UK Military Action in Iraq: Declassified Documents

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Like others, I pay tribute to my party leader at Westminster and colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey), for a forensic examination, and I pay tribute to Declassified UK for the information it has provided. It is appropriate that we should be debating this, because it is something we must never, ever forget. It is ironic—I noticed this on social media—that today is the anniversary of Saddam Hussein being discovered in hiding and the dishevelled despot being brought out. I have a moral objection to the death penalty, but like everybody else, I shed no tears for Saddam Hussein. He was a deeply evil man, although it would have been better had he been brought to trial at the International Criminal Court, according to normal rules, than simply hanged.

The consequences of the Iraq war, as was said by my hon. Friend, live with us and reverberate with us to this day. We were taken into war on a false prospectus. We were taken in on deceit and, indeed, on lies. It is important that that be brought to account. The world is a far less safe place from that war. Millions have died, not simply in that country but around the world. A refugee crisis that we now see and live with was kicked off and has continued. Perhaps also more worryingly, the moral authority of western democracies has been lost and we can trace that back to the war in Iraq. I will go on to comment on that.

I have some sympathy for the Minister because he is having to deal with the sins of a different Administration. However, as has been mentioned by others, the Tories were joined at the hip with Labour in the war and have to take account for the consequences, even if the principal villain was Tony Blair.

There were rebels and people’s names have been mentioned. Indeed, there were two in particular who we should thank for their actions. Robin Cook has been mentioned as deeply principled. I knew Robin Cook and stood against him. I disagreed with his position on the constitutional status of Scotland, but nobody should forget not just the courage he had but the convictions he retained. In speaking out against the Iraq war, we should never forget him and it is a tragedy that he is not here with us today.

Equally, Charles Kennedy spoke out against the Iraq war. He was decried for it, but it was principled. I recall marching with Charles Kennedy in Glasgow, when more than 100,000 people in Scotland marched, as they did in London and other cities, not simply across the UK but across the world, to say, “This is not in our name.” Yet Tony Blair took us to war despite the objection of principled people such as Cook and Kennedy and despite the millions marching across the United Kingdom. We live with the consequences today.

Where is the accountability? Yes, we have had Chilcot and yes, we have had some matters put out there, but nobody has been held to account. We were told it was weapons of mass destruction. We were told we were only minutes away from doom and gloom and, indeed, it was portrayed as the death of democracy and almost the death of humanity. That was shown to be a lie. That same lie was perpetrated by the United States about going into Afghanistan, when it said it was all about 9/11 even though it was quite clear that if they were going to deal with the perpetrators of 9/11 they should be addressing Saudi Arabia. As with Khashoggi, people turned a blind eye to an ally or, indeed, as with the United Kingdom, one that is viewed as bankrolling the armaments industry.

That was formed on a strategic lie and done for access to oil and for wider geopolitical positions. The problem is that we have to live with that today and the consequences reverberate. As is often mentioned in political debates, that brings back Santayana’s words about those who cannot learn from history being doomed to repeat it. Repeating it we have been and repeating it we are.

We have seen the disaster that has befallen Ukraine, but we worry and wonder why 85% of the globe has not signed up for sanctions against Russia. I believe there should be sanctions against Russia. I condemned Putin for the invasion, even if I think that some of the actions that have been taken have been wrong and I do not support the actions of the United States. Let us remember that, at the end of the day, the rest of the world does not see this with the same eyes as us. They are saying, “Where is your moral authority when you were prepared to go into Iraq but now you condemn Putin?” We are paying the price for Blair’s folly.

Equally, I have to say that I remember that there was criticism, and rightly so, of the Wagner Group. But what was the precursor of Wagner? The precursor of Wagner was Blackwater. Let us remember that, after Iraq, we privatised war. We saw war privatised and we saw private militias that made a lot of money for individuals basically come in and take over something that would previously have been dealt with by a military that represented the state. Before Wagner came on the scene, it was Blackwater, and that affected us. It was not just a corporation in the United States. I met young Scottish soldiers who told me about colleagues of theirs who were deliberately failing drug tests, because it was better to go and get paid £100,000, as they got for going to be militia or contractors. Let us remember that, when we talk about contractors in places like Iraq, they were not bricklayers or scaffolders; they were soldiers carrying out private work for what America and the UK carried out. That was the precursor. As I said, it started with what Blair did, then it reverberated out, and now it lives with us and we have to face those consequences.

And now we have Gaza. We see western democracies again failing to speak out: we see the UK abstain and the United States object. And people wonder why countries such as South Africa and Brazil look at the western world and say, “Who are you to lecture us? Who are you to go on about Putin? Who are you to go on about the sins of Saddam Hussein, when you are prepared to turn a blind eye to what you are doing by funding and supporting the Israel Defence Forces?” All of that comes back, and that is why there has to be honesty and accountability—because the UK’s action in Iraq has fundamentally damaged not just the United Kingdom but western democracy. We were lied to as a people. The objections of the people, who were vociferous—people marched in their hundreds of thousands—were literally ignored by Executive diktat. That must not be allowed to be repeated. That is why we need to get these documents out there and why those who perpetrated this sin—because it was a mortal sin—must be held to account.