§ The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw)With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement to update the House on the situation in Iraq before we rise for the summer recess.
When the regime of Saddam Hussein collapsed just over three months ago, we made two key undertakings to the Iraqi people: first, that we would rally international support for their country's reconstruction; and secondly, that we would remain in Iraq only as long as it took to establish an elected, representative Iraqi Government, able themselves to maintain their internal security.
First, on Iraq's reconstruction, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1483 on 22 May. That resolution gave the UN a vital role in all aspects of Iraq's development, including the political process. Under that resolution, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed as his special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, the highly respected United Nations high commissioner for human rights. Resolution 1483 freed Iraq from the UN sanctions regime, allowing oil revenues to be spent on humanitarian needs, economic reconstruction and other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq.
On Sunday, an important step was taken towards fulfilling the second undertaking—the establishment of a sovereign Iraqi Government. The convening of the Iraqi governing council is a significant development. The council is the principal body of the interim administration called for in resolution 1483. Mr. Vieira de Mello has described the formation of the council as a "defining moment" for Iraq,
moving it back where it rightfully belongs: at peace with itself and as a full participant in the community of nations.The governing council has 25 members: 13 are Shi'a, 11 are Sunni and one is Christian. The interim chairman is a Shi'a cleric, Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum. Twenty per cent. of the council is Kurdish, representing their share of the population. Fourteen members lived in Iraq throughout much of Saddam Hussein's rule. Three members are women—12 per cent. of the council.
The governing council will exercise significant powers. These should expand over time. I am placing in the Library a full list of members and the statement agreed between the governing council and the coalition provisional authority establishing the authorities of the council.
Let me summarise the main points for the benefit of the House. The council will be involved in all the decisions that the coalition provisional authority takes from now on. It will nominate new Ministers to lead Iraq's ministries, hold them to account and have the power of dismissal. Its members will be able to represent Iraq internationally. It will determine the national budget for next year.
The contrast with the Ba'athist regime could not be starker. Membership of the council itself emerged from an exhaustive process of consultation among representative groups, many of whose leaders I met in Baghdad two weeks ago. The council includes the 152 leaders of 14 Iraqi parties, with prominent figures from Islamist groups and the Communist party. It will govern by consent not terror. It is the first time in living memory that the Shi'as, who form a majority in Iraq, have had a majority in any national governing body there.
One of the council's first jobs will be to determine how a new constitution for Iraq should be prepared. Once adopted, that constitution will pave the way for the election of an Iraqi Government who will assume all the powers and responsibilities currently held by the coalition provisional authority. Sergio Vieira de Mello will brief the UN Security Council next Tuesday on those and other political developments and on the role of the governing council; the council has already announced that it will be sending a delegation to the Security Council for that meeting.
Whatever position hon. Members may have taken on the need for military action, these developments will, I am sure, be welcomed by the whole House, but the progress that has been made is opposed by groups loyal to Saddam Hussein who resent the loss of their powers and wish to disrupt progress to political reform. The main problems are in the area to the north and west of Baghdad, the so-called Sunni triangle, from where much of the republican guard was recruited. Although those individuals do not pose a serious challenge to Iraq's democratic future, they do threaten coalition forces and those Iraqis who are helping to build their country. Nine British soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the end of large-scale combat operations in mid-April, bringing to 43 the total number of deaths of British service personnel since the beginning of military action. I know that I speak for the whole House in underlining our condolences to the families and friends of those killed, and in saluting both their courage and that of those who have been injured.
When in Basra two weeks ago, I was able to speak to the close colleagues of the Royal Military Police officers who were killed at Majar-al-Kabir and to the paratroopers involved in the parallel engagements. The commitment and professionalism of those I met, and of all British forces, is something of which this country must be, and is, immensely proud. Of course, we pay equal tribute to the United States service personnel who have been killed or injured in Iraq.
On the whole, the Shi'a south has been calm and overwhelmingly supportive of Saddam's demise. In the UK area of operations, joint patrols by British troops and Iraqi police have been under way since mid-April. Major cities in the north with mixed populations, such as Mosul and Kirkuk, have generally been calm. The coalition provisional authority estimates that 100 courtrooms and eight prison facilities are now operational. One of the CPA's top priorities has been to restore the rule of law in the capital, Baghdad. That is slowly taking place, although the situation is not yet satisfactory. Thirty-four Iraqi police stations in Baghdad are open 24 hours a day, and 9,000 police officers have returned to duty in the capital.
There have also been improvements in the provision and delivery of essential services. The Iraqi national budget for the period July to December this year, announced by the CPA on 7 July, included increases for health care. The authority has also announced that all 240 hospitals in Iraq are now operational and that 153 98 per cent. of schools are open. When I was in Basra two weeks ago, the commander of the British forces told me that 17,000 students in the universities in their sector were taking their final examinations in the normal way.
