Ukraine

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We have not recognised, and will not recognise, the annexation of Crimea. What we are seeking through OSCE diplomacy now is de-escalation rather than an already prescribed end state. National dialogue in Ukraine in return for Russia acquiescing in elections in Ukraine is really what the OSCE is pursuing. If the hon. Gentleman is asking whether our bottom line is everything going back to normal in the future while Crimea remains annexed by Russia, my answer would be no. There will be permanent consequences from what has happened in Crimea and ever more serious wider consequences—the sorts of consequences I have talked about—if Russia continues on this overall path.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I visited Odessa recently and came across an EU office which was rightly focusing on reporting on the situation in Moldova, but was not reporting on local developments. Given the disjoint between actual events and how they are sensationally reported in the press, should there not be better independent assessments, possibly used by offices such as those of the EU, to counter the pro-Russian propaganda about which the Secretary of State has spoken?

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important point, and it relates to part of the importance of further expanding the OSCE special monitoring mission. We might also deploy—and we are in favour of deploying—a civilian EU mission to advise on judicial and police reform, but what my hon. Friend is talking about is very much the job of the special monitoring mission. We are supplying further monitors from the UK, with the capability to build up to having 500 monitors in total. Their objective reporting will be very important in the coming weeks to international understanding of the situation.

Ukraine

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I do not know how many British nationals will be involved, although some certainly will participate in the monitoring and in the work of the OSCE mission that I mentioned earlier. In the vast majority of the country I do not think security arrangements will be an issue, but we will, of course, look carefully in eastern Ukraine at what we need to do about that.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

May I echo the importance of the cross-party visit that took place during the Easter recess? It was clear for us to see the role that Russian ringleaders were playing in stirring up tensions there. Given that two thirds of Ukraine’s GDP is owned by just 11 oligarchs, does my right hon. Friend agree that that powerful group could, if it chose, play a more influential role in stabilising Ukraine?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, I do agree. My hon. Friend made some important reflections on the visit that he and other hon. Members made and which, as I said earlier, was very welcome. Those oligarchs can play an important role and I have spoken to some of them myself to urge them to play a strongly positive role in the future of their country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

Yes, I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. The travel advice is reviewed on a regular basis and each time there is an attack or any intelligence. It is cross-checked against what we are doing in other parts of Government and is kept under constant review.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware that the Afghan elections are approaching. The international security assistance force is drawing down, but the crucial US-Afghan partnership agreement has yet to be signed. Will the Minister update the House on when that important agreement will be finalised?

[Hugh Robertson]

No, I cannot. We continue to encourage the Afghan Government to sign that agreement for all the reasons my hon. Friend mentions. We believe it is clearly an important part of the future of Afghanistan moving forward, and we will continue to encourage the Afghanistan Government to sign it as soon as possible.

Ukraine

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend puts big ifs into his question, because the situation at the moment is not at all the one he describes; the referendum proposed for Crimea is not properly and legally constituted under the Ukrainian constitution. So we are a long way from that situation but, as he knows, the UK will always try to respect democracy and the principles of human rights that we believe in, which so often include self-determination, whenever they are truly, freely and legally expressed.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, but the interest, complexity and severity of this crisis justify not only a statement, but a full debate in the House on the matter. As a soldier, I had to study the Geneva conventions and the Hague regulations, which both state that combatants must wear a

“fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance”.

Does the Secretary of State agree that Russia must abide by the Geneva conventions in order to avoid incorrect or confused targeting or engagement, with the possibility of igniting a more serious and deadly conflict?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend makes a crucial point; despite having one of the last questions he has managed to make a new and pertinent point. There are reasons why soldiers should wear the insignia of their country, and the most terrible misunderstandings can occur without that. So he is right about that. On the subject of a debate, the Leader of the House is not in his place but I am sure that he is always aware of such requests and he will have heard that particular one.

European Council

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

On enlargement, there is a huge disparity between income per head in new member states and that in existing states, which results in many people abandoning their country for a richer one. Is it time for the EU to legislate against new entrants gaining access to other labour markets until their own economic fortunes are growing?

