Iraq

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, 100 years ago those who responded to the appeal for help from Belgium did so quite rightly but embarked this country on a future with unknown global consequences. I feel that today, in quite rightly responding to the request from Iraq, the Government are again launching the country towards more or less unknown global consequences. But we can do something to condition those. I am very glad that the phrase “keeping your eyes open” has been used by so many people in their distinguished contributions to this debate. I particularly single out my noble friend Lord Williams of Baglan for his applause for the Prime Minister’s meeting with the Iranian President.

Thinking around my general agreement with what is being proposed, I would just like to share two observations and one plea. I am one of those—as a soldier, your Lordships would expect me to be—who are concerned about the automatic suggestion that air power is the answer to all these things. Air power is a means and not an end. We do not think of using air power, for example, to counter ISIL in England. We think of all the other organisations. I regret the use of the phrase “boots on the ground” because “boots” implies military boots. In fact, as the most reverend Primate mentioned, we need not just military but also ideological, diplomatic, educational, social, humanitarian and other boots on the ground if we are to counter anything like ISIS or ISIL or whatever it is called. In relation to where this combat is being fought, those who abolished the Iraqi army and police must be regretting their decision.

Secondly, like the noble Lord, Lord Reid, I appeal for a grand strategy. I hope that the Government will produce one in time to condition next year’s strategic defence review, which must include the ability of our Armed Forces to continue not only whatever campaign is mounted against ISIL but also whatever is intended in the future if we are again to come to the help of our friends who ask for help.

My one plea relates to a body which I was very privileged to be invited to join by Kofi Annan, then the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, in 1993. Following the coalition in the first Iraq war, which consisted of Egypt, Syria, Pakistan and the mujaheddin from Afghanistan, among 51 others, he assembled a group of six force commanders from recent United Nations operations and an American general. We were asked to write down what improvements could be made to the management of Chapter VII peacekeeping operations under United Nations auspices. The first and obvious thing was that there must be a nominated force commander. Without a force commander who can determine such things as what intelligence is required, what forces are required, what programme of operations should be conducted, relationships with non-governmental organisations and so on, you do not get anywhere. While people talk about a coalition—I absolutely applaud the idea of that, particularly if it contains Arab countries—you cannot launch a military coalition to do anything like that without putting someone very firmly in its command.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hurd, in a very perceptive speech, contrasted today’s debate with the one that we had in August last year, when both he and I, and almost every other Member of your Lordships’ House, voiced grave concern at the prospect of going into Syria without a clearly defined objective or outcome. Today is very different. It is a sobering thought, incidentally, that had we decided differently last year, we might have boosted these wretched ISIL people into a position of even greater power in Syria.

We are now setting our hands to an extraordinary task. In the words of that great prayer by Sir Walter Raleigh, we have to see this thing “until it be throughly finished”. This is not a case of sending just a few sorties; we are in for the long haul. Although I risk the rebuke of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, we will need boots on the ground, be they Arab boots or other military boots—

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Cormack]

No, I cannot give way in this short debate. We will need boots on the ground—military boots and, as the noble Lord rightly pointed out, other boots.

Briefly, if we are to win the hearts and minds of people in the Middle East, those who are suffering desperate privation and those who will be bereaved or maimed as a result of air strikes—that is bound to happen—we must have great emphasis on humanitarian aid. I point up a little contrast. Yesterday, I stood on the East Green of Lincoln Cathedral, where there was a dedication of a plot that, next year, is to bring forth a wonderful garden of bulbs to commemorate Operation Manna. At the end of the Second World War, the people of Holland were in desperate plight. They were starving. Queen Wilhelmina said, “We shall merely be liberating corpses if something is not done”. Although we had to negotiate with the Germans—the war was still on—so that the low-flying aircraft were not shot down, the relief supplies were delivered and the people survived. Yesterday, in a very moving ceremony, we had the Netherlands ambassador paying tribute to the Germans in the presence of their military attaché, saying, “Even though then we were at war, those with whom we had nothing in common and who had inflicted terrible disaster upon us, at that particular point, held back”.

I make that comment and give that illustration merely to point up a moral and to adorn a tale. I hold no brief for the Assad regime—I do not think that there can be any Member of your Lordships’ House who does —but, without repeating the Arab proverb cited by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, all I would say is that we must have unrestrained conflict against these barbarians if we are to bring them to heel and we must ensure that, as the wasteland is liberated, we help those who seek to survive on it as much as we conceivably can.