Reconstruction would be moving ahead more quickly were it not for the attacks by remnants of the old regime on the electricity and oil pipeline infrastructure. As a result Baghdad is receiving only between 70 and 90 per cent. of pre-war water supply, but across the entire country, more Iraqis have access to electricity supplies than before the war. Delivery of food through Iraq's public distribution system is now reaching the entire country. Preliminary figures for June show that food rations were distributed to about 26 million Iraqis in a target population of 27 million. Food distribution is being extended to the Marsh Arabs, a people who I understand received no food rations at all under Saddam Hussein. As the security situation in Iraq stabilises, the World Food Programme is increasingly using the port of Umm Qasr for its deliveries, and the £150 million in funding for humanitarian projects already committed by our own Department for International Development is beginning to have an impact on the ground.
Reconstruction plainly requires a significant effort by the whole international community, however. A preliminary meeting of donors co-chaired by the CPA and the United Nations Development Programme was held in New York on 24 June; a full conference will be held in October. Countries are coming forward to join coalition forces. In addition to the 147,000 US and 11,000 UK service personnel in theatre, those forces include personnel from Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Norway, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Ukraine and Lithuania.
On 18 March, the House voted by a majority of 263 to approve military action, principally because of Iraq's palpable failure to comply unconditionally and immediately with the terms of United Nations Security Council resolution 1441, by which the Security Council itself had said that Iraq's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, its long-range missile systems and its non-compliance with a string of Security Council resolutions, dating back to 1991, posed a threat to international peace and security. The evidence on which that decision was based was overwhelmingly from open sources and was laid before the House in a number of Command Papers, which included UNMOVIC's 173-page report, "Unresolved Disarmament Issues: Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programmes". I am in no doubt that the House's decision on 18 March is as justified today as it was when we took it.
Of course, given the magnitude of the decisions that the House took, it is entirely right that Parliament should conduct its own inquiries into the decision to go to war. I know that the whole House is grateful to the Foreign Affairs Committee for its inquiry and to Members of both Houses on the Intelligence and Security Committee who are conducting a related inquiry. The Government will, of course, respond in detail in the normal way to their reports. The House will also wish to know that the Iraq survey group is now deployed and will report at appropriate times. However,
154 the following may assist the House on the issue of yellowcake from Niger, which was also raised yesterday, among other things, by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson).
As I have already explained to the Foreign Affairs Committee, we had no knowledge that the documents given to the International Atomic Energy Agency were forged until February 2003, and in a letter last Friday to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which I have placed in the Library, I set out the position relating to the report of Ambassador Joe Wilson. As I have made clear, we had, and have, other separate information available to us. Moreover, the 24 September dossier itself concluded that unless Iraq obtained fissile material—yellowcake is not fissile material—Iraq would need at least five years to be in a position to produce a nuclear weapon.
With the establishment of the governing council, the Iraqi people have embarked on the process of building their own future. More than 150 newspapers have been launched since the fall of Baghdad. Major cities and towns across Iraq now have municipal councils, where Iraqis are increasingly taking responsibility for local issues. Iraqis are speaking out and demonstrating with a vigour not seen for decades. At the launch of the governing council last Sunday, we saw many of the features of democracy. Yes, there was criticism, strong disagreement and compromise—all now possible in the new Iraq, all previously punishable by arrest or worse under Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, the scale of the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein's regime becomes more apparent by the day. Tens of thousands of bodies have so far been unearthed in mass graves. In its latest assessment, I am told that the RedCross estimates that 300,000 Iraqis are "missing"—the victims, in the Red Cross's terms, of "internal violence". I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) for her tireless work as our special envoy on human rights. The leader of the British forensic team in Iraq, Professor Margaret Cox, has commented that Saddam's regime
was propped up with the bones of the Iraqi people buried beneath its sands.The dead and the missing are the most painful reminder of Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship. They should also become the greatest symbol of our determination to give Iraq the future that its people so richly deserve.
§ Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes)I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for advanced sight of most of it—I think that there were one or two additional words.
It has been a matter of concern that this is the first time that the Foreign Secretary has come to the House of his own accord to report on the status of Iraq since 12 May. It is now clear that Government preparations for handling the problems of post-war Iraq were not all that they were cracked up to be. It may be that the Foreign Secretary decided to wait until he had something more positive to report. I agree that what he has reported today is positive, and I thank him for that. I also agree that we must never forget the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime and the atrocities that he visited on his people.
I, too, want to pay tribute to the tremendous work that our armed forces, and other British personnel, are carrying out in very difficult circumstances. We owe 155 them a great debt of gratitude. I also pay tribute to those who have died while selflessly working to help restore and maintain public order and the rule of law in Iraq. We can indeed be proud of them, and our thoughts are with their families. We warmly welcome the recent appointment of the national governing council. It is vital that authority over Iraq is restored to Iraqis as soon as possible. This is an important beginning, and we wish the council well.
What role did the British Government have in choosing the members of the governing council? Is the Foreign Secretary satisfied with the balance between formerly exiled Iraqis and those who have been living in Iraq throughout the last period? I note that, along with the real and important powers that he described, the council will also help draw up a constitution in preparation for elections. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN's special envoy to Iraq has said that elections
probably will be held in 2004".That seems a very swift time scale for the council and the coalition to prepare a constitution and to prepare for elections. Does the Foreign Secretary agree with that estimate of time scale?In that context, what steps are being taken to communicate to the people of Iraq ideas on plans for the future government of Iraq? Does the Foreign Secretary not agree that without an effective communication system there will be a real risk of fuelling anxiety and hostility among the people of Iraq? I see that Ambassador Paul Bremer has a veto over the council. Can the Foreign Secretary outline the conditions under which Mr. Bremer can exercise that veto?