[Mr Lidington]

As the Prime Minister has said, we need to look at how transitional arrangements should operate in future. In his Financial Times article, my right hon. Friend suggested the idea of looking at a new entrant’s GDP in relation to average EU GDP. However, he made it clear that we are not necessarily wedded to that proposal, and are keen to hear ideas from others.

It is clear that simply relying on a somewhat arbitrary number of years and saying that all restrictions will fall away automatically at the end of that period will not restore public confidence in the enlargement process. I profoundly believe that enlargement has worked to the benefit of Europe as a whole, including the United Kingdom, so I want to see public confidence restored, and looking again at transitional controls is one important way to do that.

North Korea

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

My hon. Friend will no doubt wish to discuss that at the meeting of the Conservative group on North Korea that I believe is taking place tomorrow. He mentions indoctrination, and I have to say that the levels of indoctrination that go on there are almost surreal—incomparable with any other regime or country in the world. It is truly horrific, with almost every aspect of the Korean people’s lives being the result of indoctrination. That is why, as I said, we maintain an embassy because any chink of light is better than no light at all, but it is a long haul and it is difficult work.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware that many North Koreans in touch with families in South Korea have reported not only that the number of indoctrination sessions has increased, but that targeted individuals are being forced to write letters of loyalty to the leader, Kim Jong-un. Does that not suggest that Jang’s execution is part of a wider campaign to consolidate power as the economy continues to fail?

[Mr Swire]

There are indeed reports that Jang has taken the blame for the desperate state of the economy, and there are also reports that this is the work of the military and not of the leader, but all these are just that: reports. We could indulge ourselves all afternoon by speculating about the reasons behind this. The answer is we do not know. The one fact of which we are certain is that the people of North Korea are suffering in a way that some of us can only guess at, and some of us would not wish that treatment to be vested on even our worst enemies.

Iran

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

This is a similar question to the one from my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). It is, of course, a hypothetical question, because such action did not take place. The debate about such action did, however, produce a change of policy by Russia and the Assad regime, and we are now seeing the dismantling of Syria’s chemical warfare programme. It is idle to speculate what might have happened in many different scenarios. Relations with Iran on this issue should be viewed on their own merits and on their own terms, and they are not necessarily related to Iran’s other policies and to its involvement in, or opinion about, Syria. We should be careful about making those linkages.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Iran’s enrichment programme has cast a terrible shadow over the middle east and beyond for over a decade, so I very much welcome this landmark agreement—even if it is only for an interim period. I know that my right hon. Friend hoped to be here to make this statement last week, and its being made today is a tribute to his determination to see this through. Can he confirm that the IAEA will have full and free access to all Iran’s nuclear facilities, so that Iran’s commitment to the agreement can be properly measured?

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said. To give him a flavour of what is in the agreement on this, it requires the

“Provision of specified information to the IAEA, including information on Iran’s plans for nuclear facilities, a description of each building on each nuclear site, a description of the scale of operations for each location engaged in nuclear activities, information on uranium mines and mills, and information on source material”

all to be produced

“within three months of the adoption of these measures.”

If the agreement is implemented in good faith, it will involve the provision of a lot more openness and information to the IAEA.

Gibraltar

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Simmonds]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. He is right that we need to be calm, but we need also to be firm, to make sure that the Spanish understand that the behaviour, both at the border and in the territorial waters, is not acceptable. He is also right to highlight the domestic political problems that Spain and the Spanish Government have. In addition, there are clearly some issues that relate specifically to tobacco smuggling across the Spanish-Gibraltar border. The Spanish Government, the Gibraltarian Government and the United Kingdom need to work together to resolve those.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I am left wondering whether there has been a breach of article 5 of the NATO treaty. I served in the Army in Gibraltar in 1995 as aide-de-camp to the Governor. Three-hour waits at the border were commonplace then, caused by overweight Spanish security guards taking far too long to do their inspections. When my hon. Friend met the ambassador yesterday, did he give him a copy of the treaty of Utrecht signed by the Spanish in 1713, which makes it very clear that Gibraltar is not part of Spain?

