Iraq Inquiry

Lord Lyell Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lyell (Con)]

My Lords, to rise at number 30 in the “batting list” of today’s debate, and on this subject, is no mean privilege for a Back-Bencher who has very little experience of the diplomatic world, let alone of the military world. I do it with one humble thought. From 1957 to 1959, I was a young soldier. I am 77 now, so anybody younger than me would not have been a conscript. I was—full time, for two years, in the Scots Guards. I was following in the footsteps of other members of my family, one of whom was a politician: a Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Prime Minister, no less. He was a Member of Parliament. He went to fight in the First World War, where he was wounded, and he was among the 40 million victims of Spanish flu. My grandfather is buried in Arlington.

My father—my noble and gallant father—also went to fight. He was not a Member of your Lordships’ House but he went to war with the Scots Guards. When I was four years old he was killed. The Front Bench may say that I am out of order in referring to him as “noble and gallant” but, if your Lordships have a look at a book at the end of the corridor, they will see that I can refer to him in that way, and I do so today. That is one reason that I am in your Lordships’ House—I am a hereditary Peer.

I have had very many interests spread over 50 years and more. I think that it was 54 or 55 years ago that I was a fresh Back-Bencher, sitting right where I am now. Back then, the Leader of the House had to intervene when a Minister referred to another Peer as being somewhat out of order and there was a bit of a hubbub. Over the years, I have taken part in the activities of your Lordships’ House and today’s debate is one of the more notable occasions in my career here.

My noble friend Lord Dobbs, who, alas, is not in his place, referred to 1956, which was 60 years ago. It was a very wet summer. It was a time of great triumph for English cricketers, who beat the Australians handsomely. But in July the Suez problem happened. It was referred to by my noble friend Lord Dobbs and many other speakers, notably the noble Lord, Lord Owen, about whom I hope to make one or two complimentary remarks. In 1958, when I was a young soldier, we worked at Windsor. We wore bearskins and tunics, and it is the only place outside London where proper tunics are worn. There was also a proper band. Quite suddenly, on 14 July 1958, there was a Nasserite putsch in Iraq and the king was assassinated. Nuri al-Said, the Prime Minister, who was a good friend of this country, was also murdered. There was a period of considerable instability in both diplomatic and military terms. One should remember that this was just two years after President Nasser seized the Suez Canal, which rocked the boat considerably both here and elsewhere in the world.

In 1958, as a young soldier and a platoon commander, I was addressed by the father of my noble friend Lord Cathcart. Every member of the battalion was told, “You are going on active service”. They were hideous words. When that order is issued to soldiers or other members of the Armed Forces, they are definitely threatened with the front line. It is no idle threat: punishments might rain down on you if you do not perform to your best. However, I survived that and went on.

I remember walking through Parliament Square on 3 or 4 April 1982 to come to your Lordships’ House on a Saturday morning to hear of the invasion of the Falklands. I remember Lord Carrington—not his namesake, my noble friend Lord Carrington, who is here today, but the other Lord Carrington—at the Dispatch Box. His knuckles were quite white because he and others realised that we were threatening to send men and women to war. Decisions were being taken in your Lordships’ House and elsewhere, including in Downing Street, on the basis of everything that we have seen in the Chilcot report. It was the same style and the same system, although Chilcot took much longer. So I have seen that, and it made a deep imprint on my mind.

The subject of today’s debate is the Chilcot inquiry and I will look briefly at three or four paragraphs of the report. Paragraph 16 says that the timing of any action was entirely a matter for the United States. That is fair enough. But I recall reading in a notable newspaper—which perhaps I am not allowed to advertise; it is a coloured one—about a young reporter who, in the first fortnight of March 2002, happened to be at a high-level, although not totally secret, briefing in the White House in the presence of high-up people in security and in the military. He and they obviously knew the rules. The President happened to put his head into the room and said, “Good to see you all”. The President was told, “We are discussing what action might be taken in Iraq”. I repeat: this was early March 2002. The President said, “Yes, just you watch”. He mentioned—I think—14 March. They scratched their heads and someone said, “Mr President, I understand that in military terms the full moon is very useful for invading, but the full moon is on the 16th”. He said, “No, 14 March—next year”. So no one can tell me that this was not planned a fairly long time in advance by the United States military.

Paragraph 74 of the Chilcot report points out that, among the grounds for going to war, regime change in Iraq would have been unlawful. I shall definitely have to leave that to the lawyers. However, as somebody who has spent more than 40 years with your Lordships’ defence group visiting men and women, mainly in the Army but in all three services, and seeing their kit and equipment, the most important paragraphs for me begin with paragraph 797. Sir John uses some fairly strong language. He says that there was a very serious breach between the objectives and the available resources and materials. In paragraph 821 he goes on to say that the lack of equipment for the protected patrol vehicles and the helicopters, and the associated errors, should not have been tolerated. Other strong language is used elsewhere in the report.

I think that Sir John did a particularly good job, as I believe that your Lordships will agree. The speech earlier today of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, will live in my memory and, I suspect, in the memory of many of us. It was one of the top half-dozen speeches that I have heard during my career in your Lordships’ House.