The Foreign Secretary rightly made clear that restoring security and order must remain the coalition's top priority. Does he believe that the coalition has enough peacekeeping forces on the ground to achieve that? There has been much speculation about the role that NATO might play in the longer-term stabilisation of Iraq. Can he explain why NATO's role is still so limited? Now that NATO is taking over the international security assistance force mandate in Kabul on 11 August, cannot NATO play a similar role in Iraq?
What is the Government's assessment of the threat to coalition forces in Iraq? Are the attacks on our soldiers just from remnants of the regime and other rogue elements, as the Foreign Secretary seemed to suggest in his statement, or are there signs of a more co-ordinated guerrilla campaign, with the objective of forcing the coalition on to the defensive and, eventually, to withdraw?
I have listened to what the Foreign Secretary has had to say about yellowcake from Niger. This is yet one more element of the web of confusion that the Government have managed to create over the status of intelligence material relating to weapons of mass destruction. We will be debating this whole area in the House tomorrow. For the moment, will the right hon. Gentleman accept that the confusion, the charge and counter-charge, and the different voices within the Government on the issue of weapons of mass destruction, are entirely of the Government's making? It is damaging not only the reputation of the Foreign Secretary but the credibility of the Government and of the intelligence itself. It is also beginning to cloud the 156 important work that we need to continue carrying out in Iraq. The Government cannot allow this drift of credibility to continue.
When will the Prime Minister publish the new evidence of weapons of mass destruction that he promised us in St. Petersburg on 31 May? Surely the time has come to clear this mess up. Why will he not set up a full, independent, forensic, judicial inquiry, which can establish the truth and restore confidence in British intelligence, which is so vital to our national interest? It is time that the Government got a grip of the situation and stopped this messing about.
§ Mr. StrawLet me deal in turn with the points that the right hon. Gentleman raised. On statements to the House, I think that, generally speaking, Members believe that I make myself available for explanation very readily. There has been a debate, which was initiated by the Liberal Democrats. I am grateful to them, and the matter was well aired there. Iraq dominated Question Time last Tuesday. In addition, I certainly do not feel underexposed in terms of accountability, given the fact that I have given evidence in public and private session for five hours before the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is probably something of a record. The House needs to accept that one of the things that has changed in the past 20 years is that there is much greater involvement by Members in cross-examining Ministers, quite rightly—not only in the Chamber, but in Select Committees.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the Government's role in choosing the governing council. When I was in Iraq two weeks ago, one of the issues raised by those I was speaking to—some of the people now on the governing council—and publicly by Mr. Sistani, who is a cleric associated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shi'a organisation, was whether the governing council would be, as it were, imposed by the UK-US coalition provisional authority or whether it would be able to derive its legitimacy—notwithstanding the fact that it had to be appointed rather than elected—in a more representative way.
Essentially, we were committed to doing the latter. Yes, the CPA made it clear that senior members of the Ba'athist regime would not be acceptable, but they would not have been acceptable to any other members of the governing council either. So we did not impose any individuals. It is my belief that, in the existing circumstances, this body has a high degree of consent from the Iraqis. Of course, it is only an interim council. We have to move from where we are to where we go next.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me about Mr. Vieira de Mello talking about elections for 2004. That is a comment that he has made. We have not yet made a judgment about what would be appropriate. We will have to see. Above all, we have to get this process, which the governing council is embarked on, to draft a constitution. Through that process, we will see where we go next.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about a communication strategy. I entirely agree about the need for a more effective communication strategy from the governing council and also from the CPA. He asked 157 whether there are sufficient forces. So far as the US is concerned, that is obviously a matter for US commanders. As for the British forces there, my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister have made it clear that we keep the level of British forces under constant review and we take account very strongly of the advice that we receive from the commanders on the ground as well as from the chief of the defence forces.
The right hon. Gentleman asked for my assessment of the attacks on US and UK forces, principally on US forces. The assessment varies very much from area to area. Sometimes we are dealing with very small areas. Overall, it looks as though remnants of the Ba'athist regime along with criminals—some serious and others petty, but all of whom were let out by Saddam just before the military action and as it took place—are involved. That is our best assessment. Attacks are no doubt organised in small areas, but there is less information about the degree to which they are organised across the country. We do not believe that they are. However, one message has been delivered very firmly and clearly by US and UK forces, which is that we are not going to allow this activity to get in the way of the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq or of the facility by which the Iraqis can build—not rebuild—a democracy for themselves for the first time.
The right hon. Gentleman then asked about the issues of intelligence. Let me make this clear. One of the things that emerged during the discussion on the 2 February dossier, from the Foreign Affairs Committee report, was that while, yes, there were mistakes made in the provenance—the process—behind that document, which I have apologised for, the FAC described the contents of the document as important. At no stage has it challenged the veracity of its contents. Its provenance should, of course, have been made clear.
As to the 24 September dossier, that was based, as, again, all sides of the Select Committee acknowledged, on assessments made by the Joint Intelligence Committee. We stand by those. It is inevitable that, given that there was controversy about the decision to take military action, questions will be raised, which is perfectly legitimate, but we stand by the assessments made.