[Mark Simmonds]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I do not think the ambassador was given a copy of the treaty of Utrecht; I am sure he is very much aware of its contents. But he was told in no uncertain terms about the unacceptability of the oceanographic vessel entering British Gibraltar territorial waters and staying there for the length of time that it did. He was also made well aware of the strength of feeling that exists in both Gibraltar and the United Kingdom about the unacceptable delays at the border, which are potentially hindering the economy in Gibraltar, and hindering free access and movement for Gibraltarians and for Spanish people as well.

Iraq War (10th Anniversary)

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lucas]

May I make a little progress? I think I am getting stuck.

Regardless of individual positions taken by Members across the House at the time of the invasion, all of us agree that 10 years on we need to reflect on the consequences of the conflict and on the procedures that led to the vote, and to draw important lessons for the future.

As I touched on earlier, the Iraq war casts a long shadow over the House, setting the context for debates on foreign policy and, in particular, current debates on the middle east. Ten years on, the effect of the intervention on Iraq itself is that the negatives still outweigh the positives. There has been a protracted period of internal conflict within Iraq. As the Minister said, terrorist attacks continue, with people killed in Baghdad only this week.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for the tone he is adopting. It is refreshing to hear such personal thoughts from the Front Bench. I am concerned about what we did once the decision was made and we took responsibility for Basra. My concern, which I put to Clare Short, was why a diktat had gone around the Department for International Development to say that the war was illegal and that the Department should not have any involvement or take any responsibility. Does he agree that that put huge pressure on our armed forces, who created an umbrella of security but were unable to progress with governance and reconstruction?

[Ian Lucas]

The position of the troops following the war was one of the issues that weighed on my mind. It is always important to pay tribute to our troops. Following the vote, we asked them to serve and it was important that we supported both them and Iraq, so that it could develop and rebuild. The tragedy is that that did not happen. We need to focus on that issue and learn from it.

The massive instability in the middle east currently is caused partly by the Arab awakening and the response to it, but also by the perceived increased reluctance of the west to get involved in the region. I believe that the roots of that reluctance are the events in Iraq in 2003. There are, however, some positives. It is right to acknowledge that Saddam Hussein and his sons are no longer in power. None of us in this House mourn the passing of that dictatorship. That was brought home to me this week. I returned last night from a visit to the Iraqi region of Kurdistan, as a guest of the regional Government. It was my first visit to Iraq. In Barzan, I met victims of Saddam Hussein, including women who had lost husbands, their faces still etched with grief 30 years on. There is no doubt in the minds of Kurds—the victims of Halabja and the Anfal—that the 2003 intervention was justified. I also visited the Domiz refugee camp, where the Kurdistan regional government, working with UNHCR, has provided refuge to 150,000 fleeing Syrians, mainly Syrian Kurds. For someone who voted against the Iraq war, this was an important visit.

We must all today accept that foreign policy is made in the long shadow of the Iraq war—that cannot be denied—but it should inform, not paralyse policy. Intervention took place in Libya, authorised by the UN, backed by the UK Government and supported by the Labour Opposition. The consequences there are still unfolding, only serving to confirm the lesson of Iraq: that winning a military victory in the short term is merely the start of any process of building a stable and functioning democracy. Ten years on from the Iraq war, I saw earlier this week that in parts of Iraq we have the beginnings of a new democracy. Prime Minister Maliki visited Erbil on Sunday, as the Minister said, to work through issues and disputes that have arisen between the different parts of Iraq. A political process is going on to resolve those difficulties, and that is progress, but there are still massive challenges in Iraq and we must not overstate the progress made.

The international community is most effective when it works collectively, through the UN, to take necessary action. I hope and pray that the next decade will be defined by the kind of international co-operation that was regrettably absent in Iraq.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Meacher]

I entirely agree. That is precisely why I feel so let down by someone who was in the unique role of Prime Minister behaving in such a way. I do not expect any Prime Minister of any party ever to behave in that way.

