming across as their true view.
Margaret Beckett: That is complete nonsense. As I say, we are being urged now to commit ourselves not only to the principle but to a form of inquiry. From the words of the shadow Foreign Secretary—I nearly called him the Leader of the Opposition; perhaps I would be percipient in saying that—it is clear that he envisages an inquiry taking place in the quite near future. As I say, it is not sensible to put that proposal before the House at this time.
We now have a framework of Select Committees—whose role and resources, incidentally, have been substantially strengthened under this Government, despite the nonsense talked about our approach to Parliament. They carry out independent inquiries, as they already have into different aspects of our involvement in Iraq.
I argued in October that the situation in Iraq was too delicate for us to turn our attention away from the immediate task of how best we could help the Iraqi people here and now. I make no apology for saying the same today. Indeed I remind the House that only a few days ago the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq urged us to concentrate our minds, will and interests on continuing to work with the people there to give top priority to rebuilding and helping to reform the situation in Iraq.
Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway) (Lab): Have the Government received any representations from past or current military commanders that an inquiry of this kind would be unwise or dangerous?
Margaret Beckett: I am not aware of having received any representations from military commanders either for or against an inquiry. However, I have no doubt whatever that it would be possible to find both former military commanders who took the view expressed by my hon. and learned Friend, and those who took a different view. I say that without implying any discredit to military commanders, as that is a perfectly reasonable state of affairs among human beings.
Mr. MacNeil: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Margaret Beckett: No, I must get on.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence would have liked to take part in this debate, but he is today in Baghdad with the Chancellor, focusing precisely on what can be done today and in the critical months ahead to help the people of Iraq.
As all Members know, Iraq still faces a daunting array of political, security and economic challenges of a kind with which any Government in the world—let alone a Government who have been in existence for only a little over a year—would struggle to deal. The
Prime Minister set out in detail in his 21 February statement our analysis of the challenges and our strategy for helping the Iraqis to tackle them. I do not intend to repeat that today, but I shall seek briefly to explain why the next few months in Iraq are especially crucial, and why the Government want to maintain a clear focus on the here and now.
With support from the coalition, the Iraqi Government have in recent months launched a major fresh effort to restore security to Baghdad and neighbouring areas of Iraq. In the coming months, critical judgments will need to be made about the success of the effort. The commander of the multinational force, General Petraeus, is due to deliver his assessment of progress in Washington in September.
It is still too early to make definitive judgments on the success of the initiative. The last of the additional US units being brought into Baghdad will arrive only this month. So far, there have been significant falls in the recorded rates of sectarian murders in Baghdad, and more recently there have been impressive reductions in recorded violence in Anbar province, which was hitherto the most violent part of the country. However, there have also been further atrocious suicide bombings in and around Baghdad, and calculated attacks on symbolic targets in the capital, such as bridges and the Parliament building itself, in a deliberate attempt to induce a sense of despair both in the Iraqi people and in those in the international community working to help them.
The initiative will be judged not solely on its immediate impact on the security environment, but on the extent to which Iraq’s political leaders manage to make progress on the fundamental political issues that underlie so much of the violence. It is crucial that Iraq’s leaders reach early agreement on legislation governing the future of the oil and gas sector, and on how to share the huge potential wealth from the sector equitably among all communities in Iraq. That alone could prove a powerful force for national unity and reconciliation.
It is essential that agreement be reached on reforms to the process of de-Ba’athification, which has become the cause of much division. It is important that the Iraqi Parliament pass legislation setting a date for provincial elections, to allow a new and more representative generation of political leaders to emerge across the country. All these steps, along with others, must culminate in an agreement on revisions to the new Iraqi constitution that give all communities in Iraq a firm sense of commitment to the country’s future.
These are all immensely difficult issues; were that not so, they would have been solved long ago. It is imperative for the future of the country that Iraq’s leaders make headway on them over the coming months.
Mr. John Baron (Billericay) (Con):
We hope that the inquiry will be wide ranging, and that it will include an examination of how the intelligence was assessed and presented. In the meantime, however, I have a question. The main justification for war was the weapons of mass destruction argument, and that ultimately proved to be wrong. Who does the Foreign Secretary think is to blame for that? Does the blame lie with the intelligence
services for their assessment of the intelligence that came in, or with the politicians for their presentation of the evidence?
Margaret Beckett: The hon. Gentleman has just given an extremely good example of why it would not exactly promote the cause of looking to the future and rebuilding Iraq to engage in the kind of dialogue that he wants at this time. He is, of course, right to say that these are issues of importance, but I recall that in the last debate on this subject one of my hon. Friends reported to the House a discussion at which he had been present with Dr. el-Baradei. Dr. el-Baradei confirmed to those present at that meeting that in March 2003, he had himself believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that it was capable of using, and likely to try to use. So the notion that this was somehow all made up by the Government of the United Kingdom bears no examination at all. As I said, this is a good example of how the Conservative party would prefer to dwell on the past, rather than looking to what is happening now in Iraq and working with it.
Mr. Boris Johnson (Henley) (Con) rose—
Mr. Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth, East) (Con): Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
Margaret Beckett: No, I must get on.