I also remind the House—this was the position of the Opposition as well as of our side as we took military action—that, overwhelmingly, the decision to take military action was not based on intelligence assessments. It was based on the fact that—[Interruption.] It was not based on intelligence. It was based on the fact that resolution 1441 emphatically laid on Saddam Hussein, in open terms, obligations for him at long last to fulfil disarmament obligations, which had been extant but unfulfilled by Iraq for 13 years over a stream of Security Council resolutions; that all of us knew that the Iraqi regime had had a nuclear programme; that it had used chemical weapons; that it had a wholly concealed and very large biological weapons programme; that it had thrown out the inspectors for fear of further discoveries at the end of 1998; and that even having been given what not we but the whole United Nations described as a final 158 opportunity to disarm, Saddam Hussein refused to comply unconditionally and completely with the requirements of resolution 1441.
For that reason, this House, by a very large majority, made the decision to take military action on 18 March—after an ultimatum had been given, which Saddam Hussein also refused. As I have said already, that decision, upholding the authority of the UN, was justified on 18 March and it is justified today.
§ Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife)I thank the Foreign Secretary for early sight of his statement. Like him, I agree that we should be unstinting in our support for UK forces, and unstinting indeed in our sympathy for those who have died or been wounded in Iraq. The whole House will welcome, as he rightly predicted, the progress in civil affairs that he was able to outline.
May I ask the Foreign Secretary a number of specific questions? What is the Government's view on the number of British forces that will be required to remain in Iraq, and for how long? Are UK forces in the same position as the forces of the US, whose tour of duty has today been extended indefinitely? How many of the dead and missing date from when the UK Government supported Saddam Hussein, who was by then already steeped in the blood of his own countrymen and countrywomen?
The Foreign Secretary will not be surprised if I return to the issue of an inquiry. I ask him to consider this: does not the absence of chemical and biological weapons, the embarrassing and apparently escalating dispute between Washington and London over Niger, the failure to find Scud missiles and the controversy over the February dossier make an irresistible case for an inquiry independent of Parliament and led by a senior judge? If the Government's position is as strong as he has set it out to be, both here today and elsewhere, what do they have to fear? Finally, might I ask him this question? If he was in opposition, would he not be expressing exactly the same view?
§ Mr. StrawOn the number of British forces, as I have told the House, there are 11,000 in theatre. The number is kept under review, as is the duration of their deployment, but we have already made it clear that the forces will be there as long as is necessary, but no longer, to secure a viable democratic, representative Government who in turn can secure their own security.
I am sorry, but I did not answer the question asked by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) about the role of NATO, which is being used in Afghanistan. All I say to him is that that is under discussion. As he will know, there are 18 members on NATO's military committee and 19 on the NATO Council itself. Decisions have to be made by unanimity, which he strongly supports in other contexts.
§ Mr. Menzies CampbellQualified majority voting.
§ Mr. StrawIf the right hon. and learned Gentleman is proposing QMV for NATO, let him come forward. It makes for swifter decisions but, in this field, it produces a certain amount of discontent.
§ Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex)An acquis.
§ Mr. StrawThe hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) is muttering that we need an acquis.
159 The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked how many of those who have been found dead or declared missing by the Red Cross were killed or went missing many years ago. I do not know what the time lines are. We know that up until Saddam Hussein's demise in mid-April, he ruled the country by terror, not consent. His main methods were imprisonment, torture, the denial of the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and, when necessary, death. Many people were killed under that brutal regime.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked about an inquiry. We have debated that before and we shall debate it tomorrow. I was not in the same position as him when I was in opposition. I supported the Falklands war at its beginning and end—I was right to do so. An inquiry on the Falklands that was separate from the House had to be established because the House did not have the mechanism to hold its own inquiries. I believe that the combination of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee is appropriate. The House accepted the establishment of the ISC without a vote. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to consider the members of the Committee, who are as eminent as those who served on the Franks committee, and to have some faith in the ability of such eminent Members from all parties in both Houses to reach independent judgments.
§ Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)My right hon. Friend has given a positive report on the progress of the reconstruction of both physical infrastructure, such as electricity and water supplies, and governance, with the establishment of the new council. Is he therefore worried that the picture that our media give the British public is one of looting, shooting and general mayhem in which the population wants the end of the coalition forces' presence? Returning British civil servants reject the gloomy doomsayers and paint a picture of a talented people who are getting back to work and want to make a success of their country after the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. Will my right hon. Friend try to strengthen the information side of the coalition provisional authority so that a rather more balanced picture may be conveyed to the British public?
§ Mr. StrawI am grateful for what my right hon. Friend says. We accept the need to strengthen further the communication strategy of the coalition provisional authority and, as the shadow Foreign Secretary said, to ensure that the governing council—quite rightly that has more natural legitimacy with the Iraqi people—will be able to communicate. However, Ministers in a democracy are not responsible for how the media report, and nor should we be. I venture the opinion that it would take rather more than improved communications in Baghdad to get the focus of British newspapers away from where it is at present—no doubt they are pursing their own specific agendas—and for them instead to tell their readers about the situation on the ground. As my right hon. Friend said, that situation is rather different from that portrayed in several newspapers.
