Iraq Inquiry

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Grieve]

The hon. Gentleman asks me to stray into areas where I do not think I should go.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Yes you should!

[Mr Grieve]

No, I should not. I am mindful of my responsibilities and I want to help the House as much as I can.

I simply make two points to the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). First, I saw nothing in my time in government to suggest that Sir John Chilcot is not trying to be absolutely thorough or that he is being diverted from his conclusions in any way by external pressures from anyone. Secondly, it is quite clear, because it is public knowledge, that after 2011 there was a substantial difficulty over the documentation because of its nature. That was an inherent difficulty and I would not read into it any conspiracy theories or adverse view whatsoever—it just had to be resolved. The point that I am making is that it was my impression at the time I left office that, despite those difficulties, it ought to have been possible to publish the inquiry by the end of last year. Therefore, the further delay causes me concern.

I am pleased to hear that my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway) will have Sir John Chilcot in front of him next week, because that will provide an opportunity for the clarification that is needed to restore public confidence in the way in which the inquiry is being conducted. For the reasons that I have set out, it really is in the public interest that there should be public confidence in the process. The public are entitled to have the conclusions on something that was done—I am the first to admit this, having voted in 2003 for military action—on a series of flawed premises.

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[Sandra Osborne]

I agree, and that has happened time and again, leading to public cynicism. I hope that, after the publication of the report, the Public Administration Committee will look at that issue again.

It is not good enough, 90 days before a general election to call this debate. Welcome though it is, it should all have been done long ago. Publication of the report was never going to happen before the general election, however. I hope that when he comes before the Foreign Affairs Committee next week, Sir John Chilcot will be able to give an indication of time scale, but I am not holding my breath.

[Pete Wishart]

I am appreciating the hon. Lady’s speech, but can she explain why she voted against holding an inquiry when the Labour Government were in power?

[Sandra Osborne]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the policy at the time was to wait until the forces had withdrawn from Iraq, and that is why I voted against.

As I say, I am not holding my breath for Sir John Chilcot to throw much light on the situation next week. He has already made it clear that he will not be pressurised by Parliament into anything. It is worth having the session, but I am not confident that much will result from it.

Finally, we were told that the inquiry would help learn lessons that would strengthen the UK’s democracy, diplomacy and military forces to ensure that if we face similar situations in future, the Government of the day will be best equipped to respond to them in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country. I was worried before the debate but I am even more worried now, especially when I hear from the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) about how his information was treated. I hope that we will get the opportunity next week to ask Sir John Chilcot about some of the questions the right hon. Gentleman raised.

When I look at the situation in Iraq, Syria and throughout the Arab world today—thousands being slaughtered, an Iraqi army unable to cope in spite of the millions of pounds spent building it up after the Iraq war and wholly inadequate resources for our diplomatic effort through the FCO—I see few lessons learned so far. I cannot imagine that the Iraq inquiry will give us the answers we need. It may tell us the mistakes that were made, and it may tell us that civil servants are more worried about damaging UK relations with the US than satisfying the justified demands from many people in this country for the truth. I accept that diplomatic relations with the US are important, but the question is, how important. Do they cancel out the wishes and desires of the British people for the truth about this matter? I do not think so. Above all, for the sake of those who lost their lives and the families who grieve, I hope the inquiry will report as soon as possible after the general election.

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

I am grateful for the chance to take part in an important debate that strikes at the heart of our role as Members of Parliament, for many of the uncomfortable reasons presented by the hon. Members for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and for Bradford West (George Galloway). It touches particularly on our responsibility, as the legislature, to our constituents. Our reaction, therefore, as Members of the House of Commons and on behalf of our constituents, to the grotesque delays in producing the report is a matter of great importance.

This debate is not about former Prime Minister Tony Blair. However, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I was here for that debate in 2003. Although advised by the Opposition Whips, I had not made up my mind how to vote when I entered the Chamber. I could not get a seat, so I sat in the Gangway, and I listened to the Prime Minister. To some extent, this answers the important question from the hon. Member for Bradford West about how we, who were supposedly well educated and informed, knew less than the phenomenal number of people out on the streets demonstrating against the Iraq war. Sitting in the Gangway, with the Prime Minister a few feet away, speaking about the threat to Britain and the international order and the importance of military action, I was persuaded.

[Pete Wishart]

May I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman was not persuaded by the Prime Minister, but duped by the Prime Minister, with a fabrication, a fallacy and a pack of lies? Does he not now see that he was misled?

[Mr Mitchell]

The question whether we were duped is exactly the reason the process of this inquiry is so important. As I sat there, I firmly believed that the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was making a case that I had a duty to support.

This was a hugely divisive matter. In my constituency, there were very deep divisions that had nothing to do with party politics. I remember the bizarre occasion when the entire executive committee of the Sutton Coldfield Labour party—not a large body—came to urge me as their Conservative Member of Parliament to vote against the Iraq war and their own party’s Prime Minister. During the debate, I remember going home to have dinner with my wife, who has always been viscerally opposed to the war and believes it was a terrible mistake. So these divisions run deep.

