Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I suggest that Iraq 2003 ranks with Suez in a catalogue of British foreign policy disasters. It cost the lives of more than 200 British nationals and many tens of thousands of Iraqi nationals and citizens, and set in train a terrible sequence of events, including a vicious civil war and a fundamental alteration in the balance of power in the region. Thirteen years later, we are still living with many of those consequences.

Given that I resigned from the shadow Front Bench in 2003 to vote against the war, I suppose it could be said that it marked a pivotal point in defining my political career, such as it has been, so for me it has been of rather more than passing interest to observe the progress of the Chilcot report. I defended the time that Sir John Chilcot took, and I want to take this opportunity to thank him and his team for the thoroughness of the report.

As a former soldier, I believe that, whatever has been said previously, war should always be the measure of last resort, to be taken when all other possibilities have been exhausted. We should never lose sight of that simple fact. Of course there is such a thing as a just war, but at the same time we owe it to our citizens, to our Parliament and, above all, to the soldiers whom we are committing to battle to recognise that it must be the measure of last resort. In my view, the overriding, the most important and the most damning conclusion of Sir John’s report was that Iraq was not, in fact, that last resort and that other possibilities had not been exhausted.

The report made other points. It said that the premise on which we went to war—the existence of weapons of mass destruction—was oversold and that there was a discarding of caveats attached to the intelligence. It referred to a lack of preparedness in respect of our armed forces, to deficiencies in equipment and to an absence of post-war planning, all which have been touched on before. That litany of errors was compounded by an overestimation of our influence over the United States. We could not, at the time, believe that it could be in our interests not to be on the frontline. I think that one of the proudest and best moments for Prime Minister Wilson was when he said no to the Americans over Vietnam. That did not fracture the so-called special relationship, which, within 15 or 20 years, was on a very firm footing indeed.

I do not intend to look back at all the errors in that litany, but I suggest that there are two key lessons from this episode on which we would do well to reflect. First, Parliament should have done more to question the evidence put before it. That was a failure at almost every level. If the legislature does not examine the evidence and question the Executive at times like that, when is it going to do so? There was also the failure of those in the know—at all levels, in my view, but particularly in the Cabinet—to challenge what was being presented to the public. I think that the one figure who stands proud among that select group of people in the Cabinet is Robin Cook. Everything that he said during that eventful debate in 2003 has been proved right. I contributed to that debate as well, but his was one of the best speeches that I had heard for a very long time.

We should have questioned more. We should have examined the detail. I was told to stop asking awkward questions, but we, the official Opposition, were asking so few awkward questions that it was suggested to me from the other side that we were trying to play political games with the issue, perhaps hoping that, if it blew up in the Government’s face, we could take advantage of the fact. That is how bad it got during that debate in 2003. We were simply not asking enough questions, and we should have done so.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I was here in 2003, and I was one of those who rebelled against the leader of my party and voted against action in the Iraq war. I think that the hon. Gentleman is being disingenuous, because it was one of the biggest rebellions that there had been against a Government from that Government’s side.

I remember how difficult it was to make that judgment against the leader. When someone is being led by a party leader whose judgment they respect, it is a tough call to say, “I am going to disagree, and vote against action of that kind.” I had a difference of opinion, and I have had no cause to change my mind about the decision that I made, but can the hon. Gentleman not accept, as I do, that the people who made those decisions did so believing that they were doing the right thing?

[Mr Baron]

I do not think that we are saying different things. I am not suggesting that there was intentional deceit. What I am suggesting is that many of us in this place did not question sufficiently the evidence that was before us. The report from the Joint Intelligence Committee was full of caveats and holes, yet we relied on the Prime Minister’s interpretation, which was given in his foreword to the report.

I fully respect Members’ views as expressed on that fateful evening itself. If one cannot trust the Prime Minister, standing at the Dispatch Box making the case for war and, perhaps, privy to intelligence that we have not seen, it is a sad turn of events. However, I must return to the fundamental point that we should have questioned more, because there was a firm lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and such evidence was the premise for war. We must not forget that central consideration.

The reason the United Nations inspectors were pleading for more time, by the way, was that they could not find any weapons of mass destruction, and they could not find them because they did not exist. We should remember that it was the UN that was asking us to give it more time. The problem was that, at that point, we were marching to a military timetable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding us of that, and he is right. This is why it is important to set out the context of what that day was like. It was a horrible, ugly, dreadful day, and we can never get around some of the things that went on.

Let me get on to the Conservatives, as the second category is mainly comprised of them. I have listened to several Conservative Members. I cannot recall which one made this case earlier, but there is a sense among Conservative Members that they were misled. They range from those who are angry and upset about the way they were duped by the former Prime Minister, to those like the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), who resigned as Prime Minister yesterday, who are a bit more morose and philosophical about it. They say, “A Prime Minister was giving us information. We had to go along with it because it was a Prime Minister and of course he will know all this.” What the Conservative party failed to do—it absolutely failed to do this on that day—was hold that Labour Government to account; it did not question and it was not inquisitive. It did not look at the case presented to it and say, “Hold on a minute, this is a lot of nonsense.” It should have known—the rest of the country knew this was wrong.

