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I supported the policy on sanctions right through, as did many in this House. I supported sanctions on the basis that they would be enforced. They were not.
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The Kurdish political party, PUK, was reporting kickbacks on illicit oil sales. It had picked up this information while monitoring KDP revenue-raising operations in northern Iraq. Finally, the sanctions policy was not hurting the people it was intended to hurt; it was actually hurting the people of Iraq. The truth is that the lack of proper enforcement of the sanctions regime was propping up Saddam Hussein’s regime with illegal revenues.
I went on two separate occasions to Washington to argue for enforcement, on the first occasion to Congress and on the second to the State Department. Sanctions for me were always an alternative to war. I raised the issue through the Intelligence and Security Committee on delegations we had to Washington. I raised the issue when I led an Anglo-American parliamentary group delegation to Washington in the late 1990s. I raised the issue repeatedly on the Floor of the House of Commons in Questions and in debate. I argued for a Commons Select Committee inquiry to consider sanctions, which it subsequently did. It confirmed abuse of the sanctions policy. The problem was that everyone who could do anything about it turned a blind eye. The most that we could secure was an assurance in Congress that, at some stage, an inquiry would be set up. Indeed, that has happened in the form of the Volcker inquiry, but very late in the whole process.
I then started arguing in the Commons and elsewhere for military intervention. I blame the war on those who breached sanctions. I blame Kofi Annan and his failure to stand up to the international community and demand enforcement of sanctions. I also blame the Governments of France, Russia and, in particular, the Clinton White House, who turned a complete blind eye and did not even want to know about the problem. A decision had obviously been taken in Washington: “We will just let them get on with it”. People in the State Department were arguing that that was providing revenue through an illegal tax-take to the KDP in northern Europe.
In my view, they will bear responsibility because it is they who propped up the Saddam Hussein regime. If we need proof of this, all we need to do is read Volcker. It linked 2,400 companies to breaches of sanctions. It linked 11 British companies to bribery allegations. The roll of dishonour included thousands of companies with global interests, notably Daimler, Chrysler, Siemens, Volvo, Glencore and a host of other international operations. They were all implicated in undermining the sanctions policy.
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The truth is that many of those companies by their actions, along with a freeze-framed UN, prolonged the policy of sanctions and made it unenforceable. They bear responsibility for the agony of Iraq and the major loss of life. However, the major powers are still dragging their feet by failing to pursue many of the companies involved.
One of the organisations that particularly interests me is the Australian Wheat Board, with its alleged payment of £125 million to the Saddam Hussein regime. Another allegation, perhaps smaller, which I have been following is one made against a Mr John Irving, a British oil trader—that he and others, through a company called Bayoil, corruptly paid commissions to the regime. I support John Irving's call for a Serious Fraud Office inquiry into the allegations.
However, my real interest is in the Weir Group. It has reportedly admitted that it paid millions in irregular payments through a Swiss bank account. It claims that it made the payments through an agent, for whom it did not have responsibility. Volcker says that a man called Andrew Macleod negotiated the deal. Macleod was questioned and stated:
An agent giving evidence to Volcker corroborated his account by providing copies of two e-mails from Mr Macleod in January 2002 that,
- “requested the agent’s assistance with kickback payment arrangements. In one of these e-mails, WEMCO Envirotech’s Financial Manager advised Mr. Macleod of ‘this “10% AFTER SALES TAX”’ and the need to make sure that the shipping company had proof of payment, before ‘Iraqi Authorities’ will ‘let the vessel discharge the goods’. Mr. Macleod forwarded the e-mail to the agent with a list of all contract numbers and asked the agent to ‘supply’ the payment information for these contracts: ‘Trust you will action accordingly’”,
On that matter, the Volcker report states:
“Weir declined the Committee’s request to meet with employees who were involved in Weir's business in Iraq. Most significantly, the Committee requested to speak with Andrew Macleod, a current Weir employee who appears as the contract signatory ... Instead, Weir responded to inquiries through Alan Mitchelson ... Mr. Mitchelson stated that Weir’s own investigation has not revealed evidence of any agreement ... Despite Weir's insistence that its agent was to blame and that there was no agreement by its own employees to pay any kickbacks to Iraq, documents obtained by the Committee from Iraq reveal that Mr. Macleod signed several agreements to pay kickbacks on Weir’s behalf”.
