Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The decision to go to war is undoubtedly the most difficult one that any Prime Minister, leader or Member of this House will ever have to take. The Liberal Democrats are not pacifists—I am not a pacifist—but we believe that military action should be used only as a last resort, following the failure of diplomacy, and only in accordance with law. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not meet those tests, which is why, led by Charles Kennedy 13 years ago, the Liberal Democrats opposed the war. That reasoned opposition was met with vile derision by both the Government and the Conservative Opposition at the time. Thirteen years and 2 million words later, those voices have been silenced and Charles Kennedy is vindicated. It is a tragedy that he is not here to experience that vindication, and it is equally a tragedy that neither is Robin Cook. Chilcot’s conclusion is exactly what so many of us have known for more than 13 years: there was no legal or strategic case for the invasion of Iraq; it was “unnecessary”; and military action was “not a last resort”. Instead of improving our security, it in fact made our country, their country and the world we share less safe.

In the case of Iraq, Mr Blair appeared to be more concerned with supporting American President George Bush than he was in pursuing British interests and the interests of the Iraqi people. The most infamous quote—

“I will be with you, whatever”—

was not written to the Iraqi people, suffering under the undeniably cruel regime of such a brutal dictator, nor was it written to the British public as a clear display of the priorities of our elected leader. Instead, it was written to a neo-conservative US President intent on proving American superiority by waging war against an abstract noun. This was a President who was failing to make dramatic advances in Afghanistan, so instead he settled his sights on Iraq, despite the fact that, as Chilcot stresses on a number of occasions, the overall threat from Iraq was viewed as less serious than those from other countries of concern—Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Mr Blair was clearly determined to follow the US into war, no matter the consequences, and he effectively committed us to the Americans, no matter the evidence. We had, we have and I hope we will continue to have an intimate and rewarding relationship with the US, but we cannot allow our foreign policy to be defined by that relationship alone; “my ally right or wrong” is not a sustainable independent foreign policy. The strength of that unwavering commitment gave rise to the error of making the evidence fit the judgment, rather than the judgment fit the evidence. Nowhere is that clearer than when it came to the legal basis of war.

The Attorney General’s final view was little more than lukewarm, being that this was,

“on balance, the better view”.

I believe that if we are to commit thousands of our young men and women to circumstances where their lives will be put at risk, we need something a little bit better and more certain than “on balance”. Going forward, we must ensure that there is no ambiguity in the legal advice provided to the Government or Parliament on matters of military action.

We must also be clear on what the end goal or exit plan is for any intervention. Despite its being clear very quickly that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the UK found itself assuming leadership of a military area of responsibility. Not only that, but it is evident that, despite being a joint occupying power, the UK had little or no influence on the overall strategy of the Americans, leaving us blindly following their flawed lead. The US strategy included the policy of de-Ba’athification, which collapsed the Iraqi state and disbanded the army, creating a disfranchised and angry group of well-trained military leaders, many of whom went on to fight the occupation and, ultimately, to form Daesh. That appalling error directly contributed to the following six years of chaotic destruction, which saw so many of our armed forces put on the frontline without a proper strategy.

I hope that the Iraq inquiry—the Chilcot inquiry—will bring some comfort to the families of the 179 servicemen and women killed in Iraq, but there can be no justification for their being deployed to fight on a battlefield for which the proper preparation was not done. There is no doubt that the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 have directly contributed to the threats that the world now faces from Daesh and instability in the middle east.

As I stood shoulder to shoulder with Iraqis at the vigil held in London last week to remember the lives of those lost in the most recent attacks in Baghdad, it was clear to me what legacy has been left. Just last week, more than 300 people died in suicide attacks in Baghdad on top of the tragedies that we have seen in Istanbul, Paris and elsewhere. Terrorists are responsible for those horrific events, but the Iraq war is responsible for creating the vacuum in which terrorism and Daesh were formed, and through which anti-western sentiment has thrived, and that has happened despite our being advised at the time that that was a risk.

Liberal Democrats are outward-facing internationalists. We believe that Britain should engage in the world, not turn its back on it, and that our country has a strong role to play in promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law across the globe. Sometimes—rarely—that will mean taking military action, but the Iraq war has tarnished our reputation, ignored international law and undermined international institutions such as the United Nations, which we worked so hard at building in the aftermath of two world wars. It destroyed public confidence in our leaders and in Parliament, and it made it infinitely more difficult for a Government to make the case for war by making the prospect of humanitarian intervention all the more unpalatable to many.