As the Butler report points out so poignantly, all the ifs, buts, qualifications and caveats in the raw intelligence data were dropped from the dossier, while the positive allegations were distinctly overhyped. We all know that. Sources were treated as reliable when they were clearly not, and they were not checked against the expertise of intelligence staff. Anyone who has read appendix B of the Butler report, which was excellently put together, can see set out, step by step, how the massaging and accretion steadily accumulated until we were told in the final September dossier that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction programme was—in words that have echoed for the past 10 years—“active, detailed and growing” and that the intelligence on which that judgment was based was “extensive, detailed and authoritative”. In fact, as we now know, Blair had been told just over a month previously, by the UK intelligence community, that

“we…know little about Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons work since late 1988”.

The first great issue is accountability in relation to the Prime Minister’s own judgment, his deceitful presentation and his over-eagerness to take Britain into a war on grounds that far exceeded the evidence to justify them. One cannot take a country into a war under false pretences and then proclaim, as the Butler committee did, that no one can be held responsible.

Indeed the most striking characteristic of the Butler report is this disjunction between analysis and judgment. It is excellent on analysis and very poor, very cautious and very fearful about judgment. It catalogues a litany of failures and then pulls all its punches by declaring that, in effect, no one was to blame. I have to say that George Tenet was sacked as head of the CIA for intelligence failures over Iraq, but John Scarlett, who held the equivalent position in the UK and was equally responsible for the intelligence failures, is still recommended by the report for promotion, despite all the damning evidence in the report to the contrary. It is a very British establishment charade, when what is really needed is genuine accountability. I think everyone on all sides of the House is seeking that. But that the excuse is made that no one can be held to account and that it just somehow happened is completely unacceptable.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech but, on the point about the Joint Intelligence Committee, it is the responsibility of Government to digest intelligence. The information is slid across the table and then it is the Government of the day and Whitehall who make the assessments. If the intelligence is scant, the Government need to respond on the day. Does he agree that people such as Mr Scarlett did their job? It became difficult for them when the documents were slid back across the table by people like Alastair Campbell, who were saying “You need to replicate what they are finding in America.”

[Mr Meacher]

I agree that the intelligence community can only do what it can do. There are limits to the amount of information it can provide and the politicians then have a responsibility to reflect that. I completely agree and one’s anger is not that politicians were selective, but that they said the opposite of what they were being told, which I believe is unforgivable.

There are two issues on which those responsible must be held to account. One is the presentation of the evidence to the House to agree to war. Being sinuous with the truth may not exactly be lying but it is certainly not open or honest. Presenting a seriously misleading account of the facts may not be lying either but it is certainly not truthful or straightforward. The second question is about the framework of governance that allowed this to happen. On that point, of course, it would have been much better if we had had the Chilcot report, but we still have to wait for its recommendations. I think everyone in the House agrees that it is far too long delayed and we need the report urgently.

Even 10 years on, we still have not been told the crucial evidence of the secret pledges that Blair made to Bush at his Crawford ranch in Texas some 10 months before the war began and, of course, before consulting the Cabinet, Parliament or the British people. Chilcot has seen this evidence but, as I understand it, has been prevented from publishing it, even though Blair himself, as well as Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell have disclosed privileged information when it has suited their case when they have given evidence to the inquiry. Being told, as we have been, that it is not in the public interest that it should be disclosed is, in my view, the strongest possible indication that it is very much in the public interest that it should be revealed.

The second fundamental dimension of this whole saga is clearly what the war achieved in the long term.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I have just returned from a brief all-party visit to Berlin, where, with other parliamentarians, I had the opportunity to visit checkpoint Charlie. Anybody who visits will be aware of the big sections of the Berlin wall that remain, covered in graffiti, as symbols of how divided that city was. We find the same walls and constructs—blast containers—all over Baghdad, Kabul, Helmand and so on. When will sections of walls in Baghdad or Basra serve no other purpose than to remind us and remain as symbols of events in the past?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this important debate. I am grateful for it. It is appropriate to discuss the lessons learned, considering that almost 200 lives were lost, and that the campaign cost the taxpayer almost £8 billion. I declare an interest as a former regular member of the armed forces and a serving member of the reserve forces. I pay tribute, as other hon. Members have, to those who served and to the fallen—those whose lives are permanently changed through injury and, particularly, those who did not return.