I shall not go on quoting from the Volcker report, but the reality is that such companies have blood on their hands, because they are the ones that undermine the policy of sanctions that would have worked. This war would have been avoided if we had properly enforced the sanctions policy. It is now 15 months since Strathclyde Police visited the United Nations in New York to interview the Volcker staff on the Weir allegations. What has happened? Nothing. These inquiries are being driven into the long grass all over the world, and now we talk of introducing sanctions against other states in the region. What nonsense. Exactly the same will happen in the future. That is why I will oppose whatever sanction regimes are
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I will welcome the inquiry of the noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, when it is finally set up, although, as I said, it is premature at the moment. But I hope, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, says, that lessons will be learnt from the period leading up to the war when a sanctions policy was supposed to be in operation. That should be at the heart of any inquiry set up in the future.
3.57 pm
Lord Garden: My Lords, I congratulate the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker of Aldringham, on a powerful maiden speech. It is a particular pleasure to welcome him; we were colleagues as fellow assistant chiefs of our services 15 years ago in the Ministry of Defence. He made a particularly powerful speech about the dedication of our servicemen. We tragically lost a Royal Marine in Helmand province yesterday to an anti-personnel mine, and we on these Benches offer our condolences to the families.
I also thank the Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, for giving us this opportunity to focus on so many issues about Iraq. His call for an inquiry is important and, as my noble friend Lord Alderdice said, we on these Benches support the call. We have had some discussion about the appropriateness of the timing of such an inquiry, but we need to learn lessons from our mistakes, both in the run-up to the conflict and after the war fighting period had finished, because if we do not learn those lessons, we shall repeat the mistakes. I argue that we are already in the process of repeating them; we are looking at benign outcomes when they may not be benign, and we are kidding ourselves about how easy the security situation is, even as we speak.
Noble Lords should be grateful to the United States, which publishes such comprehensive information for us all to read; a lesson in open government. The most significant document recently was the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was approved by the US National Intelligence Board on 29 January. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm in his speech that the United Kingdom intelligence community shares the assessments of all its US colleagues who signed up. We have talked about whether a civil war is going on in Iraq. The key judgment in the estimate was: “The Intelligence Community”—that is, the US intelligence community,
- “judges that the term ‘civil war’ does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term ‘civil war’ accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements”.
The recommendation in this assessment of the problem of the population displacements, both internal and external, about which the noble Lord,
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The National Intelligence Estimate concludes that if the security situation does not improve in Iraq—it is fairly pessimistic about that possibility—there are three possible outcomes. First, we may get chaos leading to partition; secondly, there may be the emergence of the Shia strongman to take control of Iraq; or thirdly, there may be anarchic fragmentation of power. Those are the United States intelligence estimates about the way Iraq is going and those thoughts should govern us when we look at our strategy.
As other noble Lords have said, we look at commentators—official, academic and journalists—from the region, from Europe and from the United States. I have found that, of those, the most consistently reliable one has been Anthony Cordesman who holds the chair in strategy at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He has been particularly reliable at laying out options and their implications over the past four years. Earlier this month, he gave a very sombre assessment of the options and the likely outcomes in the light of President Bush’s new approach with the surge operation into Baghdad. I want to concentrate on one aspect of his analysis which plays into this question of whether the British Government and, indeed, the United States Government, are repeating previous mistakes by being overly complacent or optimistic about the situation.
We have been told time and again that the situation in Iraq is not uniformly bad; namely, that 14 out of 18 provinces are in reasonable shape, that the UK area of responsibility is progressively being handed over to Iraqi forces as it is so much less difficult than elsewhere, and so on. Yesterday, the Lord President told us that 80 per cent of the violence was around Baghdad. Last night, on “Newsnight”, the Defence Secretary said that 80 to 90 per cent of the violence was around Baghdad and the Prime Minister this morning on “Today” coincidentally used the figure 80 to 90 per cent of the violence being in Baghdad.
