Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Neil Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I freely acknowledge that one of the failures, which is set out clearly in the report, was the failure to plan in advance of the decision taken on 18 March 2003. Indeed, there are lessons that we must learn from that. The truth is, however, that Iraq was a suppressed, repressed and brutalised society in which Saddam was the lid on the pressure cooker, and when he left, the lid came off. We have seen that in other countries, too—Libya has already been mentioned.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South rightly said that those who seek to blame the decision to invade for all the subsequent events miss the responsibility that others have for what has gone on. We must take our share of the responsibility, and disbanding the Iraqi army—which meant that thousands of men had no salary and no income, but had a gun and a grievance—was a profound mistake. But Iraqi politicians also have to bear a responsibility for the sectarian policies they have pursued, and those who still engage in suicide bombing cannot turn to us and say, “Look what you made me do”. They must bear responsibility for what they themselves have chosen to do to their fellow citizens.

The best evidence for the difference that good politics and good governance can make in Iraq is shown by the Kurdish region, which, let us not forget, was as it was partly because of the support we had given it through the no-fly zone. As a result, it is now the most stable and relatively prosperous part of Iraq. I pay tribute, as others have, to the peshmerga for the role that they have played, and still play, in trying to defeat Daesh.

The Kurds regard the 2003 invasion as a liberation. Karwan Jamal Tahir, the Kurdistan Regional Government representative to the UK, wrote this week about the Chilcot report that

“there was an Iraq before the 2003 invasion, an Iraq that, for millions, was a concentration camp on the surface and a mass grave beneath.”

We only have to read the reports of Human Rights Watch to see what it had to say at the time about the mass executions, the mass disappearances, the use of chemical weapons, the suppression of the Shi’a majority, particularly after the 1991 uprising, and the attempt by Saddam to eradicate the population and culture of the Marsh Arabs, who had resided continuously in the marshlands for more than 5,000 years. That was what life was like, and we should not forget it.

At least today Iraq has a fragile democracy, and whatever our views on the decision 13 years ago, we have a continuing responsibility to assist, especially when the democratically elected Government ask for our help. That is why this House was right in 2014 to provide support in helping them defeat Daesh, and we have seen the benefit of that support in the progress made in the months since. We have also discovered more about what Daesh does as towns have been liberated. That is why this House was right to vote unanimously to describe what is being done to the Yazidis, Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria as

“genocide at the hands of Daesh.”

I wish the Government would do what the House asked and take that to the UN Security Council so that it can be passed on to the International Criminal Court.

Finally, I turn to the wider lessons. For too long in foreign affairs, Governments have argued, “Better the strong man we know than the chaos we fear”, even when that strong man is a brutal murdering dictator. Yet look at what happens when the strong man falls in Libya, in Egypt and, indeed, in Iraq.

Three years after the end of the second world war, the UN General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the universal declaration of human rights. Article 3 states:

“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

Article 28 states:

“Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realised.”

Yet for millions of people in the world those rights, so nobly expressed, have remained just words on paper, and they were certainly just words on paper during Saddam’s rule. Surely that will not do. Having created the UN, why do we not have the responsibility to ensure that the principles of the universal declaration of human rights are given universal expression internationally, exactly as we have managed to achieve, for example, in our own country over many years? It is the responsibility of the UN Security Council to do that. That was why we created the UN, which has a moral responsibility and a legitimacy to act, and it is why I am a strong supporter of the Responsibility to Protect. That principle says that state sovereignty is not absolute and the international community has a responsibility to act in certain circumstances.

Finally, even though this is unspoken in the report, I think Chilcot forces us to consider that while there are consequences to taking action—we meet here today to discuss them and their legacy—there are also always consequences of not doing so. For me, that is the most important lesson of Iraq, both before and after 2003.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hilary Benn]

I am going to bring my remarks to a conclusion, because so many others wish to speak.

As a world, we have a responsibility to be much more effective and determined in dealing with countries and conflicts in circumstances such as these before they turn into brutal and bloody civil wars. I believe that the best way to do that is to demonstrate that multilateralism—countries working together—can provide the answer to the uncomfortable question: what is to be done? The more we do that, the stronger will be our argument against those who would act unilaterally—at times we have to act unilaterally, and we were right to do so in Kosovo and in Sierra Leone—that there is another, better way. For that to happen, however, the United Nations has to do the job for which it was created.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), whom I used to follow regularly when we were both on our respective parties’ Front Benches.

The aim of this debate on Chilcot should be to heal wounds and learn lessons, but I very much fear that it will be characterised by a discussion of whether Mr Blair is guilty or very guilty. Such a discussion would betray the interests of all those whose loved ones were placed in harm’s way and who paid the ultimate price in Iraq, as well as of the many thousands of Iraqis who lost their lives. It is the whole system of governance that we need to hold to account, not just the Prime Minister, if we are to achieve resolution and benefit.

