Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for repeating the Statement. It is longer than is usual, but I think that is appropriate and I am sure that the House is grateful for the additional information.

Few will have had the opportunity to read more than the executive summary and to have seen Sir John Chilcot’s statement and some other comments. I am grateful to the Government for providing advance access to the executive summary this morning. In the weeks, months and years to come, this exhaustive, detailed report will be digested and analysed in greater detail that we are able to do today.

First, I pay tribute to all our Armed Forces and to those who serve in a civilian capacity. When young men and women take on the responsibility of joining the Army, the Navy or the RAF, they do so in the knowledge that they are joining one of the highest forms of public service. They become our front line, both in peacetime and in conflict. As a nation we are very proud of the work they do, the way they do it and the high standards that they set, but we must always recognise that, in conflicts such as this, lives are lost, others suffer physical and mental injury, and the families who support our service men and women are hugely affected.

In Iraq, 179 of our Armed Forces and 23 civilians lost their lives. Their families will never be the same. We mourn their loss and recognise that this is a traumatic time for them all. We must also never forget that both in this conflict and before it thousands of Iraqi people lost their lives.

Decisions about when our Armed Forces are deployed are not theirs; they are made by politicians with advice, including from senior military and intelligence services. We have a duty to ensure that such decision-making is of as high a standard as we ask of our military.

When Gordon Brown set up the inquiry, he was clear that it was to ensure that lessons could be learned. We are grateful to Sir John Chilcot and all those who took part in the extensive work that was required. It was clearly a greater task than had been anticipated. When compared with other reports, it has taken a very long time, and some of those who most wanted to see the outcome are no longer alive.

As well as any lessons to be drawn from the report, there may well be lessons to be learned from the process of the inquiry itself. Would it have been of assistance, for example, if there had been legal representation on the inquiry team? Also—this will be something to examine from the report—in the past the very process of an inquiry has itself led to changes.

I appreciate that in his Statement the Prime Minister took on board how decision-making across government can be changed and improved. That may already have come about to some degree because of the process of this inquiry, with those involved in the machinery of government considering and reflecting on these issues and identifying deficiencies.

The report makes a number of criticisms that must be addressed. What it does not do, however, is either make a case for a non-interventionist policy in future or conclude that anyone acted in bad faith. That is important. The report shows how difficult and often how finely judged such decisions are, including the analysis and use of intelligence information. It identifies some very real criticisms about process and procedure, analysis and decision-making, planning and preparation, and our relationship with the United States. Sir John Chilcot provides us with an opportunity to examine these issues in the light of all the detail in his report and to take decisions today to ensure that any mistakes are not repeated.

It is worth recalling that this was the first time in Parliament that the House of Commons voted on taking military action. I took part in that vote, so I know how thoughtful and solemn MPs were in making their decisions. No MP, however they voted, took the decision lightly, and for the most part there was mutual respect for people who took, and still hold, differing views. Although the decision had to be binary, the reasons and views behind it were much more diverse. Within all political parties there were people who took different views—for honourable reasons.

Sir John’s report is clear that in both the UK and the US there was what he calls an “ingrained belief”—a genuinely held view that Saddam Hussein possessed the ability to use chemical and biological weapons. Whatever view was taken on the military action, no one believed that Saddam Hussein was anything other than an evil dictator. Given that he had used chemical weapons before and that he had been unco-operative with international weapons inspectors and with the intelligence information provided, it was not unreasonable to conclude that he was seeking to hide these weapons. Sir John identifies this as a failure in the decision-making process. The proposition that that was no longer the case in 2003 was not identified and examined.

The Prime Minister’s comments about the National Security Council are welcome. However, if lessons are truly to be learned, there is a broader issue about the role of ad hoc Cabinet committees. Reading through Sir John’s comments, we should consider, when such major issues are being examined and at some point decisions have to be taken, whether an ad hoc Cabinet committee can be established for that very purpose. It would include key Secretaries of State, key officials, experts—such as, in this case, military and security intelligence experts—and possibly legal advisers, and it would be chaired by the Prime Minister, with papers circulated beforehand and decisions minuted. That would bring an identifiable rigour and challenge to the decision-making process. It should not preclude less formal consideration as well, but the key decisions would be taken at such meetings.

On planning, the report is critical of both pre- and post-conflict planning, but some of the strongest criticism is of the situation immediately after. I have read only the summary, but further examination of the full report later will allow the Government and the military to make a clearer analysis of how this can be improved. It is not about equipment and resources only; it is about understanding what comes next and how to respond. The report states that the military on the ground had no instructions on the process for establishing safe and secure areas, and different decisions were taken in different places. There are lessons to be learned from other conflicts. What any country needs post any kind of conflict are stable and functioning institutions—of administration, of policing, of utilities—and the ability to establish and support that safe and secure environment.

Sir John’s report is critical, and there are lessons to be learned about the assumptions we made about our role and the assumptions made about the role of the US and the United Nations. I have two questions for the Minister on this point. First, the Minister referred in the Prime Minister’s Statement to the National Security Council. I understand that the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy has expressed its concern more than once about the lack of regular National Security Council meetings and the fact that it meets only when the House is sitting. In addition, it is not a body that can take executive action. Will the Minister ask the Prime Minister and his successor to reflect on my suggestion about the use of ad hoc Cabinet committees not just on decisions about military operations, but on any strategic decisions of national importance?

Secondly, in his report, Sir John Chilcot reflects on the lack of effective co-ordination between government departments. May I draw the Minister’s attention to the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, entitled Persuasion and Power in the Modern World? This was a landmark report on the use of soft power. It made the case that military force alone is today insufficient for defending a nation’s interests. The committee made a key recommendation to the Government about co-operation between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and DfID—that the Government should look at the co-ordination of those departments in the context of Afghanistan and report back to this House with a view to learning lessons for any future post-conflict reconstruction. When the report was debated, the Government declined to take that route. Will the Minister now accept it in the light of the Chilcot report, which also highlights such deficiencies? That decision should now be reconsidered.

This report is difficult and challenging, but it provides an opportunity to investigate decision-making processes about how as a country we should intervene, whether militarily or for humanitarian reasons, although they are not mutually exclusive. I think the Minister made the same point in the Prime Minister’s Statement: this is not about whether we should intervene, but about having a superior process that better informs decision-making when we consider doing so.

In every case where military intervention has been considered, there have been both consequences of intervening and consequences of not doing so. Interventions in Sierra Leone and Kosovo were widely recognised as well executed and positive—they were undertaken under the same processes—and we should never forget the role of military personnel in helping to tackle Ebola in west Africa. It is right that we also reflect on when there has not been intervention: was that the right thing to do when such a decision was taken, and could we have done more? The Prime Minister referred to Bosnia and Rwanda. We may all have different views, but the principle is sound. It is absolutely right that the tests we set for ourselves about when intervention is right and appropriate should always be high.

The key challenge that Chilcot sets us is how we learn the lessons of the Iraq conflict. As we digest the detail of the report, more issues will arise and greater consideration and reflection will be needed. As we go through that process, we as parliamentarians have to consider how we should do things differently in future.