Libya

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for this opportunity for the debate and for his exposition of where we stand. It is clear that a large number of British people feel that we should not be involved in Libya. That is hardly surprising when one looks back and sees that, on balance, there is a general consensus that the invasion of Iraq was wrong. When one saw what was in Afghanistan by way of terrorist training camps, one felt that the initial invasion was correct, but I believe that the expansion of that role into Helmand was a mistake, which we have lived to regret. This has cost the nation a great deal in blood and treasure. Despite those experiences, I have to say that I very reluctantly accept that our involvement in Libya—the no-fly zone—was the right thing to do. I do not intend to rehearse all the arguments, but I have no doubt that it stopped effectively mass killings in Benghazi and it had a strong UN resolution.

There are a huge number of dangers now. I shall run through some of the things where I believe that risks exist. On civilian casualties, our people have done really well in terms of not causing any. I was very much involved in the targeting process when I was Chief of Defence Intelligence and I know the effort and care that is taken in that respect. However, we would be deluding ourselves if we believed that there would be no civilian casualties, particularly as the situation progresses. It will happen. It would be a nonsense to pretend that there will not be any. Indeed, there may have been one or two already of which we are not aware. That is just a fact of life. We need to harden our hearts to that and to make sure that we expose the fact that there is no moral equivalence between what we are doing and what Gaddafi is doing. Of course, if those things mount, there will be huge pressure from the Arab states and others, as well as a break-up of the coalition.

It is super that NATO has taken over and lovely that the coalition is getting bigger—we should expand it. But it is interesting that most of the fast jets going in are air-to-air, and there has been no air-to-air combat. We need ground-attack aircraft. Only the core players are doing ground attack. That is something that we should address.

There is a real danger of stalemate, which could lead to a division within the country and civil war. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, eloquently explained the military capability of the rebels. In my sailor’s language, I would say that in military terms the rebels are basically a rabble. They have got a long way to go to be able to do anything militarily. But arming them is extremely dangerous. For example, if rebel forces are fighting Gaddafi’s forces and no civilians are there, what exactly is the position for the NATO commander in terms of hitting forces? He is not protecting civilian forces. What should he do? The UN resolution does not cover that. What if the rebel forces in a town inadvertently kill some civilians? What does the NATO commando do about that? These are real difficulties which have to be confronted.

Who exactly are the rebels? I hope that the Government are clear on who they are because I am not clear at all. Clearly, the composition of Libya after this is up to the Libyans. It is nothing to do with us. But we need to think carefully about arming the rebels. I have not seen anything clear about where that is going. Mission creep from the UN resolution to regime change is dangerous. We need to go back to the UN and ask whether it wants regime change. I have heard a lot of what has been said about that. Clearly, all of us would like Gaddafi to go. He is a murderous, deranged thug and we would love to have him out of the way, but the legality of doing that is difficult. Similarly, we would have to go back to the UN to talk about the legality of arming the rebels. In addition, there is the danger of pressure to use land forces. Air power is not decisive, as was shown in Kosovo; it took the threat of invasion in Kosovo to change the game. We need to be aware of pressures for that.

I am sure that we have learnt many lessons. I shall pick one. I believe that the Government have to run the rule over the SDSR. For example, notwithstanding many attempts to show otherwise, there is no doubt that a carrier and air group would have been invaluable at all stages of this operation, particularly early on. On that point, I should like to wish the Royal Air Force a happy birthday, as it was formed 93 years ago today. The Royal Navy gave 2,500 aircraft and 55,000 men to help to form the new RAF. Is it not interesting that today the SDSR has got rid of all of our maritime fixed-wing aircraft? “Invincible” is being towed past Libya for scrap and “Ark Royal” is on eBay for sale. That is something that we need to ponder.

We should have real concern about all these changes. The Minister touched on this. I believe that al-Qaeda has been caught out by what has happened. There are opportunities for us. We should do some detailed risk analysis work. The impact of events from Algeria to Oman and the issues within Bahrain and Yemen et cetera are very real. I believe that blithely to ignore these real-world events in terms of the SDSR would be worthy of today’s date. We need to do something about it.

