Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Members for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who is not in the Chamber. I learned tonight that the hon. Member for Walsall North entered the House before I was born, but if the clarity and passion of his speech is anything to go by, he will almost certainly still be here long after I am dead. He spoke about Libya, which I shall speak about, but from a different point of view— I do not share his outlook.

Since the insurgents began their campaign against Gaddafi some three months ago, they have scored a remarkable victory, in as much as they have built around themselves a tremendous international coalition. Something like 17 countries are contributing to the Libya campaign, and many more provide overflight rights, yet that military capability, which has undoubtedly reduced the opportunity for Gaddafi to strike against civilians with his tanks and heavy weaponry and stopped his using air power against them, has not removed him. While he is still there, he presents a terrible threat to civilians, as he has rather chillingly said. Anybody who calls their people “rats” cannot

“live in the hearts of millions”

other than as a feared and loathed object.

We have reduced Gaddafi’s military capability by something like a third, but that means that two thirds of it remains. His ability to strike at the insurgents is greater than their ability to defend themselves. As long as that position obtains, he will go on fighting. There was a striking piece the other day in The New York Times on the hidden workshops of Misrata, which describes the insurgents’ position. Men who a few months ago were welders or electricians now run makeshift military workshops, putting armour plating on pick-ups, cannibalising captured machine guns and building do-it-yourself rocket-propelled grenades. They do not have munitions know-how or the tools with which to do the job. They scrape explosives out of shell canisters to reuse, because they do not have supplies. They have nothing other than what they make themselves or that they capture from Gaddafi.

Is it therefore any wonder that the insurgents’ battle is desperate, bloody and very slow? That is why I am persuaded by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) that we need to move to bring the conflict to a conclusion. If we have a stalemate in Libya, and a failed state, torn in two, with factions fighting one another, we risk a Somalia-type situation. We also risk people in this country becoming tired and bored with a drawn-out campaign. We therefore need to take on board what General Richards, who is a thoughtful man, has said, and acknowledge what the Foreign Secretary has said on intensifying our military, diplomatic and economic campaign to remove Gaddafi from power. A few men in workshops—a few enterprising rebels—are not enough to do the job that needs to be done.

If we cannot, within the bounds of UN Security Council resolution 1973, put boots on the ground—I agree that we should not do that—or give military matériel directly to the insurgents, it seems to me that we can at least release frozen Libyan assets to the national transitional council. We have effectively recognised it; it has its own defence minister; and Baroness Ashton has set up her EU legation in Benghazi. Hundreds of millions of dinars are locked in this country and should be released to the NTC for it to spend as it wishes, whether on utilities in Benghazi to look after its people or, if it wishes, on the military campaign against Gaddafi.

The balance is already tipping in favour of the insurgents, but it is taking a long time and needs to be tipped more quickly. In Misrata, we have a refugee crisis. There are electricity cuts, and oil, food and medical supplies are running out. We have seen people migrating from Libya, causing friction on the country’s borders and friction between Italy and France. If we are to raise the siege of these cities, if we are to stem the migration from Libya and if we are to demonstrate to people at home that we can prosecute a compassionate and successful war to a quick conclusion, we need to move to remove Gaddafi, either through allied effort or by giving the Libyans the means to do so themselves. The status quo is not an option.