§ Mr. Jonathan Sayeed (Mid-Bedfordshire)If the governing council or the Iraqi people decide that they would like Iraq to be divided into three autonomous or 160 semi-autonomous regions, notwithstanding likely Turkish objections, would the Government support the decision?
§ Mr. StrawWe would not support that. The United Nations made it clear in resolutions 1441 and 1483 that it would not support anything that would undermine the current territorial integrity of Iraq. Despite that, there are opportunities for various degrees of devolution to occur. I made the point to a group of Iraqi leaders two weeks ago that our experience shows that devolution need not occur on a symmetrical basis. Indeed, I believe the fact that we have developed asymmetrical systems is the reason why we have been better able to bind the Union. That is a lesson as the Iraqis develop their own constitution.
§ Mr. Ernie Ross (Dundee, West)I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. When our colleagues were alleging that they were concerned about the Iraqi people before voting against the only means of giving them their freedom, we made the point that when the people of Iraq were free, their ability to run their country would be demonstrated. That message is flowing through the middle east and people are finding out that we are living up to our words. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is having an impact on the middle east peace process by helping the Palestinians and Israelis to resolve that problem?
§ Mr. StrawMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not resile from the fact that that was not the principal basis for the House's decision to go to war on 18 March, but it is worth bearing in mind that resolution 1441 deplored Saddam's appalling human rights record. The simple fact is that containment was not resolving the problem and that it was getting worse and worse. Irrespective of the arguments about whether military action was appropriate, if we had continued with a policy of containment, the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein would have continued—that is just reality.
On my hon. Friend's second point, it is true that we were told that if military action were taken in Iraq, there would be "conflagration" throughout the region. That has not happened. There was not a single Arab or Islamic leader who did not himself want to see the back of Saddam Hussein. There is no doubt in my mind that the removal of Saddam Hussein has made progress toward a peaceful solution for the Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians infinitely easier in practice.
§ Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling)Will the Foreign Secretary acknowledge that UN resolution 1441 refers not only to weapons of mass destruction programmes but to the weapons themselves? Does he further agree that the basis on which the House voted for war in Iraq was to disarm not merely Saddam Hussein's programmes of weapons of mass destruction but the weapons themselves?
§ Mr. StrawYes. The resolution is quite clear. There were 15 members of the Security Council. Two members—the UK and the US—took part in the military action and 13 did not, as a matter of record. Those members reached separate conclusions about the 161 threat posed by Saddam Hussein and it was they who said that the proliferation of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and long-range missile systems and his defiance of the United Nations posed a threat to international peace and security.
§ Mr. George Mudie (Leeds, East)I wonder whether the Foreign Secretary has noted the statement issued by the new Iraqi governing council that savaged the Arab media for romanticising the deposed dictator Saddam Hussein. It also attacked the BBC for
not telling the truth about Iraq.Does he share my concern that when faced with 300,000 missing people and mass graves and given that a vicious and murderous dictator has been removed and that freedom has been brought to a whole country for the first time in 20 years, it is strange that the BBC, and especially the "Today" programme, is obsessed with only bad-news stories about Iraq that damage the Government and the Prime Minister personally?
§ Mr. StrawAll I would say to my hon. Friend is that we have to accept the media as they are. It is no part of the duty of Governments in a democracy to interfere. However, I think it is the sentiment of the whole House, and certainly the sentiment in much of Iraq, that although the BBC should pursue particular agendas if it thinks that they are consistent with its charter, it should also ensure that there is a more balanced and comprehensive reporting of the reality on the ground in Iraq, which in respect of the rebuilding of Iraq is better news than it was.
§ Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell)In his statement, the Foreign Secretary listed a number of countries, from Ukraine to New Zealand, which are apparently sending troops to Iraq. Significantly, he did not mention the numbers, which I suspect are very small. Is it not inevitable that we will soon need more troops from other countries because otherwise we will face overstretch? Is it correct that the French are blocking that in NATO?
§ Mr. StrawOn the right hon. Gentleman's last point, a number of other countries have expressed reservations within NATO. The discussions will continue. As for the numbers, I am happy to write to him and put them before the House. In some cases, the number is small. For example, Lithuania had no armed forces before it was turned into an independent country following the collapse of the old Soviet empire, so its contribution is necessarily going to be small. In other cases, such as Poland, the contribution will be substantial.
I note that the number of British service personnel has reduced from 45,000 at its peak to around 11,000 in the whole theatre—some are in the Gulf rather than in Iraq itself. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff keep overall troop levels under careful review. I have received no representations from them that at this level, or levels around which the number might fluctuate, the services will be subject to overstretch.
§ Tony Lloyd (Manchester, Central)Does my right hon. Friend recognise that if Iraq's oil is to he used for 162 the purpose of reconstruction, that decision—certainly the mortgaging of the oil future and oil revenues—can only be taken by those who really represent the Iraqi people? To do otherwise would simply lead to the suspicion that the decision to invade, at least on America's part, was based on oil and not for the reasons of which the US Administration are trying to persuade us. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the British Government will not be party to a mortgaging of Iraqi oil unless that is agreed to by proper representatives of the Iraqi people?