The analysis should be divided into three different areas: first, the justification for intervention; secondly, the military campaign and defeating the enemy; and thirdly, the stabilisation and reconstruction phase. General Petraeus, who had a long-term involvement in Iraq, famously said that it was not enough to defeat the enemy, and that, if we are to intervene, we need to enable the local. Those are wise words to remember no matter where we want to go, whether upstream or on any campaign or intervention.

Although we might disagree with intervention, I am not sure we would be having this debate and making the cases we are making if the stabilisation and reconstruction had been more of a success story. I would go further than that and say that Tony Blair would probably have continued as leader of his party and not been taken over by his Chancellor had peace prevailed, had Basra been a success, and had the situation not deteriorated as it did in the aftermath of the invasion.

Like other hon. Members, I await the outcome of the Chilcot inquiry, which will be illuminating. I and other hon. Members attended a number of its sessions. It was interesting to hear people giving direct accounts of their roles, small and large, in the decision-making process, not least the military leaders who gave evidence who felt pulled between commitments in Iraq and continuing commitments in Afghanistan, to which hon. Members have referred. Unfortunately, I believe the inquiry will make unpleasant reading for the Labour Government in respect of some of their decisions.

On the justification for intervention, I spoke out prior to invasion against intervention. I made that absolutely clear, even though the Conservative party seemed to be in favour. As a military person, I define a threat as it is defined militarily—a threat is the ability and intent to cause harm. A threat is not just the desire to cause harm to another person, region, community or state; it must be matched with the means. People must have capability to pose a threat. If the two are not together, in military terms, the threat does not exist. That is why I began to question the justification for the invasion.

I do not have the same problem as other hon. Members with the build-up of armed forces, because that shows intent. We needed to build up capacity to allow the politicians to make the decision. Building up armed forces can persuade the enemy to change their minds. We cut the oak for the ships used in the battle of Trafalgar well in advance of any admiralty decision to attack, but it was in mind and preparations needed to take place. I also do not have much of a problem with the vote in the House on the war itself. As I said, I would have put my hand up to say that I was not convinced. Many in the House were convinced by the intelligence that was presented to them.

We realise now that there were many flaws in the intelligence and that the House was misled on, for example, the 45-minute claim that our British bases in Cyprus were somehow under threat from tactical weapons of mass destruction. There was the very sad role of Alistair Campbell interfering with John Scarlett’s report and directing British intelligence dossiers to complement US intelligence. He was then forced to resign following the tragic death of David Kelly. There was the role of General Colin Powell, for whom I have a huge amount of respect. Not long ago, he admitted that his Adlai Stevenson moment—if I can put it that way—when he addressed the United Nations to give evidence for the justification of war in February 2003, was one of the most regrettable moments of his career. There was the CIA’s claim about yellowcake coming from Niger, which was used in President Bush’s state of the union address, leading, when the truth came out, to Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, going to prison.

The issue of what Hans Blix knew has been raised a number of times and is still debated. It is clear that while working for the International Atomic Energy Agency and leading the weapons inspectors, he continued to have full access in the country, even if Saddam Hussein was not co-operating fully. He had not found any evidence and could have continued in the country for as long as he liked, but was told leave by the Americans because of the impending invasion. We now realise that there was a single intelligence source—an exiled scientist living in Germany—stating that Saddam Hussein had tactical weapons of mass destruction. That was never corroborated. Finally, United Nations resolution 1441 did not actually give the right to invade—a point made clearly by France. It leant on previous resolution 687, which provided for the right to invade if certain conditions were not met. The UN Secretary-General said that he was uncomfortable with that.

I do not stand here as an apologist and say that war was not avoidable. It might have been, but I do not believe that invasion was justified at that juncture. As has been said a number of times, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but one wonders whether Saddam Hussein would have survived the Arab spring or whether, through a natural process of change in the middle east, we would have seen him removed. It is difficult to say.

In his book “State of Denial” Bob Woodward quotes General Franks, the United States central commander in the middle east, on being asked, in December 2001—when we had just gone into Afghanistan—to draw up plans to invade Iraq. That puts into perspective the energy and determination to push forward with intervention in Iraq.

