Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I remember, 10 years ago, like many Members, sitting on the Government Benches listening to the whole of the Iraq debate and agonising about how I should vote. I remember my heart telling me that I should support my leader—I particularly wanted to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), my good friend—and my head telling me throughout that debate, “No, there’s something wrong here,” and I voted no. I voted no, understanding that many members of my own party in Vauxhall probably supported the war, although most did not. Many people in my constituency supported the war, although most did not. There was an even split at that time.

On this occasion, 10 years on, I am very clear and I am not agonising. I oppose military action in this case. Whatever the Attorney-General says and despite all the legal paraphernalia that we have been bombarded with, for the general public this is almost like agonising on the head of a pin. Legal arguments will not wash with the public or with me when it comes to what is right and what is wrong. It would be wrong and, importantly, counter-productive to take military action against Syria. I am not a pacifist. I was one of the first people, together with a number of my colleagues but long before my Front-Bench team did so, to argue strongly for intervention in Bosnia. I also supported the Falklands war, so I am not a pacifist.

The question is how bombing, no matter how strategic, how precise and how short, will make things if not better for the Syrian people, at least not worse. I believe that it will not do so and I have yet to be persuaded by anyone who has spoken in this debate that it would make things better for the Syrian people. I found the speech by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) very commanding indeed. I do not support Assad or the regime. As many Members have said, it has been an appalling regime for many years. It is worth remembering that we provided many of the regime’s arms. I wonder who provided the components that make up the chemical weapons. I would not be a bit surprised if some came from this country and other countries in the west—[Interruption]—and of course from Russia, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) says.

It has not been proven absolutely that the chemical weapons were used by Assad. It probably was Assad—

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Hoey]

No.

We have had information before that poison gas had been used and Carla Del Ponte, who was the UN commissioner in Syria, pointed out that it was the rebels who had used it. Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell me when he winds up the debate, if, despite what everyone thinks, the weapons inspectors find that it was the rebels or some rogue general who used the chemical weapons last week, the Prime Minister will be saying the things that he did about the use of chemical weapons? The doctrine of prevention, which I had hoped—

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[Mr Newmark]

That is a very good question, and I suspect that I know my hon. Friend’s direction of travel in asking it. There is no evidence, at least that I am aware of, that the Russians or the Iranians helped Syria to develop that arsenal, although I would not be surprised if they had done so.

Peter Hitchens wrote recently, in support of the Assad regime, that the Syrian Government were not lying and that it made “more sense” for the opposition to poison and kill more than 1,000 of their own people. If that is the case, however absurd, why, if they had nothing to hide, did the Syrian Government and their chief sponsor on the Security Council, Russia, block the United Nations chemical weapons inspectors from going to the site when they were only 15 minutes away? Instead, they continued to bombard the area and to degrade the evidence as much as possible. I find it astounding how this kind of double-think has become common currency among many of those who oppose the war. That includes some Opposition Members who have been retweeting articles along those lines from the Voice of Russia. Frankly, I would rather believe our Government and our intelligence agencies than Russia and President Assad.

That chemical weapons have been used in Syria is in no doubt. The question is whether the regime itself delivered them. My understanding is that the intelligence drawn from eye-witness statements, video footage and electronic intercepts is extremely compelling. This raises another question: do we have any confidence in our intelligence agencies at all? My answer is yes. Just because Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell were economical with the truth about the intelligence that they used to get us into Iraq—through what has become known as the “dodgy dossier”—that should not taint our view of the current evidence that the intelligence services have been collecting on this matter. That evidence puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of Bashar al-Assad and his brother, Maher.

[Bob Stewart]

I was an officer trained in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, and one of the things that I learned on my course was that only a professional army could manage and use chemical weapons. There is no doubt in my mind that the rebels would not have the capacity or the ability to use such weapons. I am sure that when the report comes back from the United Nations inspectors, it will not be able to identify who threw them or used them but it will perhaps be able to say that they were used. In my mind, however, there is no doubt that only a professional army—and not the rebels—could use chemical weapons.

[Mr Newmark]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for his thoughtful intervention.

Those opposing military action say that, notwithstanding the increasing evidence that Assad used chemical weapons, we should let the UN inspectors do their work first. To them I say this: of course, but we should remember that the inspectors’ remit is not to apportion blame for this atrocity; it is merely to confirm that chemical weapons were in fact used. Does any Member in the House doubt that such weapons were used? Of course not. Those opposing military action say that we need a UN resolution to back any action, but we will never get such a resolution while Russia, the Assad regime’s key supporter, remains a member of the Security Council. In fact, Russia has blocked every single move to condemn the Assad regime since this conflict began.

