National Security Situation

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

My Lords, I want to focus my remarks this afternoon on the Syrian missile strike, which is but a small piece of the tragic and complex jigsaw that is Syria today, with civil war, ISIS, tribal conflict, major power intervention, brutality, bloodshed and destruction on a horrific scale. One thing is clear: Assad and his henchmen, sadly, with Russian and Iranian support have virtually won the conflict and are likely to remain in power. The time has surely come for our Government to change their message and drop the mantra that Assad cannot be part of Syria’s future, as so many other noble Lords have said this afternoon. He clearly will be, and it is absurd to pretend otherwise.

The military action that was taken, which I strongly support, substantially degraded Assad’s chemical warfare capability. It reinstated a red line—nothing more than that. I firmly believe that the participation of France and ourselves played a key role in supporting the Mattis Pentagon approach of a limited, focused strike, compared with the wider military action indicated and perhaps favoured by the Trump-Bolton axis in America.

There has been considerable debate about parliamentary authorisation for military action, but the call for prior approval, in my judgment, falls at virtually every hurdle of examination. Could our allies have been expected to wait? No. Could we disclose the precise nature of targets? No. Could we disclose the intelligence on which our decisions were based, which probably came from France, with its historical connections with Syria and deep involvement there, and from the United States and probably Israel and Saudi Arabia? No. Could we say that there would be only one strike? No, because if the first had not been completely successful, we would probably have needed a second strike. So what would have been left for the Government to say? It would have been just, “We intend to attack Syria, probably with the United States and France. Please give us a blank cheque to do so”. Recalling Parliament would likely have further extended the time gap between the terrible initial chemical assault and our military action.

What has also become clear, and I will make a semi-political point here, is that Jeremy Corbyn is a near pacifist and that he and colleagues such as Diane Abbott can hardly bring themselves to criticise Russia. This is despite its involvement in the downing of civilian aircraft, its aggression in Crimea and Ukraine, its military and logistical support for Assad, its repeated blocking of United Nations resolutions—I think we were told there were 12 in all by the Front Bench earlier—its poisoning in Salisbury, its delay and prevarication in letting the international inspection teams into the Douma site and, of course, its cyber activity. I have to say that Jeremy Corbyn is totally unfit for prime ministerial office.

One of the few positives emanating from this situation has been the successful use of the hotline, thankfully keeping allied military action well away from Russian forces and their capability, and avoiding the slide into a potential third world war scenario. We praise the professionalism of our Armed Forces in what was almost a textbook operation. It is quite clear from the briefings we have had that meticulous care was taken to avoid civilian and collateral damage in the selection and choice of targets.

There have been repeated concerns in this House, in previous debates and today, about the size of our Armed Forces—their hollowing out, to use the words of the noble Baroness from the Opposition Front Bench. We have far too few naval vessels. I thought that we were going to hear a speech from the noble Lord, Lord West, that would not actually mention naval vessels, but then he brought them in at the tail-end. There has also been a near unanimous call for an increase in defence expenditure. At the very least, I suggest, the naval vessels that we have should have both defensive and offensive capabilities, where possible. The Type 45 destroyer which was in the Mediterranean at the time leading a NATO force—I believe it was HMS “Duncan”—was originally designed, as were other Daring-class destroyers, to carry cruise and Tomahawk missiles. This was not proceeded with on cost grounds. When the noble Earl, Lord Howe, replies to this debate, can he indicate whether cruise missiles could still be fitted to our Daring-class destroyers and what the cost would be? If we had that military capability, there would clearly be another option for our forces.

The short and medium-term future for the Middle East and Syria looks bleak. This is deeply worrying. At the start of the year, intelligence sources were predicting a serious Hezbollah-Iranian/Israeli conflict this year. Estimates of the number of missiles supplied by Iran directly and indirectly to Hezbollah range from 30,000 to 100,000. I have to say that I fear the worst. With President Trump quite clearly emboldened by the recent military success—“Mission Accomplished!”—his very strong and close support for Israel and his antipathy towards Iran, where could all this lead? In the longer term, there has to be some form of negotiated political solution in Syria and the wider Middle East, but it could be a very long time coming, with terrible humanitarian suffering in the meantime.