On the intervention itself, Operation Telic went as well as it could have done. In the first three weeks of March 2003, we managed to defeat the enemy completely and were seen as liberators. I pay tribute to the 7th Army Brigade, which had to set up in a very awkward and difficult environment to establish the peace. The one lesson to be learned relates to the shock and awe policy. It is a matter for further debate, but I do not now think it is right for us, armed with these incredible long-range weapons, to destroy infrastructure on such a scale— the very same infrastructure that we will need a couple of weeks after putting boots on the ground. When a decision to invade is taken, we have to be more cognisant of the need to disrupt and take out the enemy without causing more damage and costing us more in the long-term.

It was not long after the initial invasion that the British started patrolling in berets, using our skills base from Northern Ireland to win over hearts and minds by looking less offensive in our military outfits in order to work with locals. It soon became apparent, however, after the successful invasion, that there was no plan or strategy—no idea what to do or how to harness the euphoria following Saddam Hussein’s fall in order to sow the seeds of governance—and so nothing happened and we went from liberators to occupiers. Where was the army of civil servants, linguists, engineers and planners—the people with the skill sets to rebuild Basra and help its people move forward? And let us not forget the significance of Basra, whose people were elated to get rid of Saddam Hussein, who was never a friend of the city, and whose strategic importance cannot be overestimated: as Iraq’s only port, it was a lifeline for moving oil out of the country.

Yet nothing happened. We created an umbrella of security, and our soldiers, having done a brave job, looked over their shoulders, expecting somebody else to come in and deal with governance, reconstruction and development, but nobody was there. I intervened on the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas)—who, as I said, spoke with passion and concern for the position of the then Government, and whom I congratulate on taking a stand at the time—and explained how Clare Short, then at the Department for International Development, which was the one organisation with the money to provide reconstruction and development planning, decided not to participate and sent a message around the Department to that effect. As a result, our armed forces were left on their own. She should have been sacked immediately. I am pleased to say that now the relationship between the Ministry of Defence, DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has improved immensely, but the culture at the time, underlined—I am afraid—by her stance, did not allow DFID even to consider participating in war zones. It was focusing far too much on poverty.

[Mr Llwyd]

The former right hon. Lady to whom the hon. Gentleman refers made strenuous efforts to get the Prime Minister to plan for the peace, even before entering the war. She did everything she possibly could, and it was directly as a result of his not taking her advice that much of the reconstruction work was not done and the humanitarian resources were not invested immediately. She did everything she could, but she found it impossible to get through to him.

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman at all. We had a debate on Iraq when Clare Short was in the Chamber. I asked her directly—it is in Hansard—whether she sent a diktat round her Department and to her directors saying, “Do not do any planning for participating in post-conflict reconstruction, because I believe the war is illegal and I do not want to get into trouble.” I paraphrase, but those were roughly the words. She replied, “Absolutely. I did that. That was my belief at the time.” That is what happened, but whether there is more to it—

[Mr Llwyd]

There is more to it.

[Mr Ellwood]

I shall wait for the right hon. Gentleman’s speech for him to elaborate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I think it is a bit late for that.

[Mr Ellwood]

As the Minister said, there have been a number of successes of which we can be proud, so we should not be too dismayed: the referendum has led to a new constitution, there has been a series of elections and to some extent all-out civil war has been avoided, but there remains huge sectarian violence and a number of challenges ahead.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who spoke very articulately and has huge experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that Iraq was not Britain’s finest hour. This was there with the Suez crisis and our invasion of Afghanistan in 1839. There was no conflict plan. The decision to disband the army and de-Ba’athify Iraq in one fell swoop was bizarre and ignored the fact that teachers, nurses and others were forced to be part of the Ba’ath party. As soon as we made it illegal and those who were part of it unable to work, we lost the mindset of support from an important swathe of the middle-class population.

The timeline makes for grievous reading. In summer 2007, we failed to do any development and reconstruction. Our military were forced to withdraw from the city centre, as it became untenable to stay there, and relocate to the airport. The Prime Minister, Mr Maliki, said:

“Basra has been left to the mercy of the militia men”.