Cordesman identifies this assessment as a misapprehension. He notes that the Iraq Study Group was correct when it said that,
- “official US reporting on the patterns of violence in Iraq may reflect less than a 10th of the actual struggle, and much of this violence is outside Baghdad”.
That is why looking beyond the headline suicide bomber deaths and the death squad murders in the capital is so important. Even if the United States strategy to gain control of Baghdad were to succeed, which the assessment considers to be fairly difficult, there is no plan for what to do beyond that to secure the remainder of the country. As Cordesman says:
“So far, however, the US has not shown that it has a clear plan for taking control of Baghdad with the US and Iraqi resources it has available, or described a credible operational plan for moving from ‘win’ to ‘hold’ and ‘build.’ It has completely failed to set forth a strategy and meaningful operational plan for dealing with Iraq as a country even if it succeeds in Baghdad”.
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Cordesman does what we call in military circles a “red team” analysis of the options open to the insurgents and militants. I trust that similar studies are going on in the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office. Among the various options open to them is the possibility that during this surge operation in Baghdad, they move their action away from the capital, which may of course have a direct effect on the UK region in the south. He also suggests that the Shiite militias may stand down temporarily, while the Sunni insurgents will have to continue operations, which will of course result in the United States and Iraqi security forces effectively fighting on the Shiite side. There is an outcome then which divides the spoils between the Shias and Kurds, and the worst chaos is averted. But it is a far cry from the democratic aspirations that we trumpeted originally and might give rise to the Shia strongman predicted by the National Intelligence Estimate. I wonder what the Government’s view is on that. Is that a least worst option as we see things now?
When we come to the British sector, just how well under control is it? We have been assured repeatedly that the handing over of our four provinces was on course. Maysan was the next to go, and indeed as recently as 22 November the Foreign Secretary said in the other place that she expected it to be transferred to Iraq authority in January. Yet as the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, told us on Tuesday, Maysan province is now so dangerous that we cannot recover a C-130 Hercules aircraft after a landing incident and instead must destroy it at a loss of £45 million. This does not seem to bode well for the security situation. So I ask the question again: are we not being too complacent? Indeed, today’s Los Angeles Times identifies a report from the Pentagon to Congress about American concerns about the state of play down in the south.
I turn now to what this means for the United Kingdom’s contribution in Iraq. Yesterday the Prime Minister outlined an indicative timetable for a partial withdrawal. The question is whether this is the right strategy. If the United States approach is yet again too short term and lacking the follow-through plan, a repeat of the mistakes we talked about back in May 2003, we need to consider where that leaves us for the UK forces. I share the deep concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that abandoning Iraq to absolute chaos is not on, and it would probably mean that the neighbouring states would have to get involved with unknown consequences for conflict in the region. Yet I disagree with him about what that means for the UK forces. It does not mean that the UK forces are locked there for ever; they are not the essential linchpin to security in Iraq. They make up just 5 per cent of the multinational forces deployed and they will be even less after the forthcoming reduction. If they were totally withdrawn, as we have argued, their tasks would be absorbed by other forces, predominantly those of the United States, which has already indicated that given our drawdown it intends to provide a reserve and perhaps go into our area if it looks as though it is getting out of control. The United States would enjoy unity of command and be able to apply its strategy for good or ill across the whole of the country, and we would not risk the
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This is not an abandonment of our ally, the United States, because we have a second challenging operation in which we are working together—in Afghanistan. We have today a relatively small but very professional military, and we all know what tremendous work they do. Dividing our assets between two campaigns is not a recipe for success in either. We have to supply two theatres and the valuable enabling assets such as airlift, both strategic and tactical, is in short supply. I do not expect the Minister, from his Foreign Office portfolio, to comment on the military wisdom of concentrating our forces on one campaign, but I trust he recognises that operating for so many years beyond our planned requirements is a matter of deep concern to those who value the capability of our Armed Forces. They have spent four years in Iraq doing difficult and dangerous work with their customary great skill, but it has taken a long-term toll on our capability. We are no longer sure what outcome the United States is aiming for in Iraq. It is time to concentrate our effort on that other difficult and important task in Afghanistan. As the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said, the Government would be wise to plan now for the early withdrawal of all Armed Forces from Iraq.
