Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There had been a long-standing convention, backed by Attorney-Generals of all parties and all Governments, not to publish any legal advice at all. This Government changed that. With the Libya conflict, we published a summary of the legal advice. On this issue, we have published a very clear summary of the legal advice and I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to read it.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister give way?

[The Prime Minister]

I will make some progress and then I will take a huge number of interventions.

I am deeply mindful of the lessons of previous conflicts and, in particular, of the deep concerns in the country that were caused by what went wrong with the Iraq conflict in 2003. However, this situation is not like Iraq. What we are seeing in Syria is fundamentally different. We are not invading a country. We are not searching for chemical or biological weapons. The case for ultimately supporting action—I say “ultimately” because there would have to be another vote in this House—is not based on a specific piece or pieces of intelligence. The fact that the Syrian Government have, and have used, chemical weapons is beyond doubt. The fact that the most recent attack took place is not seriously doubted. The Syrian Government have said it took place. Even the Iranian President said that it took place. The evidence that the Syrian regime has used these weapons, in the early hours of 21 August, is right in front of our eyes. We have multiple eye-witness accounts of chemical-filled rockets being used against opposition-controlled areas. We have thousands of social media reports and at least 95 different videos—horrific videos—documenting the evidence.

The differences with 2003 and the situation with Iraq go wider. Then, Europe was divided over what should be done; now, Europe is united in the view that we should not let this chemical weapons use stand. Then, NATO was divided; today, NATO has made a very clear statement that those who are responsible should be held accountable. Back in 2003, the Arab League was opposed to action; now, it is calling for it. It has issued a statement holding the Syrian regime fully responsible and asking the international community to overcome internal disagreements and to take action against those who committed this crime.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. As he knows, a couple of days ago I expected to oppose the Government tonight, but is he aware that his determination to go down the route of the United Nations and his willingness to hold a further vote in this House will be extremely helpful to me in making up my mind tonight?

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[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

In common, I suspect, with all Members, I find this an exceptionally difficult issue. My constituents hate the idea of our getting involved in Syria, and so do I. As I said earlier, I have not yet made up my mind which way to vote, but the Prime Minister’s flexibility over the past couple of days has been extremely helpful.

I should like to look first at the legality of our taking action. The conversations that have been had with the media over the past few days have talked about Syria not having impunity for the use of chemical weapons. The word “impunity” implies that there is a new doctrine of punishment as a reason for going to war—not deterrence, not self-defence, not protection, but punishment. I believe that, if that is a new doctrine, it needs considerably wider international consensus than currently exists.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an important point. The very last sentence of the Attorney-General’s advice says:

“Such an intervention would be directed exclusively to averting a humanitarian catastrophe, and the minimum judged necessary for that purpose.”

So there can be no new doctrine.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I want to come to the Attorney-General’s advice. My right hon. and learned Friend is an exceptional lawyer, and therefore I have the temerity to question one aspect of what he says. The third of his conditions to be met for humanitarian action is that

“the proposed use of force must be necessary and proportionate to the aim of relief of humanitarian need”.

I believe that he needed to spell out an additional point that there must be a reasonable chance of success. Therefore, the legality of this action, in my view, depends entirely on the precise action proposed, and that we do not yet know. That is why the Prime Minister is absolutely right to say that we need to have a further vote in the House once it is clearer what action is proposed.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman’s concern about a possible new doctrine of war as punishment informed by the fact that senior American political sources only last weekend talked in terms of retribution as the basis for taking action against Syria, and that was repeated by a Minister here as well? If the international community takes action on Syria on the basis of retribution as the defining motive, does that not send a very dangerous message and set a dubious standard for the wider middle east?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Well, possibly, although there is a question, if there is a new doctrine, about how far it extends. Why was it not used with Mugabe? Why was it not used with Pol Pot earlier? That is why I question the Attorney-General’s advice, with temerity and diffidence, as I say.

What are the objectives of any military strike? My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that the objective was to deter and degrade future chemical weapons use. As I understand it, a country that can make a non-stick frying pan can make chemical weapons. Personally, I have found it very difficult to find any country that can make a non-stick frying pan. Nevertheless, if Syria could simply recreate any weapons that we destroy, where would we have got by attacking the chemical weapons? What is the risk of collateral damage? What is the risk of hitting the chemical weapons that we are trying to prevent from being deployed? We need further information on that.

Next is the evidence. I am certainly in a minority in this country and probably in a minority in the House in saying that I personally believed Tony Blair when he said that he believed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I am certainly in a minority in the country when I say that I still believe that he was telling the truth as he believed it to be, but I think that he exaggerated the influence of—[Interruption.] I know, I am naive and a silly young thing, but I still believe that he exaggerated the influence and importance of intelligence. I do not think that we have yet got to the bottom of the precise limitations of what intelligence can tell us.