At the end of the day, however, this is not an attack on the former Prime Minister. It is inconceivable—this is an incredibly important point—that he could have made the case he did that afternoon without the passive acquiescence, if not the active support, of the full panoply of the Government machine. In my judgment, the Chilcot report is required not to expose an idiosyncratic Prime Minister—if that is the charge—but to hold to public account the workings of our Government machine.

Last December, we saw the long-awaited publication in the US of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report into the CIA’s use of torture in the aftermath of 9/11. It was certainly controversial, possibly flawed, but such reports, and the problems they throw up for politicians and Administrations, are crucial to the democratic process and our ability, as the legislature, to hold to account those who make these decisions. There is a clear benefit to be derived from revisiting these profound and significant decisions and actions, and although it might leave us open to criticism and reopen old wounds, it is a fundamental step in the process of moving forward and building on past actions.

For this House, therefore, this debate is an important and timely one. It follows the pertinent and important comments made in the other place by former Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd. His remarks should ring around the political establishment. I also congratulate the three promoters of the debate, and as ever my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) did the House credit in introducing it. It is a debate not about the substance of Sir John’s report, which none of us should prejudice, but about the manner of its conduct and timing and the way these issues have been pursued.

In allowing the inquiry to drift on in this way, Sir John and all of us are doing great damage to the process of accountability—a process that Parliament has a right to expect and a duty to pursue in order to hold the Government to account. It really matters that it is taking so desperately long for the report to be delivered. The failure to have this report before us will undoubtedly have had some impact—probably both ways—on the way in which Members voted on the Government motion for action on Syria.

On the Libya campaign, when I was the International Development Secretary, I had responsibility for the Government’s humanitarian duties and role, and my first question to officials in my Department was about the lessons to be drawn from the Iraq war, most especially on the plans for the aftermath of that conflict, which were fundamental to the plans we were making in respect of Libya. The lack of a proper inquiry meant relying on the memory and understanding of officials, which is what we had to do.

We come to the meat of the matter. This inquiry is entering its sixth year; it has already cost £9 million. That is clearly not the fault of the current Government. The events did not take place on our watch. Indeed, both the Prime Minister and I voted to set up this inquiry in 2006. The delay is an insult to every one of our constituents, to every taxpayer in the country and to every parent, spouse and loved one of the 179 servicemen and women who died in the Iraq war and of the many who were wounded and still live with those wounds today.

The Foreign Affairs Committee, led so ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, is absolutely right to call Sir John before it next week to ask him not for the contents of his report, but for a full and detailed explanation of the delays, the timing and the process over which he has presided. It is essential that we, the legislature, prosecute this matter vigorously and fully if we are not to bring ourselves into considerable disrepute. It is our role to hold the Government to account, and what could be more important than the issues surrounding a decision like this one—to go to war?

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It was 18 March 2003, and both you and I were in the House that day, Mr Deputy Speaker. It was an ugly, brutal day. It was one of these huge set-piece occasions that we have in the House of Commons when every single thing is reported and every single nuance noted. It was the day that we voted to go to war. I will never, ever forget it.

I was a Whip that day, and I remember observing the Government Whips rounding up the recalcitrant, the doubters and those who were trying to make up their minds. I remember lots of good women and men being dragooned into the Lobby—against their better judgment —to support the Prime Minister and the fabrication of a case on Iraq. It was a horrible day—a day that should be ingrained in the collective consciousness of this House and remembered for its eternal shame. It was the day that we voted to go to war on a total fabrication, and we must find out why this House decided to do that.

[Mr MacNeil]

I was not a Member of the House at that time, but my hon. Friend reminds me of the time when the then Deputy Prime Minister was arguing that the road map for Palestine was somehow connected to the maiming and the murder in Iraq.

[Pete Wishart]

To try to get a flavour of what the House was like that day, I watched a YouTube video of Tony Blair’s speech that morning. I know that sounds a bit masochistic, but I wanted to find out what was said and what the case for war was. What I had to listen to was absolute and utter nonsense—fabrications and flights of fancy that Blair must have known were totally false and ridiculous. He said there were weapons of mass destruction that could, without doubt, reach us within 45 minutes. But there were none—there was nothing there. This House was misled; this House was duped.

I have listened to Conservative Members saying that they believed the Prime Minister. The rest of the country knew. The rest of the country was not fooled by his mendacious nonsense—of course not. We were on a march in central Glasgow, and 100,000 people turned up to march against that war. Some 1 million people turned up in London to march against it. Yet this House voted to go to war on the basis of a lie—a House that was duped and misled. If anybody needs to know the reason why this House was misled, it is because of us, the parliamentarians.

I am disappointed in the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). He should not have changed his motion. We should have demanded today that we got that report. I do not want to hear the reasons why we are not getting it. I do not want to hear about the process of getting it in the future—we should have it now. We should have it before the general election, and this suggestion that it is political and somehow gets in the way of a democratic process in the run-up to an election is just fatuous nonsense.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I, too, recall that day, and I concur with everything the hon. Gentleman says about how people who were feeling very strongly about the issue were pushed and cajoled, with notes and letters being sent asking me to meet all sorts of people. Does he agree that this tells us the lesson that this House must always be very careful that the Whips and the party machine do not always get their way?