In 2003, I sat over there on the Opposition Benches and heard what the Prime Minister said. I supported his judgment. That judgment could not have been reached and acted on by the Prime Minister without the active support, or at least the passive acquiescence, of the machinery of government. Before we come to the lessons for the future, however, let me observe that the central allegations boil down to two. The first is that the intelligence was wrong. The second is that a culture of sofa government—a lack of accountable structures for decision making—and inadequate procedures prevailed.

Having used the product of the three intelligence agencies while I was on the National Security Council and in Cabinet, I yield to no one in my admiration and respect for those who carry out what is often difficult and dangerous work. There are people working at GCHQ who could deploy their talents in the commercial world for 10 times what they are paid by the taxpayer, yet they choose to serve their country instead. We should honour and respect them for that. I have no hesitation in saying, from my own experience, that if those who work in the intelligence agencies were asked to do something improper by their political masters, they would simply refuse to do it. Intelligence is, by its very nature, difficult to hold to account. The normal rules of transparency and openness simply do not apply. The sourcing of intelligence is by definition complex and we cannot talk about it in any detail. In one instance, while I was Secretary of State for International Development, intelligence that we received on a particular situation in Africa turned out to be wrong, but the fault for the error did not lie with Britain or British intelligence.

On the issue of sofa government and informality, it is clear that there was a lack of Cabinet structure and accountability, as well as a quite extraordinary informality and, let us say, flexibility in the use of the Attorney General and his legal opinions. However, critical lessons have been learned and, crucially, they have resulted in the setting up of the National Security Council.

[Neil Gray]

My brother served in both Gulf wars. The right hon. Gentleman has talked about sofa government and the lessons to be learned from poor Government structures. Pages 121 and 122 of the executive summary give details of the delay in allowing the military to prepare and of the resulting lack of equipment and preparedness for our armed forces going into Iraq. Does he believe, as I and others do, that that unnecessarily cost some members of our armed forces their lives?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about the absolute importance of having proper accountable structures, not informal machineries of government, as I was saying.

Moving on to the Libya campaign, there was a proper process by which legal advice was given to the Cabinet. Britain’s humanitarian responsibilities in the conflict were made clear at the first Cabinet meeting that authorised military action. The National Security Council met on numerous occasions, as did an inner, sub-committee of the NSC on which I sat. In addition to the conduct of the campaign, we discussed the humanitarian situation and the preparations for stabilisation on a daily basis. There was of course no invasion as such, but the Defence Secretary took personal responsibility for targeting to ensure that collateral damage was minimised, and the loss of civilian life was mercifully extremely limited.

On discharging our humanitarian responsibility, lessons were carefully learned and, as the Foreign Secretary emphasised, Britain did a good job indeed. We organised the planes and ships that successfully transported thousands of migrant workers home or to places of safety as far afield as the Philippines and Baghdad to remove them from harm’s way. The evacuation of 5,000 migrants from the quayside at Misrata was a feat greatly assisted by Britain and for which the international community deserves the highest praise. When Tripoli was in danger of running out of water, it was DFID and the United Nations that successfully implemented our plan to prevent an emergency. The provision of food and medicines to conflict areas of Libya without either was also successfully accomplished.

My point is that specific lessons from the failures in Iraq were understood and implemented in respect of our humanitarian responsibilities. However, it is post-conflict stabilisation that attracts strong criticism regarding Iraq and Libya, where it is clear today that stabilisation is currently a failure. I want to make it clear that lessons were learned and that our focus on post-conflict stabilisation was absolute immediately after military action started. Britain set up an international stabilisation unit and worked closely with the UN, which was to have lead responsibility for stabilisation when the conflict ended. Britain supplied expertise, officials and funding, drawing on the lessons of Iraq. During the war, we gave technical support to the central bank and to such organs of the state that existed. Indeed, in contrast with Iraq, where the police and security services were simply abolished, we took specific significant steps to ensure that the police in Libya, who had not been engaged in human rights abuses, could be reassured by text message, for example, that they still had a job and should report for duty when the fighting diminished.

We prepared extensively, particularly through the support that we gave to UN institutions, to help stabilise Libya’s future, but we faced the simple problem that there was no peace to stabilise when the war was over and that in a country with limited structures outside the Gaddafi family the different factions were fractured and splintered. You can make all the plans you like for post-conflict stabilisation, but if there is no peace to stabilise, the international community’s non-military options are severely limited.

Lessons learned from Iraq and then applied in Libya have continued in respect of the British efforts in Syria. We have already made a huge funding commitment to stabilise the country when peace finally comes. We have played a more comprehensive role in humanitarian relief in and around Syria than the whole of the rest of the European Union put together. We were also the first country to put significant sums of taxpayers’ money into the Zaatari refugee camp in 2012, because we understood the approaching calamity.

The lessons we learn from the Chilcot report will shape our understanding of our place in the world. Will we continue to support the cause of liberal interventionism, as we successfully did in Sierra Leone and Kosovo, or will the House turn its back on discretionary intervention, even under UN auspices, and be prepared to stand idly by if—God forbid—another Rwandan genocide takes place? The post-Chilcot era will, I hope, see the right lessons learned and ensure that Britain remains a key international influence for good, willing to take military action, certainly as a last resort, when the situation requires it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I want to look at two elements: first, the legal recriminations against our soldiers, as touched on by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat); and secondly, the point raised by several Members about our preparedness for war. I would like briefly to comment on that, as a former soldier.