Some 100,000 people marched through Glasgow—I was at the front of that procession with my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond)—and 1 million people in London marched against that war. More than that, there was an atmosphere in the nation among the public, who just knew profoundly that something was wrong with this case. They knew instinctively that what they were hearing night after night from Tony Blair and all his cronies was uncomfortable—there was something wrong. The Conservatives should have picked that up. Had they done their job, we would not have been presented with this utter failure and disaster.

Let me now deal with those in the third and last category, and I have listened to some of them today. They seem almost still to be making the case for war, as if that was somehow justified and right. They point to all sorts of things, saying, “The world’s a better place without Saddam.” Well, of course it is, but what a price we have paid. What world do these people live on? We have seen half a million people dead; a region destabilised; a generation radicalised; foreign policy discredited like never before—and it is unlikely that we will ever restore that faith in foreign policy again; and distrust in politics. That was a key point when the public fell out of trust with what we did in this House. And what about the place where Saddam was removed? Of course, we all welcome that, but no one, least of all the Iraqis who have to live with the consequences, would start to suggest that Iraq is a better place now than in 2002.

[Clive Efford]

The hon. Gentleman just said that this decision led to the public losing faith in this House, but many of the accusations that were made against the Government are not found in the Chilcot report. Those led to people coming to that conclusion about this House. Does he not accept that that day was difficult for all of us? Even those who voted against were not certain that we were making the right decision. We cannot be so exact about our judgment call on that day. Surely he can accept that those who voted in favour did so believing that they were doing the right thing. At least he could be graceful about that.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that, as it brings me on to my next point, which is that we should look at the case for the war. I believe he was in the House in 2003—

[Clive Efford]

indicated assent.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman, like me, will therefore have been recalled to Parliament in September 2002. We would march to the Members’ Lobby and take out what has become known as “the dodgy dossier”. Did he, for a minute, believe the fabricated nonsense it contained? The case for war was appalling. As we find out from Chilcot now, most of it came from the post-doctoral thesis of a student called Ibrahim al-Marashi. I have just read a report from him, and he is now saying that his evidence and his post-doctoral work were doctored by the Government at the time. That was the case for war—the hon. Gentleman had to make a judgement on it, as did I—and it was nonsensical. It was fabricated and it was a flight of fancy, but it was what we were asked to go to war on. It was a disgrace. This was like a comedy sketch for a case to go to war on; it was more sexed up than some teenage starlet embarking on their first video. That is what I would say about the dodgy dossier. It was an appalling document and this House should never have been taken in for a minute with the rubbish included in it.

I listened to Tony Blair last week and I was appalled at what I heard in his response: the lack of contrition; the half-hearted apology, which will probably do nothing other than incense the victims; the flights of fancy still there, almost with an attempt to rewrite several sections of the Chilcot report; and the failure to acknowledge the enormity of what was unleashed. What happened was appalling, and so several things now have to happen.

My view is that we are not at the end of the process, despite having had 1 million-odd words; there is still a journey to go in this sorry saga in which this House has been involved. We are not at the conclusion in terms of what happened in Iraq. That is mainly because of a point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) have raised: Chilcot was not able to judge on the legality of this conflict. We still have that extra mile to go to see whether this was an illegal war. Until we get that verdict, big issues will remain outstanding on the assessment of the conflict. There are further journeys to go on, which may disappoint hon. Members who have waited years and years for the Chilcot report.

The second thing that must happen is that those who are responsible for the biggest foreign policy disaster ever—this is bigger than Suez—must be held to account for the decisions they made, for the things they did in the course of the conflict and for how it was pursued. I overwhelmingly support the case that the chief architect—the designer—of the Iraq war, Mr Tony Blair, should be brought in front of this House to face the charges that have been suggested. I hope that the House gets that opportunity to discuss this, because the public expect us to do it. They do not want us, after all this time, to let it go. The only people who have lost their jobs in the course of the conflict are two BBC journalists. Is that not an appalling way to leave things? That has to be addressed and I believe that there is a real public desire to move to the next stage now, which is holding people to account. I hope we do that.

I hated every minute of the debate about the Iraq war—the build-up to it and the post-conflict resolution. It was dreadful; it was this House at its worst. We must never get there again. If there is one thing we can take from this, it is to learn lessons and never to do this again. We must hold the people responsible to account. We must apologise for that conflict and start to try to move on from all of this. Let us vow that we will never do something like the Iraq war ever again in this Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend’s recollection is the same as mine. My recollection is that, prior to the debate and the statement by the Prime Minister, which was criticised by the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), the Conservatives had been calling for action earlier, before that evidence was presented. For them to turn up now and say that it was all because of what Tony Blair said on that day is a little disingenuous.

[Ian C. Lucas]

I would not go quite that far, because I am more kindly than my hon. Friend. My recollection is that the Leader of the Opposition got this completely and utterly wrong. The official Opposition failed in their constitutional duty to ask the difficult questions and hold the Government to account. It was left to other parties in the House and the Labour Back Benchers to hold the Government to account. The failure of the official Opposition to challenge the Prime Minister and the Government effectively made his wrong decision easier. This is a big lesson for the official Opposition today.

There were a number of things that the Government did right on the Iraq issue. For example, they did hold a vote. It should be remembered that that was, I think, the first time that that had happened.