Iraq Inquiry Report

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in this debate. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and others on securing this extremely important debate. I agree with my right hon. Friend. When the former Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, Lord Hurd, described the delay in the publication of the report as a scandal, he was absolutely right. Many of us in this House were absolutely horrified by the way in which Sir John Chilcot buried his head in the sand amidst the criticism that was, I think last year or in 2014, all around. My right hon. Friend set out the timetable according to which we were assured action would be taken and the report published, but we have been strung along, and as has been said, it is the bereaved who are paying the price for delay.

The Conservative party, as the official Opposition in 2007, called for a public inquiry into the reasons for the Iraq war and the conduct thereof. We initiated that debate on 11 June 2007, and I happened to wind up for the Opposition as a shadow Defence Minister. The Labour party opposed it. The then Foreign Secretary described an inquiry as “self-indulgent” retrospection and our debate as “opportunistic”. Of course, that changed, because Gordon Brown, in 2009, eventually ordered the Chilcot inquiry, but by then six years had passed.

We were not alone in supporting an inquiry; some in the Labour party also supported it. I cannot remember but I am sure the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) did. The late Michael Meacher certainly did. We gave three reasons why we felt an inquiry was needed. First, there was a lack of any discussion, in the run-up to the conflict, about post-conflict reconstruction. I remember going to Washington at the time. The debate there, in the run-up to the conflict, was all about post-conflict reconstruction. The fact that it was not delivered is another matter, but we were not even having that debate here. We had a debate on 30 January 2003, initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), then shadow Secretary of State for International Development, during which the Government were simply not willing to discuss the aftermath of any conflict.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I do not think we learn anything. Look at the situation in the middle east: Libya—a mess; Egypt—to some extent a dictatorship. We have learned nothing from these interventions, and all because we never planned any post-war reconstruction.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Indeed. I could not possibly disagree. That is entirely right.

Secondly, we felt the inquiry was necessary

“to consider how we should adjust our whole military posture to the new type of military operations we face, including at the tactical level: whether our soldiers, sailors and airmen are getting the right training package for that type of warfare; whether…we have the right equipment for the task; whether we have the correct balance of forces, and what needs to be done so that we do not become disproportionately reliant on urgent operational requirements—a kind of panic-buying formula—to make up the shortfall in equipment.”—[Official Report, 11 June 2007; Vol. 461, c. 583.]

Thirdly and finally, there had already been several Select Committee inquiries, and there was a real need for a comprehensive inquiry by an independent committee established by the Government. We suggested there was real urgency. In introducing today’s debate, my right hon. Friend mentioned the effect of the time lag. At the time, I said:

“The reason for the relative urgency is that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks”—

now Lord Hague—

“said, while the events are fresh in people’s minds and the e-mails have not been destroyed, we need to learn whatever lessons we can from the background to operations in Iraq so far, and to apply them to Afghanistan before it is too late.”—[Official Report, 11 June 2007; Vol. 461, c. 585.]

So there was an imperative, and a great disservice has been done to everybody, in that the inquiry was not established in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq war but indeed was six years late. As I said, the bereaved are owed an explanation.

[Mr David Davis]

My hon. Friend has been a Defence Minister and shadow Defence Minister. What is his opinion of the argument put at the time that, whenever our forces are in the field, we cannot have an inquiry, which seems madness to me? We had a successful inquiry into Norway, for example.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. He mentioned Norway, and indeed there is plenty of precedent. I think that that was an excuse for not holding an inquiry, and I think that it was a mistake.

It is not just the bereaved who are owed an explanation, however. Those of us who were in the House at the time are owed one as well. All of us bore a responsibility for the decisions that we made on whether to vote for the war or not, and those of us who were on the Front Bench bore a special responsibility. However, we had no more information than what we read in the newspapers.