In the south, we have already been able to hand over responsibility for security to the Iraqi authorities in three of the four provinces in our area of operation. British troops and civilian staff are now engaged in an intensive drive to bring the last of these provinces, Basra, to the point at which security responsibility can be handed over there, too. At this critical juncture, when Iraq’s future clearly hangs in the balance, it would be wrong—plainly and simply wrong—for us to divert our focus from the tasks that need completing now, and again turn our gaze backwards.
Let us have no pretence that this is an innocuous little motion that will have no effect on the atmosphere in, or background against which, these ongoing, highly difficult challenges have to be faced and met. If that were so, the shadow Foreign Secretary would not have troubled to table it. He made it clear last October that he hoped that the inquiry he proposed at that time would begin in this Session of Parliament. We believed then, and we believe now, that to carry a motion such as this would be an unnecessary and damaging diversion of effort, focus and attention.
Mr. Ellwood: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
All our time and energy is badly needed now for addressing the challenges of the present, as the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq reminded us only the other day. It is our responsibility to the people of Iraq that should receive our complete focus and attention in the critical months ahead.
When we discussed this issue in October, some Members pointed out that only a few days beforehand, representatives of the Iraqi Government had urged us to concentrate on the future. It was also pointed out—to pick up the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen)—that the history of Iraq did not begin with the invasion.
As I said in October, I believe that we also have a responsibility to think very carefully about the signals that we send out from this House today—signals that will be closely followed in Iraq and around the world. It is critical that we do not convey to others the impression that this country’s commitment to Iraq is weakening at a critical moment, and that we are about to turn away into a period of self-indulgent introspection. So I hope that all Members of this House will support the amendment that the Government have tabled.
5.13 pm
Mr. Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (LD): The Foreign Secretary’s statement that nothing has changed in the Government’s position since October will not have been a surprise; none the less, it will be a disappointment to the House. It appears to all intents and purposes that the Government are still trying to avoid an inquiry, while hinting that there will be one. They are simply ducking the question of when.
The Foreign Secretary said that many Ministers and others have made themselves available to the House in debates, during statements and at questions. Those are worthwhile and welcome occasions, but they are surely no substitute for a thoroughgoing inquiry into what led up to the war in Iraq and what has happened since. The motion today simply asks for the principle to be accepted—little more than that. I should have thought that it was not beyond the Government to accept that. The motion has echoes of the nationalist text that we debated at the end of October, and there is nothing wrong with that, since the need for a proper inquiry into the follies and misjudgments that took us into the war in Iraq is even more pressing now than it was then. In the spirit of cross-party unity, which was evident on both sides of the House on that day, the Liberal Democrats will support the motion when it comes to a Division later.
Before I go on to our reasons why, however, let me add the support of my right hon. and hon. Friends to the tributes already properly and generously paid by the Foreign Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), to our armed forces. Throughout the conflict, as in so many others, the men and women of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force have shown the highest levels of professionalism, dedication and commitment that could ever be expected of them. Their bravery and courage is beyond question and, indeed, many have paid the highest price. Many more have suffered or continue to suffer the consequences of their time in Iraq. We should never lose sight of those sacrifices.
Since we last debated the call for an inquiry in October 2006, we have seen the deadliest month for UK forces since the initial invasion, with 12 servicemen killed in April. In total, 30 more UK personnel have
been killed since October 2006, and as the Foreign Secretary sadly marked, 150 servicemen and women have lost their lives in Iraq serving their country. Our thoughts are ever with them and the families and friends who are so tragically affected.
In the wider context, we should not forget the toll on American and other coalition service personnel, with US casualties nearing 3,500 and other coalition casualties nearing 130. That is all indicative of a desperate security situation. In written answers to me, the Secretary of State for Defence has detailed how attacks on UK-led, multinational forces have risen sharply since our last debate. From that date until the end of April, there were more than 1,300 attacks, compared with just over 500 in the previous six months. That is in the context of Operation Sinbad and the greater levels of confrontation that were inevitably involved, but at the very least, it highlights the ferocity of the situation even in southern Iraq. As we have been reminded only too recently, the dangers there extend to kidnapping, with the fate of the five latest hostages captured at the end of May still unknown. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, too.
We may never know how many Iraqis have been kidnapped, and as the Foreign Secretary said, we will never know the true figure for civilian casualties in Iraq. There have been many estimates, and the United Nations has reported that 34,000 were killed last year alone. For millions of people, life and normality have been destroyed.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that there are approximately 2 million internally displaced people in Iraq. There are another 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighbouring countries, particularly in Syria and Jordan. Many people lack support, and the host countries are struggling to deal with them. According to a written answer that I received from the Secretary of State for International Development,
“DFID has provided £10 million to support emergency relief and other services to displaced and vulnerable Iraqis”—[ Official Report, 7 June 2007; Vol. 465, c. 685W.]
this year. However, if I understand the answer correctly, that is in Iraq and throughout the region. In the context of the estimated £5 billion cost of the Iraq war to the United Kingdom, it is a tiny amount.
Our obligations surely extend to the many former translators and interpreters who have had to flee Iraq and, according to Human Rights Watch, have been denied any assistance in reaching the UK or in obtaining asylum in this country. Those people put their lives on the line alongside British personnel, and their lives are still on the line. Of all the people affected, surely we have a particular responsibility to them.
In Iraq, reconstruction has failed to live up to the large amounts of money poured in. To give just two examples, unemployment is commonly as high as 40 per cent. and electricity supplies in most of the country have barely improved on pre-war levels and have actually fallen below those levels in Baghdad.
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