§ Mr. StrawLet me satisfy my hon. Friend. Resolution 1483 lays down clearly the conditions under which all revenues, in particular oil revenues, can be used, and have to be used, for the benefit of the people of Iraq. The war was never about oil. Everyone knows that. In the initial stages, the financial responsibility rests on the coalition provisional authority, because it has to rest somewhere. As quickly as possible, it will move to the governing council. In any event, there are clear and substantial monitoring arrangements, supervised by a monitoring board established by 1483. There is also the ever-present figure of Vieira de Mello, the UN Secretary-General's special representative, who is required to make regular reports to the Security Council to ensure that 1483 is complied with.
§ Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan)If, as the Foreign Secretary now claims, the decision to go to war was not based on intelligence information, why did the Government keep providing it in the form of dossiers to the House and the UN before we made decisions? If the Prime Minister of Australia is prepared to apologise and the head of the CIA is prepared to take the rap for believing British intelligence, why does the Foreign Secretary stick doggedly to his story about the reality of the uranium imports from Niger to Iraq? If that story of the falsified and forged documents has caused so much embarrassment to the Government, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, what inquiries have been made to find out who falsified and forged those documents?
§ Mr. StrawMy point—it is a point that I have made often enough and is well illustrated by analysis of all the speeches made in our debates, especially since Christmas—is that the intelligence assessments that were provided formed part of the background, but they were not the heart of the argument and never were. They simply were not. The argument moved on.
The issue last September and October was whether the UN would be used to give what amounted to a final opportunity to Iraq. Everyone was pleased when we negotiated resolution 1441. Iraq was given a final opportunity and, as I explained, it failed to fulfil the clear undertakings required under 1441. The issue before the House in March. in shorthand, was whether containment was going to work, notwithstanding Iraq's defiance, or whether we had to give it a further very final ultimatum and, if necessary, take military action. I invite the hon. Gentleman to look at what was said and the nature of the argument, not to rewrite history following one reference on the "Today" programme on 29 May. That was simply not part of the argument. No one in the House. for example, mentioned 45 minutes once during the debate on 18 March.
163 On the hon. Gentleman's second point, the issue of who forged the documents is a subject of an inquiry, in particular by the International Atomic Energy Agency, to which the documents were submitted. We did not know that they were forged. We had no information about that until mid-February and no confirmation of that until the IAEA gave its report to the Security Council on 7 March. On the overall issue of assessments, I have explained—I gave this information in memorandum to the FAC, and the ISC will inquire further—that the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee stands by the assessments that he and his staff, not Ministers, made.
§ Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock)Will the Secretary of State put in the Library of the House in the next 24 hours the dates on which the security and intelligence services learned that the Niger documents were forged and the date on which Ministers were advised that they were forged?
§ Hugh Robertson (Faversham and Mid-Kent)The Foreign Secretary will be aware that military operations thrive on a simple clear aim. Given that we have 11,000 servicemen and women deployed, what is that aim?
§ Mr. StrawThe aim is to secure Iraq, to rid Iraq of the remains of the Saddam regime and to assist the Iraqi people, now through the governing council, to create conditions in which they are responsible for their internal security. I think all the forces are aware of that and they are meeting that challenge with their customary professionalism and very high standards.
§ Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow)The Foreign Secretary has said again that it was not intelligence that led to the decision to go to war, but breaches of UN resolutions, although the rest of the Security Council did not feel able to support anything after 1441. Is it not the case that those of us who were sceptical and who opposed the case for war were told time and again that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction, was still developing weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them? If that did not come from intelligence sources, where did it come from?
§ Mr. StrawMost of it came from documents that I placed before the House which were entirely open. No one can read the last report of UNSCOM made just after its delegation was thrown out of Iraq at the end of 1998 or the 173 pages of unanswered disarmament questions submitted to the Security Council after it had finished its meeting on 7 March without being absolutely clear about the capabilities of Iraq and its wilful failure to resolve the issues. If Iraq had nothing to fear, it would have dealt with those questions. It failed to do so. Of course the intelligence assessment informed the debate, but let us be clear that the issue before the House was whether the policy of containment had been laid out or whether we had reached a moment at which, in our judgment, it was right to take military action to enforce the will of the UN. The House voted in favour of that by a margin of 263.
§ Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds)I hope that the Foreign Secretary will accept that the success of 164 Iraqi reconstruction will, to some degree, be affected by the trial of Guantanamo bay detainees captured in Afghanistan. In that context, do the British Government believe that President Bush is acting wholly within and in accordance with international law and US law in setting up military commissions to try those detainees?
§ Mr. StrawI am not entirely sure what is the direct connection, but intensive discussions on the issue continue with the American Administration. That is the current position, and as soon as there is anything to tell the House, the House will be told.
§ David Winnick (Walsall, North)Let us be fair to the BBC concerning at least one of its media outlets. Did my right hon. Friend see last night's "Newsnight" that broadcast films made by the Saddam regime which showed savage beatings, torture and places of execution? Does he not agree that there is a responsibility on every Member of this House who opposed the war to tell us how one of the most terrifying and brutal dictatorships could have been destroyed without the action taken at the time?