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[Guy Opperman]

I completely endorse that. In Kosovo in 1999 there were three broadly supported UN resolutions. Although not enough to get over the UN hurdle that we seek to overcome, they did provide the assistance and support that such a course would entail. We have to address what the legal basis is for any proposed action by the British or other international troops.

[Bob Stewart]

I will make one point. I very carefully studied United Nations Security Council resolutions in 1992 as an authority for action. It is only the Security Council of the UN, as it is currently constituted, that will give authority for international action under article 6 or article 7.

[Guy Opperman]

With no disrespect to my hon. Friend—my honourable and respected military friend—I disagree. Subsequent to 1991, the responsibility to protect protocols were introduced, particularly post-1999 in Kosovo. I accept that we are not in a UN article 51 charter case. We are not acting in self-defence. We are not, as a nation, in any way threatened. However, the process of R2P does allow NATO to act when certain preconditions, as set out in the Attorney-General’s guidance, are maintained.

On this particular point, I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and anyone who is concerned about this issue to go through the Attorney-General’s guidance, which has been published today. An objective has to be identified. In this case, it would be the objective of attempting to stop the specific spread and repeated use of chemical weapons. There could be little doubt that such an outrage constituted a humanitarian disaster, and we would need to be satisfied that every means, short of force, had been taken to resolve this specific situation in Syria. To that end, the revision of the motion and the encouragement of the UN makes specific the assistance on this particular problem that a military officer, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, would have previously had in those circumstances. We would then have to consider that the proposed action was the only means to averting further and immediate human catastrophe. As the Attorney-General made clear, the force proposed would need to be both proportionate and specifically directed to stop the possible future use of chemical weapons.

I have already mentioned the example of Kosovo in 1999, but historians and lawyers could set out similar actions. Action was taken in Liberia in 1990 and elsewhere in the past 20 years. Surely the point is this: R2P was brought in to address the question of whether, as a last resort, humanitarian intervention is authorised under international law. We are clearly not yet in that situation, but the power to act and a lawful course are clearly set out.

Today is not about military action or involvement in another country’s civil war; all agree that the issue is not about boots on the ground. It is about a war crime—the massive use of chemical weapons—and several countries in the world attempting to prevent the extended and further use of such weapons. Before any further specific action is taken, the House will have a second debate and will be provided, I hope, with an understanding of our objectives and strategy, the upsides of action or inaction, and an exit policy. I welcome and support the revised motion on those grounds.

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[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

The choice between head in the sand and boots on the ground has always, to my mind, been a false one. In recent days we have heard much about the limits to our influence on events in Syria, but we must not allow ourselves to believe that we can do nothing for the Syrian people. I recently visited a refugee camp near the Syrian border in the Kurdish region of Iraq. It was a harrowing reminder of the brutality of this war and its complexity.

In demographic terms Syria is like a photographic negative of Iraq. Both have large minority populations of Christians and Kurds, but in Syria it is the Sunnis who form the historically oppressed majority. In Iraq, we have seen what happens when a ruling minority is violently deposed. Today, large swathes of Sunni Iraq have all the characteristics of a failed state. My fear is that the envisioned post-Assad Syria would be equally unsustainable. A Sunni-dominated Syria would show no mercy to the defeated Alawites, and would therefore be completely unacceptable to the minorities, whether Alawite, Christian or Kurd, who would undoubtedly rebel with the support of regional powers.

The ever-shifting maze of internal politics and external agendas, and the sheer complexity of the situation, demand that we should be modest about what we hope to achieve. My constituents are deeply concerned about the prospect of another open-ended war in the middle east, and I will not vote for any action that would entangle us in regime change. There can be no more nation-building. We simply do not have the capability to do that; indeed, the most powerful country in the world does not have that capability.

[Bob Stewart]

Whatever we do, we must be quite precise about it. People talk about an exit strategy, but I have never seen an exit strategy in any other military conflict. I went into Bosnia with no mission whatever, but with just one idea: to save people’s lives. That is what we should be doing: saving the lives of people in Syria if we can.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

That is right. Any intervention by Britain must have a clear objective and defined limits, and our objective must be to protect civilians, as my hon. Friend has just said.