In the absence of anything happening, a vacuum developed. Gangs formed, which turned into militia, which then ran the city. In 2008, it was not the British who liberated the city; it was the Iraqi army. Maliki came down to Basra and decided the situation needed to come to an end and that the Mahdi army needed to be pushed out. In spring 2009, our military interest in Iraq came to an end. We did not hand the base over to the Iraqi army; we handed it over to the Americans.

[Paul Flynn]

Is it not true that Maliki—who is hardly an ideal figure—was holed up in Basra, surrounded by the militia and about to be killed, when the American army came in and rescued him?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman is correct. The details are that Maliki was surrounded and the Americans came in. Once the Mahdi army was removed and the militia brought under control, that was the first occasion when, finally, governance was possible and a mayor of Basra could be put in place to move the city forward.

In my view, after any invasion or intervention, we have a window of three to six months to get things right before the enemy can regroup and the locals then decide, “Actually, life is no better under the new regime than it was under the old.” We missed that window of opportunity, which cost Britain lives—as it did others in the international community—because of our reluctance to do what was required. My concern is this. We sit at the international top table. We are a power with nuclear weapons, we have a place on the Security Council and we have centuries of serious war fighting experience, and we could not even hold a medium-sized conurbation. The armed forces were under immense strain during this period. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, this was tied in with, and happened at the same time as, our decision to make an even grander commitment in Afghanistan, with two air bridges operating, to the point that our armed forces were almost unable to cope.

The Minister talked about some of the success stories. Many of us have visited Iraq many times. I recently went to Irbil. It is very pleasing indeed to see how much the region has moved forward from the atrocities it endured under Saddam Hussein. I only hope that such success can be emulated in the rest of the country. Unfortunately, Iraq is not in the headlines anymore, because our troops are not there, but as hon. Members across the House have mentioned, there were as many deaths in this last month as there were in 2008. The scale of continuing atrocities is quite shocking.

In conclusion, there are serious questions about our decision to go to war in the first place, about how Parliament debates these matters and about our ability to do post-conflict reconstruction. This House regularly pays tribute to our armed forces for their commitment and professionalism and the sacrifice they make for our country, but in the long history of British military engagements, Iraq was far from our finest hour. That was no fault of theirs, I should say, but falls totally on the shoulders of the Government of the day, who failed to plan for peace. I am pleased that the Prime Minister, in looking at other interventions, which have also been mentioned in this debate, has introduced three conditions for this House to approve any intervention. First, is there a legal basis for intervention? Secondly, is there regional support? Thirdly, is there an international commitment to the cause? I hope that, as we look for solutions in Syria and the Sahel, the Prime Minister’s conditions will not be forgotten.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I very much hope so. We cannot foresee the whole future of Afghanistan but, as the right hon. Lady knows, enormous progress has been made regarding the involvement of women and the education of girls in Afghanistan. That should bring about profound changes in Afghan society in future. Concepts of human rights, including women’s rights, are written into the Afghan constitution. One of the requirements that President Karzai has set out for future reconciliation is acceptance of the constitution and of a democratic way of life. We will always insist that that is an important part of Afghanistan’s future.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

May I join in the tributes to General Petraeus, who has done a difficult job in Afghanistan? We have been there for 10 years, and some say that we are trying to tiptoe out of the country, suffering from Afghan fatigue. Is the Secretary of State reconsidering the Bonn accord and the constitution in line with what the Afghan people want, which is a less centralised and more regionalised approach to governance in Afghanistan?

[Mr Hague]

There is certainly no tiptoeing here. Our involvement in Afghanistan will remain very, very strong over the coming years—both the military effort over the next few years and our long-term commitment to Afghanistan through economic co-operation, development aid, governmental expertise and so on. My hon. Friend refers to local governance and devolved decision making, which are important issues in Afghanistan and must be considered as part of the whole debate on reconciliation by the High Peace Council and in meetings between the Afghan and Pakistani Governments as they discuss the matter. Ultimately, that is for them to determine.