Iraq: Camp Ashraf

Lord Maginnis of Drumglass Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that the term “unfortunate circumstance” misleadingly and euphemistically represents what has happened in Camp Ashraf? Does he accept that what happened there was a massacre—wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter? Will the Government consider the need to send a delegation from this House, or from Parliament in general, to Camp Ashraf? Furthermore, will they consider sending Nouri al-Maliki and his Camp Ashraf dispersal committee to court at The Hague?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a good deal of violence all the way across the Middle East at present, with which the United Nations is actively engaged. I have to reiterate that Iraq is now a sovereign state; that the United Kingdom Government are doing their best to investigate what has happened; that this is a long-standing confrontation going back to the change of government in 2003 in Iraq; and that it is not as simple to resolve as the noble Lord suggests.