Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) on his maiden speech.

The central accusation in the motion is not a rerun of whether anyone was for or against the Iraq war. As we heard eloquently from my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) and for Eltham (Clive Efford), many Members who voted against the Iraq war will vote against the motion, because they know that that is not what it is about. Instead, the central accusation is that the former Prime Minister lied in making the case for it. The motion does not use that word, but that is the implication.

Sir John Chilcot made some serious criticisms of the decision making in the run-up to the war and in the aftermath, but he did not say that the decision was taken in bad faith. In fact, his report says of the intelligence presented:

“The JIC accepted ownership of the dossier and agreed its content. There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No.10 improperly influenced the text”.

In paragraph 806 of the report, he says:

“There was nothing in the JIC Assessments issued before July 2002 that would have raised any questions in policy-makers’ minds about the core construct of Iraq’s capabilities and intent.”

In March 2002, the JIC said that it was

“clear that Iraq continues to pursue a policy of acquiring WMD and their delivery means”.

These views on Iraq’s capability and intent were not purely British; they were shared by intelligence services throughout the world, including in those countries that were vehemently opposed to military action.

Of the meeting with President Bush at Crawford, the Chilcot report said that Mr Blair said that it was important to go back to the UN and that he sought to persuade Mr Bush to act within a multilateral framework, not a unilateral one. At paragraph 802, the report said:

“Mr Blair and Mr Straw sought to persuade the US Administration to secure multilateral support before taking action on Iraq; and to do so through the UN.”

So the accusation of lying is not true and is not backed up by the Chilcot report.

[Ian Austin]

Other countries, not just Britain and America, believed not only that Saddam Hussein had WMD, but that he had actually used them, perpetrating the largest chemical weapons attack against civilians in history and killing thousands in a brutal attack on his own people.

[Mr McFadden]

That is absolutely true, and it is a great shame that the Iraqi MPs who were watching from the Gallery earlier on cannot be heard in today’s debate, because I am sure that they would make that point.

What is true is that the Iraq war and its aftermath raised major questions about military intervention, post-conflict responsibility and our capacity and willingness to act in the future. To go to war is a heavy responsibility and perhaps the most difficult judgment that any leader can make.

There is a temptation to think that history in Iraq began with our intervention. In his opening statement, the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) said that everything could be traced back to the 2003 intervention, but history in Iraq and the use of violence in the country and in the wider middle east did not begin in 2003. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) said, chemical weapons were used in the Anfal campaign against the Kurds, which began long before then, as did the brutal repression of the Shi’a uprising following the first Gulf war.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, including in Yemen in 1992, Mumbai in 1993, in Nairobi and Tanzania in 1998 and, of course, in New York on 11 September 2001? Terrorist attacks did not begin with what happened in Iraq in 2003.

[Mr McFadden]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I believe that there is a new imperialism afoot, which seeks to trace everything to western decisions to intervene or not intervene. Until we understand that violent Islamist jihadism has an ideology of its own, we will never be able properly to confront it, let alone overcome it. We have to understand that, despite our history, it is not always about us.

[Alex Salmond]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr McFadden]

I have already given way twice.

The controversy over the Iraq war and its aftermath has coloured every decision this Parliament has made on military intervention since—most notably, the vote in August 2013 not to take military action in Syria, following President Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people. Who can say for sure what the consequences of that vote were, but we have a duty—do we not?—to reflect on them as we watch Aleppo being blown to bits night after night on our television screens. We can tell ourselves that because we did not intervene in 2013, we do not bear responsibility for it, but that is of little comfort to the children of Aleppo, as the bombs rain down on their heads in a horror seemingly without end. There will not be a Chilcot report on Syria because we did not take the decision to intervene, but are the consequences for the victims any less real?

There are certainly lessons to learn from the experience of Iraq and Syria, but they lie not in the sort of detective hunt based on false accusations of lying set out in the motion, but in asking ourselves serious questions about when we should intervene and when we should not and how we live up to the responsibilities that come from intervention. Perhaps most seriously of all, is it really a morally better position never to intervene if the consequences are encouragement for dictators and no defence for their civilian victims?

In the aftermath of the Chilcot report—we have heard a lot about it in today’s debate—there will be a process to learn lessons. Committees will be formed; processes will be changed; the National Security Council might be changed in one way or another— and it might do some good, because we need the best processes that we can, but this is not the heart of the matter. Nothing—no process; no Committee; no Council—will remove the responsibility of a Prime Minister and of MPs to make a judgment on military intervention. In the end, it is a judgment. That is what leadership is all about.

[Several hon. Members rose—]