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Iraq and the Middle East

My Lords, I am sure that we are all immensely grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating this enormously full Statement of intention and roundup of the Middle East situation generally. Obviously, it is welcome news that some of our brave troops are coming home. It will be particularly welcome to the families of those who are serving and have served there, and to the Armed Forces generally in their present state of chronic overstretch. It is equally obvious that the drawdown raises a set of vital questions, of which the first must be about the security and positioning of our remaining troops, for whom our admiration is unlimited. In the past three years since the invasion, the situation in Basra has declined tragically; since, if I may add a personal note, 2004 when my son served there and found a thoroughly co-operative and even friendly atmosphere. We are now told that after that serious decline, things are looking better again and that therefore troops can be removed. We all hope and trust that that assessment is right, when so many assessments about Iraq have proved wrong. I trust that there is nothing artificial or wishful about the discovery of improvements in Basra which allow the withdrawal. I hope and trust that our troops left there will be able to carry out their new duties of supporting Iraqi army training, border supervision and securing supply routes with reasonable, although obviously not complete, safety. We would value assurances on that. Above all, I hope and trust—we all need reassurance on this—that our troops will be properly equipped and not left, in the words of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, yesterday, when addressing the Global Strategy Forum, "““at the end of their tether””," and, "““close to operational failure””," through lack of the right equipment, sometimes even having to borrow superior kit from other forces such as, in one recent incident, the Estonian contingent. Turning to the overall situation, which the Prime Minister covered, can the noble Baroness explain exactly how we see our plans fitting in with current American intentions? We had the Baker-Hamilton report in Washington the other day, which called for much more involvement with neighbours and other powers in coping with the Iraq situation and for the more intensive use of diplomacy on all fronts. We agree with that approach. Yet the next moment we had the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary applauding the US Administration’s decision not to follow that route but to send in 21,500 more troops to the Iraq maelstrom and to ignore the proposals for seeking closer linkages with neighbours such as Iran and Syria, as well as with other regional and world powers. We recognise the difficulty of dealing with Iran when its leader makes such wild and aggressive statements and it is right that if Iran is encouraging mischief-making in Iraq, as it certainly has been, that should be sharply and effectively confronted. Today is the UN deadline for Iran to suspend its unauthorised uranium enrichment activities. Will the noble Baroness confirm that we continue to put diplomacy and negotiation first in engaging with Iran? Will she confirm the UK’s agreement reached last week with US Under-Secretary Burns, who took a very wise approach, that while using sanctions against Iran, the exit door should be kept open, everything done to keep contact with the people of Iran and diplomatic solutions sought? Speaking of sanctions, the one sort that seems to work in putting pressure on the Iranian leadership is the financial sort imposed particularly through the American banking system. What steps we have taken on this side of the Atlantic to persuade the European Union membership to follow suit? The Prime Minister also spoke of the Israel-Palestine situation, on which of course we all hope for progress, especially if Al Fatah and Hamas can sort out their differences. Are the Government still focusing, however, as much as I believe they should, on the critical situation in Lebanon, where Israeli, Iranian and Syrian pressures and ambitions all dangerously collide? Do the Government regret being quite so unequivocal in supporting the misguided Israeli strategy of smashing Lebanon to get at Hezbollah? What steps are we taking now to see that the legitimate Lebanese Government of Mr Siniora are not undermined by extremists and street violence, egged on by Iranian and Syrian resources, and carried through by the apparently undefeated Hezbollah movement? The Prime Minister talks in his Statement of ““an epochal struggle”” in the Middle East. These generalisations sound good, but in fact there are numerous complex and different struggles in the region, which need to be understood and dealt with in a whole variety of ways, mixing hard-power and soft-power methods. We on this side supported the decision to overthrow Saddam—although we were given faulty intelligence on Iraq—but the string of errors since then confirms our view that subsequent events have not been well handled; that strategy has not been clear, steady, or well thought out; and that very serious mistakes and omissions have occurred in the shaping of Cabinet decisions and of government policy at the highest level. That is why we think the time is coming for a full-scale inquiry into the conduct of the whole war operation. We note that in the USA several such inquiries are being held, uncovering new evidence, and going wider and deeper than the various reports we have been given, for example, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hutton, the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and others. We believe that we owe it to our brave Armed Forces, who are so dedicated and professional, to look frankly and honestly at the way in which things have gone wrong, so as to learn and apply the lessons swiftly. Your Lordships will debate this very issue tomorrow, when I hope this viewpoint will be endorsed and pressed home firmly. The vision of a peaceful, prosperous, western-model, democratic Middle East is, frankly, today as far away as ever. Perhaps it was too naïve a vision in the first place. We should certainly fight for our values and our security—we should fight not with slogans, but with subtlety, experience, understanding and dexterity. These are the qualities that have been missing in government policy. It is good that some of our brave troops should now be progressively withdrawn from a dire situation, in a dangerous region, which, frankly, will never be solved entirely by military force alone. It is bad, however, that there have been so many faults and impulsive errors along the way. The sooner we learn the full story, the full lessons from what has gone wrong, and how, even now, to help set it all on a more promising and constructive path, the better.