Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

During these two days of debate, we have heard from Members in all parts of the House who have contributed substantively and thoughtfully on this extremely sensitive and controversial subject. That has given us the chance to have a rigorous debate, and to give the subject dutiful consideration and sombre reflection. I thank all my colleagues.

First, I would like to add my own personal tribute to the 179 servicemen and women who gave their lives in the Iraq war for this country while on duty, and to give my deepest condolences to the families from whom they have been taken. Their commitment to our keeping our freedoms, and ultimately their sacrifice for the United Kingdom, will not be forgotten. I also extend my gratitude to the 220,000 personnel who served and wore the Queen’s uniform overseas in numerous tours of duty of the southern regions and Basra, some of whom now serve in this House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), and the hon. Members for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and for Wells (James Heappey). I know the whole House would agree that we owe them a great deal for their service, and their continued public service in bringing their expertise to the Floor of the Chamber.

Secondly, I thank Sir John Chilcot and his team for their due diligence and forensic detailing of such a complex matter. At the time of the Iraq war and in the period immediately preceding it, I, like many others, was not a Member of this House. I was working for the NHS as a clinical scientist, and can vividly remember the conversations I had with my NHS colleagues around that time. People I worked with in the laboratory were convinced that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons at his disposal that could wipe us out in 45 minutes. There was real fear among my friends and colleagues, and many of them supported the action taken by the then Prime Minister. Personally, I was very dubious about the justification for war, and I was concerned that we were being led into action without a second resolution.

For me, the most telling phrase of the executive summary of the Chilcot report is paragraph 339, which states:

“diplomatic options had not been exhausted. The point had not been reached where military action was the last resort.”

That one point, which was also quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas), encapsulates my feelings at the time, although of course I have a great deal of respect for the thorough and painstaking work done by Sir John Chilcot, and hope that my comments will be taken in the spirit in which they are intended. I am most certainly not presenting myself as an expert in this field.

As I have said, I did not support the Iraq war, nor was I a Member of this House at the time, but I hope that I now have a better understanding of the great difficulties involved in taking these daunting but necessary decisions. However, for me, the inquiry highlights and underlines the key lesson, which is the absolute need to learn from the grave mistake of triggering an event for which we had not fully planned, and from which we did not have a coherent exit strategy. If we as elected Members and a collective legislative body are to grasp fully the extent of those failures, now is the time to do so. We must acknowledge the errors of Iraq and implement the lessons in today’s context.

That context came 13 days before the inquiry report was published in the form of Brexit. Some Members have infamously said outside this House that the public are “fed up with experts”. That, as with Iraq, is flawed intelligence. Now more than ever, the UK needs experts. We face a tumultuous and treacherous period over the coming years as we negotiate our exit from the European Union. The Government, who called the referendum, did not have a contingency plan for leaving the EU, and neither did the Brexiteers, who campaigned so ardently for us to leave.

Both the EU referendum and the invasion of Iraq were peddled and pushed on mistruths, and presented with a certainty that was not justified. The era of post-truth politics that we seem to have entered over the past two months can be traced back to the hyperbole of the “45 minutes to Armageddon” document, which warned of an imminent threat from Saddam Hussain. Now is the time to turn back that tide of tirades against the truth, and that process should begin here in Westminster.

Sir John Chilcot wrote that

“assessments…were not challenged, and they should have been.”

He added:

“Despite explicit warnings, the consequences…were underestimated,”

and that inadequate planning led to fatal errors. Let us not fall into the same perilous trap as we fell into 13 years ago. Some decisions cannot be reversed, but lessons can and should be learned from the Chilcot inquiry, and the parallels are here in front of us now.

I conclude by echoing the words of Winston Churchill:

“Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.”