[Paul Flynn]

During my time in this House, chemical weapons have been used against the Kurds; they were used in the Iran-Iraq war; and they were used against the people in Gaza, in the form of phosphorous bombs—certainly a chemical bomb. Is not the real reason we are here today not the horror at these weapons—if that horror exists—but as a result of the American President having foolishly drawn a red line, so that he is now in the position of either having to attack or face humiliation? Is that not why we are being drawn into war?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

No, I do not think so. I think the real reason is that unless we do something—it must not be something stupid—Assad will use more chemical weapons time and again. I believe that in order to stop the use of chemical weapons becoming the norm, the world needs to act. The world, however, does not equal the United Kingdom. If the world wants us to act as the international policeman, let the world say so, because when we have done so in the past, the world has not tended to thank us.

It could be argued that it is only we who have the capability to act, but there is a paradox here. We are a country with the fourth largest defence budget in the world, yet attacks could still be made on this country using weapons against which we have no defence. Actually, that is true of every country in the world. We should take that concern into account when we decide how to vote. I believe that it would probably be helpful to support the Government tonight, but next week—or whenever the decision comes up—we will need to take that issue very clearly into account.

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[Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

A lot has been said already at this late stage but I agree with the powerful points made by the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), who talked about the context in which individual decisions are being made. Let us be brutally honest. The Americans were not really interested in the middle east; they were going to look to the far east, and Syria was contained in a number of different ways.

We see on television one brutal reality on the ground, but there is another reality that has not come out, because we never really debated properly how we would arm the rebels. The rebels are already being armed. We know about the Saudi and Qatari money; we know about buying Croatian arms and how they pushed through Jordan. We know about a whole series of grading operations, not by official US forces—no, but there is a lot of “brigadier, retired”, “general, retired”, who are there helping to do what the Americans needed to do, which is to try and find out who could and could not be properly armed. There is a lot of mythology about where we are in terms of the reality of how the Syrian conflict has been contained.

Let us look at what has been proposed today. What are we going to do? Apparently we are going to send in a few Tomahawk land attack missiles to give Assad a bit of a spanking because he has used chemical weapons. That is nonsense and a ridiculous proposition that will lead us to the position that a lot of people have already begun to explain. We cannot write Assad a letter and say, “By the way, the TLAM missile was only to give you a spanking over chemical weapons. It didn’t mean that we were interfering in your conflict in any way, shape or form.” Frankly, that is nonsense. We cannot compartmentalise such activities in the way suggested, and there will be an effect. What will that effect be? Well, there is lots of information about why we are trying to do this. “He has used chemical weapons.” Who has used chemical weapons? The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) dealt with that point earlier in a powerful contribution. It could have been a rogue commander. Assad is not necessarily directing. It could be that the regime’s assets are being used, but who is using them?

I remember being involved in all sorts of discussions about Iranians kidnapping British forces when we were in Iraq—hon. Members may remember that exercise. That was not sanctioned by the central regime in Iran— whatever that might look like—but it was a rogue operation by an Iranian guard commander who saw an opportunity when everybody was on holiday to nick the boat. They obviously took advantage of that as best they could—why would they not?—and we got into all sorts of mess. Do not imagine that under such circumstances, and particularly in a war situation, Assad and his people are so monolithic and well-organised that there are no differences among them. This is difficult information to try to grade out and decide who was responsible on any day for any particular activity.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good point. Does he think that if a rogue commander under the Assad regime made use of chemical weapons, the fact that that regime has those detestable and illegal weapons puts responsibility for their use, if they have delegated responsibility, on the Assad regime itself?

[Mr Havard]

I do not disagree. Those responsible should be punished, although I am not sure that sending TLAM missiles is a punishment. People have mentioned the International Criminal Court, and I agree. These people must be held to account for their actions at some point. We do not now have an immediate almost knee-jerk reaction—it was going to be knee-jerk but it is a week late now—to the situation. The strike is apparently “targeted”, but I do not know what that means. It is targeted in the sense that we know where we will throw the missile, but it is hardly a surgical, contained or compartmentalised activity. Will we do that, or will we have a broader constituency of people who can start to prosecute the idea of bringing those people to account at some time or another?

The idea that if we do not do something now for those stated reasons we will not do anything is nonsense. There are lots of other things that can be done that we should probably have been doing for a long time and will have to do now. We must accept one thing: we will not get anywhere towards resolving the problem for the Syrian people unless and until we grapple differently with the question of those terribly difficult Chinese people and them nasty Russkies. We must incentivise the Russians to be involved in a process that caters for some of their needs. Libya has been mentioned several times, and it has often been said that they are smarting from what happened in Libya. Well, I do not know where we will be on Monday—according to certain reports, we might be here on Sunday—and things might have happened that are out of our control. The Americans might have done something. However, unless and until we can say to the Russians, “Okay. We understand some of your concerns,” and incentivise them to be in the plan, we will not resolve the situation. Any American activity now will not resolve the situation. Later, the UN could agree and we might have to take military action. The idea of sending half a dozen aeroplanes to Akrotiri is a good one, because if some of the whizz-bangs go bang at the weekend, we might well be dealing with a situation in the area—