When I voted for the war, I did so for three reasons. First, I had had a meeting in New York with Hans Blix, the United Nations chief weapons inspector, who had said that he had no doubt that Saddam Hussein intended to develop weapons of mass destruction, and that if he could develop them he would use them, but he—Hans Blix—could not, at that point, find them. He said that just a month before the war started, and I thought that it was pretty compelling.

My second reason was, of course, the “45 minutes” claim. I remember this vividly, because it was all over the front page of the Evening Standard. We were told that Saddam Hussein could launch what I think were described as “battlefield biological and chemical weapons” at 45 minutes’ notice, and reach the sovereign British base of Cyprus. I thought, “I have a responsibility. I am a shadow defence Minister.” I could hear Mr John Humphreys, on the “Today” programme, saying, “Well, you knew all about this, Mr Howarth, so why did you not take action at the time?” I felt that that claim had to be taken seriously.

Thirdly, I thought that, as a key ally of the United States, we had a very close relationship with that country, and we had to have a good reason for not supporting our US friends. I realise that that view will not be shared universally in the House.

[Paul Flynn]

Can the hon. Gentleman, from his very knowledgeable position on this matter, clarify something that has been a great puzzle? While a case might have been made for saying that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, was there any plausible case for saying in what scenario he would ever use them against the west without guaranteeing his own suicide?

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[Sir Gerald Howarth]

That is a good question, but it is a question in retrospect. At the time, not only did the chief weapons inspector tell me, to my face—and tell the other members of the Defence Committee who met him in New York—that he thought that Saddam Hussein was intent on developing weapons of mass destruction, but I was then told by the Government—the British Government, my Government—that there was a possibility that he would be able to launch those lethal weapons at 45 minutes’ notice.

That brings me to my next point, which is, of course, that all this involved Dr David Kelly, and all the tragedy surrounding that poor chap, and the dodgy dossier. I believe that one of the things for which Mr Blair and the rest of the Government will have to account to the nation is what I consider to be the usurpation of the Joint Intelligence Committee by the Prime Minister’s spin doctor, Alastair Campbell. He was the man who was putting pressure on the Committee, led by Sir John Scarlett, to release enough information to produce—to coin a phrase—a “sexed-up” dossier to make the case as convincingly as possible, to us in the House and to the British people, that there was a real threat which we could not ignore and on which we had to take action.

I think that one of the lessons we have to learn now is that the Joint Intelligence Committee must be led by a man or woman with experience in security matters, and must not be subject to political pressure. Its professional view must be respected, and its authority must not be usurped.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my very good friend for allowing me to intervene. I agree with every word that he has said so far, but one question has confused and really worried me, and I do not think we have had an answer to it yet. If there were no weapons of mass destruction—I am referring particularly to chemical weapons—what was it that killed the Kurds and the marsh Arabs? We have never found those. Where the heck did they go?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

My hon. and gallant Friend has raised a very good question. I do not think that it will be the subject of my contribution to the debate, but I hope that he will be able to develop it if he is able to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I have set out the position of the Conservative Opposition at the time. We believed that it was imperative and urgent for an inquiry to be held. I have explained why I supported the war, and have described some of the shenanigans that went on in an attempt to persuade the British people that there was a justification for it. I think that the delay in the report’s publication has been wholly unacceptable, and I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden. Five years ago, Sir John said that it would take him a few months to prepare the final report; for five years those families have been having to wait, and have been held in limbo.

I agree that the Maxwellisation arrangement must be revisited. We cannot allow an open-ended opportunity for people who have been criticised in a draft report to respond to that criticism. There must be a time limit. As one who was deeply critical of the Saville report, which took 12 years and cost £200 million, I think that the country needs to start looking very carefully at how it conducts inquiries such as this.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am afraid not. A great many other Members wish to speak.

Let us compare what has gone on in the last seven years with what went on after the Falklands campaign. Three weeks after the end of that war, the Prime Minister announced an inquiry, and the inquiry team took six months to deliberate and report. There were international ramifications, because the United States was initially tempted to take the side of its South American neighbour. I know that certain sensitivities will apply in this case in connection with the relationship between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush, but there were similar sensitivities in the case of the Falklands campaign. That inquiry cost £81,000, which at today’s prices is about £280,000.