What next? We need to keep hitting Gaddafi’s forces when he is killing civilians, for example, in Misrata. There is no doubt about that whatever. As many speakers have said, we need to use every lever, because we need to do this politically. One hopes that Moussa Koussa is the first of many people who will come over, although we cannot necessarily bank on it. We need pressure on assets. We need to tighten up the arms and wider embargoes. We need to use the contact group to the maximum extent and to redouble our aid efforts, but we really need to ensure that the truth of what we are doing gets out to the wider Muslim world. This is very important. We have seen before how there can be radicalisation if that does not happen. There is no moral equivalence between what Gaddafi is doing—abusing human rights and killing and torturing his own people—and our careful, measured response. That message needs to get out. The World Service is good at that. We need to make sure that we get the message out wherever we possibly can, because it is very important.

We all hope otherwise but, notwithstanding the latest defection and the prospect that there may be others, this may be a long haul. As a number of speakers have said, this will not end until Gaddafi goes, although we have no legal cover for regime change. We have to be absolutely resolute in opposing mission creep or the breaking of any of the UN resolutions. If there were any move towards the use of land forces, I believe that we should immediately leave the coalition.

Yemen

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The danger is quite high. There is a danger of all kinds of elements, including the al-Qaeda franchise, other jihadists and the rebel groups that have been present for many years—there is nothing new in some of the matters that we are discussing—taking over and replacing the present unsatisfactory pattern with something equally unsatisfactory. We have to be realistic about this. All the progress throughout the Arab world will not automatically lead to a new dawn of liberal democracy, much as we hope it will.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, have the Government assessed whether al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula within Yemen and al-Qaeda more widely have been caught out by this huge change across what I think Glubb Pasha called the “hinge of the world” from Tunisia through to Oman? It seems to me that they might have been and that, if we are quick on our feet, there is a real opportunity to use this to our advantage. I should be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

When the situation is so fluid, it is very difficult to make these assessments, and I suspect that they vary vastly from country to country. We are talking here about the Yemen. Al-Qaeda is not the only threat to Yemen’s present stability; all kinds of different tribal gatherings and pressures are undermining the situation. It could be that al-Qaeda has not been at the forefront of many of these uprisings, protests and rebellions. On the other hand, we must have no illusions but that, where it sees trouble, it will seize every opportunity to intensify it and make it worse. As to our opportunity in this area, we have to move in a very agile and clever way, making sure that we combine the support of the western world and the whole comity of responsible nations in trying to encourage a sensible transition to democracy and a move away from all forms of extremism.

Shipping: Piracy

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I do not quite accept the noble Lord’s point that we are doing nothing at all. He is quite right that this is a growing concern. We had an excellent debate on it just before Christmas and he is right to raise it again now. These are all areas where progress can be made. There is a contact group and a highly effective operation throughout Whitehall involving all departments in tightening the situation. We have to tackle all these matters and are doing so in many areas very vigorously. To say we are doing nothing at all is going too far, but if the noble Lord feels we should go further, clearly we should because the piracy issue is getting worse and not better.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, on raising this issue. Does not the Minister think that now is the time to reinvigorate action in this whole area? It is becoming a really dangerous issue. I believe that something will happen in the near future that will make us all pay attention. For example, the loss of two LNG ships coming to the UK would affect energy supplies. There could be a huge catastrophe, and it really is time to reinvigorate our efforts. Should we not look at all the aspects of this problem that have been mentioned and push this very hard?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is right that the time has come, and Her Majesty's Government have recognised precisely the point that he makes. However, this has become a global issue; it could affect Chinese, Indian and Asian interests just as much as European and American interests. This task must be tackled on a global level with great vigour before it gets very much worse.

North Korea

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think the noble Lord already knows that I have read his excellent report, which is a very useful contribution to putting the situation in perspective. Of course, China is in many ways the key to this. They are the ones who will have to decide how to act responsibly in relation to their troublesome neighbour and protégé. We believe that the main thrust is to get the six-party talks going again. They have faltered but they are the right way forward and we will do everything we can to assure, first, that there is the strongest possible response to this latest outrage and, secondly, that the six-party talks are started again so that we can begin to bring some sense to the actions of this unpredictable, erratic and dangerous regime.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords—

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, from this side of the House I share the condemnation of the actions of the North Korean Government. Indeed, the Shadow Foreign Secretary issued a statement on that on Monday. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, on what is, as the Minister already commented, their excellent report on their recent visit. Can the Minister amplify a little the role that Europe might play in this latest problem and how we might find a way to build some of those bridges? Does Europe have a part to play—again, with China and others—in trying to ensure that the six-party talks continue and that we bring some sense into what is a very dangerous situation?