4.10 pm
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, it is our custom to say that the debates we hold in your Lordships’ House are very timely, although we do not always mean it. However, if ever there was a debate which landed right on schedule, on the right runway at the right time, this is it. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Hurd for introducing it with such a superb presentation of his case, to which I will come in a minute.
The debate has been greatly enhanced by the maiden speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker of Aldringham, who brought enormous expertise and wisdom to it. He reminded us of the crucial covenant between servicemen in the Armed Forces, the people of this country and the representatives of the people of this country, a covenant which must hold and must never be allowed to break. We obviously want to hear more of the noble and gallant Lord’s wisdom in the future.
Time has passed since the debate in the other place on 31 October last year on a possible inquiry into the whole Iraq affair. Since it started, 132 British soldiers have died on active service in Iraq; between £4 and £5 billion has been spent, although it may be much more than that; and hundreds, if not thousands, more Iraqi lives continue to be lost in the unending bloodshed. On top of that, the number of deaths
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Also, since the debate in the other place in October, there have been a number of crucial developments. The whole saga of Iraq and its associated problems is, in effect, entering an entirely new phase. First, as noble Lords have pointed out, there has been the Baker-Hamilton report, with its emphasis on diplomacy and on the need for regional co-operation. Many of us agreed with that report, even though to my mind it suffered from a big defect in that it contained the central belief that the USA still has the power to impose its template on the Middle East region and be the dominant power, and that it still has the capacity to extract itself from its own errors. I believe that is a flawed view and that America will need help from many others, not only Europe and the regional powers, including, I am afraid, Iran, but the rising Asian powers—although that raises broader issues.
Secondly, the so-called surge strategy has begun to unfold, with 21,500 extra US troops now filing into Baghdad to somehow, we hope, pacify a situation that 130,000 troops could not pacify.
Thirdly, there has been the UK decision, announced yesterday, to wind down troop levels, combined with what most people now recognise as a depressing loss of direction in policy. I cannot think of any better example of that than the simultaneous welcome for the Baker-Hamilton report, which urged talks not troops, and for the Bush initiative that followed it, which urged troops not talks. Both were ticked and supported by the British Government. Truly Britain’s reputation for clarity and purpose in international policy has never been weaker nor our influence more tarnished.
We are told that this latest withdrawal is justified by improvements in Basra security. Indeed, the spin has been that it somehow fits with the concurrent American build-up of troops in Baghdad. As I mentioned yesterday, I hope and trust that this picture is accurate and that there is nothing artificial about this rather sudden judgment that Basra is peaceful and Iraqi forces can take over. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, also raised that question. It would be good to know how and when this decision was reached. Indeed, it would be good to know how any decisions have been reached over the past three years as we have found ourselves stuck deeper and deeper in the quagmire. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who aspires to be Prime Minister, keeps repeating to us, we must learn the lessons of Iraq. To learn the lessons, however, we need to know much more clearly than at present what went wrong and why. We need to examine the flawed assumptions, the misleading generalisations about the region, the warnings ignored, the situations misunderstood and the relationship with Washington in all its aspects.
My noble friend Lord Hurd asked whether that would damage troop morale. On the contrary: as we enter this next phase, the ideal time is approaching for
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It keeps being said that we have had enough inquiries. There have been the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other place, the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Hutton investigation into the death of Dr Kelly and the inquiry of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, into intelligence failures. With all due respect to all those undertakings, however, a host of major questions remain unexamined. The first is the puzzle of Cabinet procedures and how these decisions came to be taken. Why, asked the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in a very thoughtful speech in this House on 29 June last year, was there no war Cabinet to guide and shape policy as the hour of invasion approached? What part did we play in the timing of the invasion?
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