§ Mr. StrawI agree entirely with my hon. Friend. As I have said, those who supported containment—I understood and respected their view, but did not agree with it—have an equal responsibility to acknowledge the fact that their policy would have left Saddam Hussein in power. He would have been reinvigorated and re-empowered as the troops were pulled back from the Gulf, and over time he would have tried to secure by deception a clean bill of health from UNMOVIC. The reign of terror over his people would have become infinitely worse, as would his support for international rejectionist terrorists—not least those working in the occupied regions. That is one reason why I say with confidence that a consequence of the removal of Saddam Hussein has unquestionably been to help to create a more benign environment in which a peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians is much more possible.
§ Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk)The Foreign Secretary has made it clear—twice, I think—in his statement and in reply to hon. Members that our reasons for taking military action were based very much on Saddam Hussein's defiance of the United Nations. As somebody who absolutely supported the Government's action, I must say that the debate was undoubtedly influenced by reports based on intelligence not only that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but that there was a clear and present danger of his using them.
I do not know whether weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq—I see that we have slipped into using the term "programmes", which is more vague. None the less, I am genuinely concerned that, if we do not find weapons of mass destruction or there is continuing debate about intelligence, should the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues face a clear and present danger in a year or two and ask the House for a 165 decision on immediate military action, the House will say, "Sorry, but we've heard that before and we don't agree with you."
§ Mr. StrawOf course I understand the interest in further evidence of the scale and extent of Saddam's programmes. Sometimes when I listen to these debates, I think that some of those who are now criticising the Government—not the hon. Gentleman—must be inhabiting a parallel universe in which, hey-presto, Saddam Hussein never had any nuclear capability, had never used chemical weapons against his own people or the Iranians and, despite evidence of concealment, had never denied that he had a biological weapons programme. He denied and denied that, and it was discovered only after his son-in-law had defected. Indeed, when the representatives of UNSCOM—the previous inspectors—went in, they discovered a much larger biological weapons programme than they had ever anticipated. This is not a matter of looking in the crystal; it was in the book.
Of course I understand and appreciate that some of the intelligence assessments formed a background to the argument, but I invite the hon. Gentleman and all other hon. Members to look at the terms of the motion passed by the House by a majority of 263 votes on 18 March. That was about the failure of Saddam Hussein to comply with the terms of resolution 1441.
§ Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate)But surely my right hon. Friend cannot be unaware that the unwillingness, certainly of my constituents, to accept the rosy picture that he and other Ministers are painting of post-conflict Iraq is based on their total disbelief of the Government's reasons for us going to war in the first place. It is not possible for the Foreign Secretary to stand at that Dispatch Box and argue on the grounds of resolution 1441, which was based on the premise that Saddam Hussein still had weapons of mass destruction—a situation which the Prime Minister found still to be the case. Indeed, he discounted as absurd the thesis that those weapons had been unilaterally destroyed before the war began. Until the basic questions of precisely what was intelligence and how contemporaneous it was are answered, my constituents will remain exceedingly concerned about why British troops were sent to war.
§ Glenda JacksonNot me, my constituents.
§ Mr. StrawI say to my hon. Friend, and through her to her constituents, that the judgment that Saddam Hussein had proliferated weapons of mass destruction, had long-range missiles and had defied the Security Council over 13 years was not just ours or that of the United States. It was the judgment of France, of Russia, of China and of the 10 elected members of the Security Council—also of Syria.
§ Glenda JacksonWell, where are they?
§ Mr. StrawA good deal of what was stated in the 24 September dossier in respect, for example, of the 166 concealment of missile systems has already been confirmed to be wholly accurate and proved. If my hon. Friend had had her way, we would never have discovered the 500-plus missile engines. [Interruption.] They were there. The Iraqi survey group is now conducting its work. [Interruption.]
Let me deal with the way in which Saddam concealed his weapons. Recently, CNN reported that an Iraqi scientist, Mahaddi Ubaydi, who I am told was head of the centrifuge uranium enrichment programme, had volunteered information to the United States about centrifuge parts and documents concealed in his garden—[Interruption.] Yes, the documents related—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. Allow the Foreign Secretary to answer.
§ Mr. StrawI ask my hon. Friend to think about what she is saying. The documents related to 1991. She knows that it was possible to build nuclear weapons in 1991. The bigger question is why an Iraqi scientist was concealing those documents and centrifuge parts under a rose bush in his garden. He told CNN that he was ordered to hide them so as to be able to rebuild the bomb programme at some time in the future, which is exactly what we said.
Moreover, David Kay, a former United Nations arms inspector said:
It begins to tell us how huge our job is. Remember, this material was buried in a barrel behind his house in a rose garden. There's no way that that would have been discovered by normal international inspections. I couldn't have done it. My successors couldn't have done it.That kind of concealment shows the extent of the deception practised by Saddam Hussein and is further evidence of the threat. Yes, it will be difficult, precisely because of the circumstances of concealment, to find the material, but gradually it is being found and so is other evidence.
§ Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield)The Foreign Secretary was clearly right in his statement to underline the growing importance of the United Nations, the international community and particularly the pivotal role of Mr. Vieira de Mello. Following the announcement earlier this week, is the right hon. Gentleman yet in a position to tell the House which countries will be sending members of the team of experts that will pave the way for elections in Iraq?
