Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report for 2010-11

Viscount Slim Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Grand Committee

[Viscount Slim]

My Lords, I did not intend to intervene until I heard from both the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, and the noble Lord, Lord Butler, of the slight rift—I put it at slight—with our American cousins. I was in Washington some three weeks ago. I must declare that I am an honorary chairman and director of the OSS—the only Englishman ever to be given such an honour. Of course, one mixes with the fraternity, as one might say. I also made a point of talking to a couple of senators and a number of congressmen, particularly those concerned with the Armed Forces committees and so on. My message throughout was, “You have problems; we have problems. It is absolutely vital—more than ever before—that our intelligence and security services, and the special forces of both our countries, work closer than they ever have”, because, as we have heard today, other problems are going to hit us and they are coming on the horizon very quickly.

I merely tell your Lordships this because while it is up to the committee to handle it, not me, I got the most tremendous feedback and reception from our American friends of all the various agencies that I met. There was a gathering of 600 at which I spoke, and just about everybody was there. They came up to me afterwards and said, “This is vital. You have made a good point. We agree, and we must do something about it”. While it is your Lordships’ job on the committee and I support you greatly, I just felt that your Lordships should know about that tremendous feedback, and I was talking to the most senior people. We should not approach it too nervously. We should get stuck in and retain our great and close co-operation with the American fraternity.

Libya

Viscount Slim Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Slim]

My Lords, I think that it is proper for me to declare that, in the past, I have been chairman of the Middle East committee of the London Chamber of Commerce and, later, a founder member of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce, of which I was the first chairman—temporarily, because it became clear to me that the paltry few words of Arabic that I achieved were not good enough for a chairman to run its business. We got a very fine chairman, but I stayed as the British vice-chairman, working with an Arab co-chairman for about 20 years. All those jobs, I have to declare, were unpaid.

I was very proud of what we achieved over a good many years for British-Arab relations. We were dealing with 16 or 17 Arab countries, not only pushing exports but persuading our Arab brothers to import their goods and business into this country. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, is not in her place at the moment, but she has grasped the nettle and taken on the job of chairman of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce. That gives me considerable confidence.

I do not wish to discuss Libya. Enough has been said. I draw the Minister’s attention to Bahrain; in my view, the immediate problem in the area is Bahrain. There is real danger of collapse there. The whole system is remarkably fragile. Of course the people deserve more democracy—more say in their affairs—but the Minister will be aware that whatever the outcome, it will be a Shia Government, based on the population of the country. I have a number of Muslim friends who are Shia, and there is nothing wrong in that, but that will give those across the very narrow water, in Iran, a great opportunity to meddle in the affairs of that country. With the big bridge, it is really a stepping stone into Saudi. There will be Shia government among all the Gulf states. I impress on the Minister that we should concentrate on trying to resolve that and get a good Government.

We should not be too keen to get rid of the ruling family. That would not be entirely sensible. Bahrain has been very successful commercially. It has been a base for the American navy; we use it. It must be kept on a good, strong, democratic path. I hope that the Minister will take note of my few words and agree that, given the fragile state at the moment, it is sensible for Saudi to have troops on both sides of the bridge. I hope that my message alerts the Foreign Office and wakes it up, so that it does an immediate good job in Bahrain.

Afghanistan

Viscount Slim Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am absolutely sure that that assessment is expert, well informed and right. It is our desire and intention to maintain momentum on a number of fronts. My noble friend talks about mission creep. In a sense, the narrow and single objective to start with after 9/11, which was that somehow al-Qaeda was to be crushed and Osama bin Laden captured from his hiding place, has widened into a much bigger issue. Of course, the context has widened as well. We have seen the growth of jihadist, extremist Islam; we have seen it spread into other countries. We have seen difficulties in neighbouring countries. We have seen the rise of obduracy in Iran. All those matters have unfolded while we are struggling. That merely confirms that in the 21st century, if we want a civilised, global and stable society, we will face many such struggles in future. They will not be over quickly; they will take a long time.

[Viscount Slim]

My Lords, I welcome what the Minister said and I was very heartened by what the noble Baroness said. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is quite right: there is a big tribal problem in this area. However, if the Minister cared to go to Quetta and had a cup of coffee in one of the many cafes there—as he well knows, it is a Taliban rest camp—he would find that the cafe talk of the Taliban and al-Qaeda is, “These chaps talk about a surge. These chaps then talk about leaving. We’ve won”. That is very dangerous when we are talking about discussions with the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Is it not wise to get them on two knees—or certainly one—before we have those talks? We have examples in the Lebanon and in Gaza of what happens: Hezbollah and Hamas have got closely, cunningly integrated in government, cabinet, parliament and the workings of the city and the surrounding countryside. Their influence is immense. This will be the aim of the Taliban and al-Qaeda if they get their hands in any way on the Afghan Government, weak and corrupt as they are. This happy talk about, “Let’s all get round the table”, is very dangerous for ISAF, NATO and Britain. I would like to see full confidence that ISAF, Britain, America and the other countries are going to sort these chaps out—that we are going to win and only then will we talk. With everyone opening their arms and saying “Come and talk”, we are walking straight into a great problem for five to 10 years in the future.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I cannot for a moment question the wisdom and experience behind that either, except to say that one talks about winning and then, as we learnt in Iraq, one needs to talk about how the win is secured. As the former President Bush found in his famous observations, to win in the short term is something that can apparently be done on the surface. However, a win in the long term means that as we are, we hope, a civilised 21st-century globe, the nations within it— including our own—cannot afford to have a poisoning influence at the centre of things. Whether we like it or not, while we must be as forceful as possible in the military suppression of the violence and extremism, there will, in the end, have to be a state created in which those who may have been involved with or even inclined to support the violence and rebellion of insurgents in the first place have to start playing their role as proper citizens. They will have to be included, so I half accept what the noble Viscount says, but the obvious strategy is to press ahead with what we are doing. We are confident that we are making progress. Beyond that progress lies the possibility of politics and of social, civic and economic development. Then we will have a world in which Afghanistan will no longer be the appalling headache that it is now.