UK Military Action in Iraq: Declassified Documents

Richard Foord Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) for securing this debate, because we do not often have debates on things that are historical. It is normal for Parliament to focus on the present day and things that are current, but it is helpful sometimes to look back in history and to learn lessons from our recent past. It is excellent that this information has been extracted from the National Archives, which he and others have reported on.

I congratulate the new Solicitor General on his post. I met the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) shortly before he became Chair of the Defence Committee. He did an excellent job in that role, but his services are now obviously required by Government instead.

Today, I will draw specifically on some of the things that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath talked about in relation to Operation Desert Fox in 1998. I will also make reference to the invasion of Iraq by the US, UK and others in 2003. Finally, I will ask one or two questions about the role of Parliament in a declaration of war, or in the commitment of UK armed forces to going to war.

We have already heard a great deal about how the Prime Minister in 1998 operated with knowledge of what was legal, but perhaps decided to park that, or in large part he put it aside and decided to press on with Operation Desert Fox none the less—hence the four days of bombing of Iraq. Alongside the international law issue, however, it was fascinating to hear from the reporting of that time and from this newly released material what was being said to the Prime Minister from a pragmatic perspective. It was not just legal advice that he was receiving; he was also receiving advice about UK interests. For example, the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time, Sir Michael Pakenham, told the Prime Minister that to engage in military action would be “acting against UN principles” and

“in the long term wholly contrary to our interests”.

Given that the material that has come out of the archive is largely about legal advice, it is fascinating to read that Robin Cook—the Foreign Secretary of the day—and other legal advisers were suggesting that there would have been a serious problem unless the UK acted with further UN Security Council resolution mandates, and that we might instead have sought to get a new Security Council resolution stating that Iraq was in material breach of previous UN Security Council resolutions.

I was also very interested to hear from the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath about those fascinating insights of how the Chief of the Defence Staff at that time was saying to the Prime Minister that we really did need legal support for military action if it was to go ahead. That does not surprise me, because Sir Charles Guthrie was an excellent CDS. I had the privilege of having a conversation with him at a bar while he was still serving. Just prior to that, he had written a book, “The Just War Tradition: Ethics in Modern Warfare”. This dealt partly with jus in bello—just war theory as it applies to the conduct of war, which we have been talking about a lot in the House in recent weeks, in relation to Israel-Gaza. He also wrote about jus ad bellum—how wars are initiated. He clearly knew a lot about international law.

Lastly, I would like to talk about the light these revelations cast on the relationship between Parliament, the Executive and the judiciary. Until 2003, it was customary for our armed forces to be committed to war by royal prerogative. Indeed, it is the sovereign decision of the Executive to commit our armed forces to war. On 18 March 2003, something changed. There was not just a debate in Parliament, but a vote on the invasion of Iraq. People will recall that on that day, there was a very large majority vote by MPs in favour of the UK joining military action in Iraq. In opening, Tony Blair offered,

“it is right that the House debate this issue and pass judgment.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 760.]

Clearly, he said those words knowing full well that he had the support of many on his own Benches and on the Conservative Benches. As a footnote, I add that Tony Blair referred that day to the Liberal Democrats as unified “in opportunism and error.” He said that because we were indeed, as a party, unified in opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

The point is that this was a case of Parliament getting an opportunity to have its say on the commitment of UK armed forces to war in Iraq. I raise that because the documents we are discussing today reveal that the Executive were going beyond legal advice and beyond even the advice of really expert opinion, such as the Chair of JIC, and the CDS. They were making an executive decision that essentially came down to the view of the Prime Minister. It is troubling that so much authority was ultimately vested in that individual. What we can take from that period is that, in future, the legislature ought to have greater scrutiny of decisions to commit our armed forces to war. Finally, when the Minister stands to his feet, I would be interested in hearing his reflections on how UK armed forces will be committed to war in the future.