Iraq Inquiry

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, it is humbling to take part in such a valuable and thoughtful debate with so many excellent contributions. I believe we owe a debt of gratitude to Sir John Chilcot. This report was never going to be easy or lacking in controversy. We might argue about the remit that he was given but not about the dedication that he has shown.

We are told that the Government of the day acted in good faith, but there were too many acts, there was far too much faith and I find it difficult to accept that there was much good in it. Was the war legal? Sir John was not allowed to say, but others will have a view. Was it effective? Well, the tyranny of one man has been replaced by a terror inflicted by many more across many borders. On the questions of cause and effect, I suppose history will decide. But above all, it is worth asking the simple things: was it just, proper and decent?

My first political memory dates back to 1956. As a young boy, I was captivated by a speech made to a huge crowd in Trafalgar Square by Aneurin Bevan. You can still watch it on YouTube. In his saggy suit and with his wonderful Welsh lyricism, Bevan addressed the Prime Minister of the day about another Middle East war in Suez. He said of the then Government:

“They have besmirched the name of Britain. They have made us ashamed of the things for which formerly we were proud. They have offended against decency”.

Pointing towards Anthony Eden, who was then in Downing Street, he said:

“If he is sincere in what he is saying—and he may be—then he is too stupid to be Prime Minister”,

words that echo even today. All of us, I suppose, bear some responsibility for the events in Iraq—the Labour Government bear responsibility, of course, but we in the Conservative Party did not do our proper job of analytical and responsible opposition. Yet above all it was the responsibility of one man, the then Prime Minister. Clausewitz once said that war is the continuation of policy by other means, but surely war must be a final option, a last resort, not merely a matter of prime ministerial preference. To coin his own phrase, it is right that Tony Blair should feel “the hand of history” on his shoulder.

Chilcot must not be the last word, debated then put away in some dusty drawer. Instead we should use it for a new beginning—but what sort of beginning? First, I have a few questions. Who is to take responsibility for what happened? Someone must, otherwise it might all happen again. We cannot have yet another example of the establishment being above the law and above any form of responsibility. We had enough of that with the bankers. Have we done enough yet to ensure that we do not repeat the errors? Somehow, our systems seemed to fail at every step—in the Cabinet, in the Civil Service, with our Law Officers, in the intelligence services, even in Parliament. How do we balance the right of a Prime Minister to lead and his duty to defend our interests—even to intervene—without once again falling victim to one man’s unwisdom?

Secondly, I can think of no better time than in the wake of Chilcot to undertake a comprehensive reappraisal of our foreign policy: its past effectiveness—particularly since the end of the Cold War—its strategy, its objectives, its implementation and the values that it reflects.

We are a decent and democratic people, so why are we having so much trouble showing it? We were once a beacon of hope in a dark world. Where have we gone wrong? Specifically in the Middle East, in the six decades since Suez, where are the successes to point to? One was the first Gulf War, certainly, which was co-operative and, as the noble Lord, Lord King, said, limited. But what about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the Arab spring? How good have we been at learning the lessons? Not good enough, I suggest.

Thirdly, I believe that, as an establishment, we owe an apology for our failures in Iraq: to the families of the 179 service men and women who died; to the thousands more who came back home dragging their wounded bodies and wounded minds behind them; to the perhaps 1 million ordinary citizens who marched through the streets without hindsight before the war started, yet who were ignored; and to many others who suffered, like Dr David Kelly. To all of them we should say that we could and should have done better.

Yet it would be a tragedy if we tried to load all the blame on to Mr Blair, finding whatever room there is left between his shoulder blades to stick in another knife, because if that is all we do we will have lost the huge opportunity that Chilcot offers us—to reflect; to analyse the uncomfortable truths, as the noble Earl described them earlier; to revitalise the grounding principles behind our foreign policy; and to ensure that such appalling errors never happen again.

Above all, Chilcot is about responsibility, which can all too easily slip into recrimination. That would be a mistake. Instead of recrimination, I hope that it will be used to meet the need for reconciliation and for renewal of our national purpose. Great countries sometimes make great mistakes. We must learn from them.