This morning I was advised by a friend that the Chilcot report is likely to run to 2.5 million words and 12 volumes. Whether the interests of better understanding will be served by a report of that length I know not, but what I do know is that we in this House are right to demand that the report be published as quickly as possible.

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[Mr Holloway]

I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting intervention.

To continue my theme of the inexperienced political class ignoring the experts, Britain’s one ambassador who actually understood what was going on and expressed it to politicians now works for HSBC. On Syria, we have not taken advice from officials who have been deployed forward with the Syrian opposition, as was. They argue that ISIS is fundamentally a political and counter-terrorist problem, much less a military problem, and a function of broken politics in the countries concerned and in the wider region. We have again thrown ourselves behind an American-led, largely military strategy that, until recently, threatened to turn the whole of Syria into hell.

Iraq went wrong, and the NATO deployment to Afghanistan cannot be counted as a success, and neither can Libya or Syria. The sanctions being imposed on ordinary people in Syria today cannot be considered a success.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon.—and gallant—Friend for giving way. I agree with much of what he says, and I particularly endorse his comments about military commanders. They do themselves, their country and this House no service by not telling us the truth. They need to speak truth unto power.

I gently suggest to my hon. Friend that we went into Libya because Benghazi was about to be subjected to genocide. Had we not done so, we would have been criticised for allowing thousands of innocent people to be destroyed. We were on the horns of a dilemma. The Prime Minister was in a difficult position, and I do not blame him for his decision. We would be in just as bad a position now had Benghazi fallen.

[Mr Holloway]

I drove down with my friend Leo to the frontline at Ajdabiya. The armoured vehicles that had been hit on the edge of Benghazi were still warm. I completely agree that if the vehicles had got into town it would have been enormously serious, but to proceed with regime change, when some of our officials did not accept that there were tribal issues in Libya, was a big mistake, for which the people of Libya are paying the price.

Our overall approach since 9/11 has left our country facing much greater dangers. Neither Saddam nor the Taliban threw so much as a petrol bomb at the west, yet the images of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria on the websites of global jihad will have terrible consequences for our people.

After the chemical outrages in Damascus, Parliament was asked to vote to bomb the Assad regime. Three years later, we were again asked to vote to bomb, but this time it was to bomb the forces opposing Assad. I wonder how many of us here voted to bomb both the Syria Government and their opponents. It is little wonder, especially after Iraq and Afghanistan, that the public do not have much confidence when Ministers tell them that they deserve their backing in such endeavours.

When the Chilcot report eventually is published, we will need to scour its content in the hope that it might lead us to take more seriously the security of our people and move us away from the dreadful career politics that have infected us. Chilcot may point to dysfunction rather bigger than just Iraq and rather closer to this Chamber. We must learn from our mistakes, and we owe that to our people and to those in countries where we have contributed to unimaginable insecurity.

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[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I did not intend to speak, but I rise to do so because my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) has asked me to speak anecdotally, as he knows very well some of my experiences. My theme for the next couple of minutes is why I believe our senior military officers have become too politicised.

In April 1993, I took soldiers into the village of Ahmici in central Bosnia. I identified a massacre where at least 100 people had been killed and I decided that I had to inform the world—it was my duty under Geneva conventions. I decided that I would have a press conference where I would identify the people I thought were responsible—special forces of the Bosnian Croat army. Then I informed the Ministry of Defence. Of course, by my action I was kissing goodbye to a glorious military career—

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Opening up a new one.