First, I pay tribute to the 179 members of our armed forces who lost their lives, the many others wounded and, of course, the tens of thousands of civilians who died as a consequence of the war. It was an appalling tragedy. I make no apology for returning to the subject of servicemen and women being persecuted for fighting a war in Iraq at the behest of their political masters and under the most difficult circumstances. During the now former Prime Minister’s response to the publication of the report of the Chilcot inquiry on 6 July, I asked for his assurance that, just as there would be no recriminations against those who sent our armed forces to war, so there would be none against our armed forces themselves. He replied:

“We are doing everything we can to get through and knock down these wholly unjustified inquiries, because by and large, as we would expect, British forces behaved entirely properly.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2016; Vol. 612, c. 907.]

The fact remains, however, that in an official statement to The Sunday Telegraph on 2 July, the International Criminal Court confirmed that it had already begun a preliminary examination of claims of torture and abuse by British soldiers after receiving a dossier from human rights lawyers acting for alleged Iraqi victims. The ICC prosecutors will comb through the 2.3 million words in the report for the evidence of war crimes committed by British troops. The ICC has added that the decision to go to war remains outside its remit. That, of course, exonerates former Prime Minister Blair, but I do not want to get deeply involved in that particular point in my short speech.

Many of us have already put on record how deeply disturbing we find the relentless pursuit of our servicemen and women by unscrupulous and opportunistic lawyers, actively inviting fabrications and fantasies. Although, regrettably, there is a need for the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, known as IHAT, its most recent report published on 31 March this year makes it clear that many of the claims are indeed fabrications and fantasies.

At that point, IHAT had received 3,281 allegations of potential criminal behaviour. Nearly 1,000 of them were screened out and did not progress to the investigations stage, while 742 remain at the initial assessment stage. IHAT is therefore currently investigating allegations relating to 1,558 potential victims, of which 288 are alleged unlawful killings and 1,270 are alleged ill treatment, ranging from common assault to serious sexual and violent assault. IHAT has closed, or is in the process of closing, investigations into 59 allegations of unlawful killing. In 56 of those cases—95%—the allegation of criminal behaviour was found to be not sustainable, meaning that there was no truth in it. Let me make the point that if we in this place send our brave men and women to war, we have got to protect them from this sort of activity when they come back. In my view, it is a disgrace.

Let me finish by briefly touching on several points raised by several hon. Members of all parties about whether we are prepared for war. Chilcot touches on this and criticises the Government of the day because the armed forces were not as prepared as they could have been. Speaking as someone who served in the military for nine years and as an avid reader of military history—my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling would agree with me on this—I cannot think of a time at any point in our history when our armed forces have been 100% ready for a specific operation. In the second world war, our tanks could not outgun the German tanks for at least two or three years into the war. I wonder what we would say now if that circumstance were repeated—it would be interesting, would it not? Of course our armed forces should have the best kit. The point I am trying to make is that when we send our brave men and women to war in future—regrettably, we will—we have got to think very hard whether they have the right kit for the particular type of warfare required for the particular conflict zone.

[Neil Gray]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s speech, but does he accept that what was then a politically expedient decision of the Prime Minister to delay the military in preparing, and the subsequent lack of equipment, could have cost some of my brother’s colleagues and some of the colleagues of the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) their lives? That is the fundamental point.

[Richard Drax]

Because of the delay and the realisation that this was going to be a major conflict—an invasion of a country—one could sensibly argue that there was not sufficient kit to back the invasion. I absolutely concur with that. The first thing that goes into chaos—the first thing that goes wrong—the moment troops are sent into battle, is at the point of contact. It all goes haywire because that is what war is about. We in this place must learn that if we send troops into a conflict zone—a desert environment, for example, as it was in Iraq—we must make sure that they have the right kit for that environment. If they are going to fight in a jungle, we will need to make sure that there are plenty of helicopters to support them.

Look at the Falklands war. I was serving at that time, and many of my friends went there. We were desperately short of all kinds of kit. In fact, had the Argentinians dug in and fought harder, it is questionable whether the number of brave men and women we had down there would have actually won that war. We were literally at the point of running out of ammunition, helicopters and all the things we needed to execute the war.

My point is this. When we send those men and women to war again—as sadly we will—we must think very seriously indeed in this place, “Have they got the kit to do the job we are asking them to do?” There is no point, months down the line, bleating, “Oh dear, they haven’t got enough helicopters”—or ships, or whatever it is.

Let me end by saying exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling said. If we are going to send our brave men and women to war again—and they are incredibly brave—we must look at the Chilcot report and learn the lessons. I am not in the blame game; I was not here at the time so I did not vote, but for heaven’s sake, let us think very carefully next time.