[Pete Wishart]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes such a powerful and potent point about something as important as going to war. I was just a new Member, having been in the House for just a year; I was a young whippersnapper barely out of my shorts, yet I was listening to a Prime Minister making this case. I thought, “Surely, there must be something in it,” but I realise now, along with many other Members, that an issue as important as going to war should not have been whipped on this basis.

The House passed the vote on Iraq by 412 to 149. I was among the 149; my right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) was among the 149; I see two Liberal Democrat Members in their places —the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) and the right hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker)—who were among the 149. This was the proudest vote of my 14 years in this House. It was a vote that defined the Parliament between 2001 to 2005. It was a vote, I now believe, that characterised the Labour Government. It was a vote that is now personally associated with Tony Blair, and it will follow him to the grave and be on his tombstone. Such is his association with it that he might as well have it tattooed on his forehead. The Iraq war will for ever be bound up with the last Labour Government and the personality of the last but one Prime Minister.

[Rory Stewart]

Is there not a danger of this debate becoming an opportunity for self-congratulation or self-laceration on the part of Members of Parliament rather than focusing on the real lessons for how Britain acts in the world?

[Pete Wishart]

I want to come on to that; it is so important because this House was misled. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman agrees with that, but I am sure that, as someone who looks at and understands these issues, he knows that this was a total fabrication. I see him shaking his head. The case for war was non-existent. We have got to understand why a majority of Members voted for it. We have to start to get to the bottom of why this was allowed to happen.

We are still feeling the implications and repercussions: half a million presumed dead; a region destabilised; a country divided; international diplomacy discredited. A point that the hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway) made was that we have alienated a generation of young Muslims—here and around the world—dangerously radicalising many of them, giving them a grievance for some of the perverted causes that have been picked up to justify what they see as their perverted agenda. These are things that we now have to deal with for our own security. That is what Iraq bequeathed us. We have got to find out how this happened and why this set of conditions was allowed, enabling us to pursue this particular course of action.

I remember the almost ingenious lengths to which the Labour Government went to try to invent this case. I remember that the House was recalled. It was not just that day in March; we were recalled in September of the previous year. We were told to come down and find in our pigeon-holes the document that subsequently became known as “the dodgy dossier”—100-odd pages of utter drivel, manufactured fabrications and plagiarised sources. We found that most of it came from the post-doctoral work of some student called Ibrahim al-Marashi. It almost seemed like a script for a comedy sketch, yet this was the UK getting prepared to go to war in the 21st century!

We now know, of course, that there were never any weapons of mass destruction—still less any that could be deployed in 45 minutes. There was no collusion with al-Qaeda, even though jihadists now wander at will in the IS forces across Iraq. There was no evidence of any uranium project, and nothing whatsoever could be found relating to any nuclear programme. We were misled; this House was misled.

There are several Members in the House who understand and realise that they were duped, but there are still some who believe that it was right to go to war. I am very fond of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), but he must at some point say that this was a total fabrication, that the House was misled, and that a case was fabricated to go to war. The sooner the right hon. Gentleman does that, the sooner he will get himself off the hook, because this will pursue him, and the others who made the case for war, to the very end of their careers.

I do not think that the issue will end with the publication of the Chilcot report. We seen had four whitewashes—there have been four attempts to put this to bed—but it is not going to end. We will have the Chilcot report, but I do not think that it will get us there; I think it will be another generation before we get to the truth of Iraq. It is possible that there will be a judge-led inquiry, and that might help to get us there, but this is going to go all the way. I foresee that significant people will eventually be taken to The Hague, because this is such an important issue which has redefined so much contemporary foreign history. People say that it was a disaster bigger than Suez—of course it was. This was the biggest single foreign policy blunder and disaster ever made by any Government in modern history.

So we need the Chilcot report. Do I believe that it we will get us to the heart of this with the Chilcot report? No, I do not, but I think it will go a long way towards describing and explaining some of the things that happened. It will be another generation before we arrive at the absolute truth. There are too many big reputations to be tarnished—again, I say that to the right hon. Member for Blackburn. There are people who will be in a position to try to ensure that this is kicked into the long grass. The only reason I have any confidence in the Chilcot report is that the establishment is trying to prevent us from seeing it, so there must be something good in it. I hope that that means that we may get a glimpse into the workings of this Government.

We are where we are. We hope that we shall see the Chilcot report soon. We should have demanded its publication in this debate, and I am disappointed that we have not been given an opportunity to do so. However, I do not think that the report will be the end of the process. I believe that this will go all the way to The Hague. We engaged in an illegal war on the basis of a fabrication and a downright lie, and we deserve to know the truth. Some day we will get the truth, but I do not believe that we will get it from Chilcot.