[Bob Stewart]

Not for a while. When I returned to my base, I received a blistering telegram demanding to know how I had the authority to make such a statement. It said I was meant to be neutral and I was not to get involved in the war. I was later told that I had ordered my men to open fire in defence of themselves, that I was way out of line and that I very much risked being sacked immediately. That was rather depressing for me. However, as a result of that press conference, front pages in this country carried the story—it was in the news, on the television and on the radio—and the reaction from the public and from politicians, both Back-Bench Members of this House and Ministers, was unanimously supportive. The generals who had given me that severe wigging then sent another signal, totally ignoring the first one, saying that I had acted in the highest traditions of the British Army and I was to be congratulated. It was at this time that I thought perhaps our senior officers are too politically correct. Since then I have decided, as people who look at the Daily Mail and The Sun today will know, that political correctness is something I do not necessarily particularly agree with.

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[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Let me say at the outset that we certainly welcome this debate, and our thanks should be recorded to those Members from different political parties who put their names to the motion. We have had a good debate. This is a serious issue that exercises the minds of not only Members of this House, but many people across the country. The concerns of so many people in our country have today been well expressed, articulately and in different ways.

As has been said, it was Labour that set up the inquiry in July 2009, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister. I have heard what Members have said about how such an inquiry should be conducted, but as was made clear at the time, it was genuinely thought that the inquiry should begin only once all British combat troops had left Iraq. I remain convinced that that was the right course of action to take at the time.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition took a rather different view, and voted in favour of our motion, but the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who was in the Chamber earlier, took the Government line, even though he has been a critic of the decision since then?

[Wayne David]

I willingly acknowledge that this issue is open to discussion and judgment, but at the time that was our judgment, and I think that it was probably the correct one. The important thing, I would stress, is that the Labour party did not at the time expect that the report, thorough as it was going to be from the start, would take seven years to complete. That is completely unacceptable and very difficult to justify or, indeed, understand. The Labour party wants the report to be published in full as soon as is practicable. At the same time, we must acknowledge that if the report is to have integrity, it needs to be recognised as independent. It would be wrong, therefore, for the Government or individual politicians to try to influence the contents of what I hope and am sure will be an objective report and assessment.

The fact that the report is taking so long is cause for concern, however. The latest delay, we are told, is caused by the need for security checking. We understand that there needs to be security checking. Sir John Chilcot explained clearly in his letter to the Prime Minister, dated 28 October, why that should be:

“National security checking is distinct from the process of declassifying material for disclosure in the inquiry’s report. Its purpose is to ensure that the government’s obligations under article two of the ECHR and for the protection of national security will not be inadvertently breached by publication of the inquiry’s report as a whole.”

That makes a great deal of sense, and I do not think that many people would object to that. It is noteworthy that the Prime Minister said the following in his letter to Sir John dated 29 October, which he willingly consented to publish:

“In relation to National Security checking, the Government will aim to complete the process as quickly as possible. As you know, National Security checking for the Savile Inquiry took two weeks to complete. It would certainly be our plan and expectation to take no longer than this, and we will look to complete the process more quickly.”

It is worth bearing in mind what the Prime Minister said, and was more than happy to make public. I am concerned that we are where we are today. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response to the debate, and to my specific question: what is the date for publication?

I conclude by reiterating what several Members have said: it is important to have the report published soon, for two essential reasons. The first is so that we can, collectively, learn the lessons of Iraq. Lessons have to be learned about what happened in the run-up to the war, during the war and, crucially, once the war concluded. I remember going to Washington and having a meeting in the Pentagon before the war commenced, and I pointedly asked a five-star general what the United States’ plan for reconstruction and rehabilitation after the war was. He said, “That is not our concern. Our job is to kick ass and get out.” That was crudely put, but unfortunately that was the attitude that informed the actions of the American-led coalition. In my discussions with military personnel in this country, the attitude was quite different, but, to be blunt, Britain was a very junior partner. That kind of mentality and mindset among the Americans made what has happened since almost inevitable. Lessons have to be learned from the situation that unfolded.

The second reason is that we need openness and closure for the families of all the British soldiers who so gallantly gave their lives for the country. We have a debt to them, and it is important that a clear message goes out from the House that we want the report to see the light of day, and to be published, examined and debated as soon as is practicable.