§ Mr. StrawNo, I am not, but if I have more information when I get back to the office, I will write to the hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The Foreign Secretary has agreed to continue with matters relating to the statement, but the questions must be brief and there should be only one supplementary.
§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)Could we return to the factual questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) about when the 167 Government first knew that the documents were forged? The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) asked who forged the documents, on whose behalf and why.
§ Mr. StrawFebruary this year is the answer to the first part of the question and, in answer to the second, we do not know, but we would like to.
§ Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham)What steps will be taken to ensure that the constitution drawn up by the unelected council is acceptable to the various peoples and regions in Iraq? The Foreign Secretary's statement was silent about the armed services—when and how will a reformed army, capable of supporting the civil power, be brought into being?
§ Mr. StrawThe governing council, which is necessarily unelected at the moment, but far more representative than anything under the Saddam regime, has the job not only of drafting the constitution but of consulting widely on it. Although I am merely speculating, it would have to be endorsed using some democratic method by the people of Iraq. That is a guarantee. Moreover, de Mello has a clear role in respect of that. As for the reform of the armed forces, the first stage has been to establish a reformed police service, and the next stage will be to establish a reformed security service, including an army.
§ Mike Gapes (Ilford, South)If there are to be elections in 2004, will the Foreign Secretary assure the House that UK political parties and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy will be involved in the preparations to assist the process of building pluralistic democracy in Iraq?
§ Mr. StrawWe will make available to the governing council the excellent facilities and advice of the Westminster Foundation. Whether it is used is a matter for it, not us.
§ Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk)Is the Foreign Secretary still completely convinced that Saddam Hussein tried to source uranium in Niger? If that is the case, can he say more about the intelligence sources that pointed to that but were apparently denied to the Americans?
§ Mr. StrawI am satisfied that the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee who made those assessments has told me today, and has repeatedly told me, that he stands by them. They came from sources other than those that were available in America. That is the position, and it was set out very clearly in the dossier that we published on 24 September.
§ Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley)My right hon. Friend will be interested to know that a senior member of the Iraqi Communist party came to see me this morning. He used to come here 20 years ago, bringing me names of dead, executed and disappeared people. He was against the war, but on Friday the Iraqi Communist party decided to join the governing body, which it regards as a momentous step forward in the history of Iraq. For the first time, the council will represent the diverse peoples 168 of Iraq—the Sunni, the Shi'a, the Arab, the Kurd, the Turkoman and the Assyrian. I agree with my right hon. Friend that this is a marvellous opportunity which should not be forgotten.
§ Mr. StrawI hope that the whole House takes note of that. The Iraqi Communist party, along with any Shi'a party and many others, simply could not operate under the Saddam regime. They had no rights, and were subject to the terror of Saddam.
§ Patrick Mercer (Newark)May I pay tribute to the valour of the soldiers of the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment, who fought with such bravery at Majar-al-Kabir a couple of weeks ago? However, there is no doubt that that attack was not orchestrated. The incident last week in which a young officer of the King's Regiment was wounded was, serving officers tell me, of a wholly different order of orchestration and organisation. On top of that, this week we have had a broadcast from a voice claiming to be that of al-Qaeda in the Gulf, saying that that organisation is active. Despite the Foreign Secretary's claims about not using intelligence to launch us into war, what is his assessment, based on intelligence reports, of al-Qaeda and the threat that it poses to our troops?
§ Mr. StrawI have nothing directly to add to the answer that I have given to the hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary. Obviously, the position has been carefully studied, and as I said to the House, it will vary from area to area. Of course, there are people both inside and outside Iraq who wish to make mischief, and whose vested interest is in ensuring or seeking to ensure that Iraq does not succeed. Our absolute determination, on the other hand, with the Iraqi governing council is to make sure that the new Iraq succeeds, and we shall win.
§ Mr. Clive Soley (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush)May I make it crystal clear to the Foreign Secretary that I and, I suspect, many other Members did not vote for military action simply on the basis of weapons of mass destruction? We did it on the grounds of wider issues and the judgment, moral and political, that we needed to take action because of all the reasons in resolution 1441 and the underlying situation. Let us not fall into the terrible trap of focusing on one issue and rewriting history to try to pretend that there was not a major problem causing destabilisation in the middle east.
§ Mr. StrawI entirely agree with my hon. Friend. People who take an alternative point of view—and they are entitled to do so—must recognise that their inaction would have had very serious consequences for the Iraqi people and the wider region.
§ Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway)Whatever the constituent parts of the assembly, total power in Iraq is still in the hands of the United States. The American people have been warned that this is something that may continue for years. Will we remain for as long as the American Administration considers it necessary, or is it possible that we will leave of our own accord?
§ Mr. David Borrow (South Ribble)When I was in Basra in early June, it was clear that the electricity and 169 water supplies were in a better condition than before the war and that law and order were improving. However, I read newspaper reports this morning that seemed to suggest that there were serious problems with the electricity and water supplies, and focused on lawlessness in Basra. Will my right hon. Friend tell me whether the situation in Basra has got better or worse since early June and, if it has got worse, what action the Government will take to improve the situation?
§ Mr. StrawThere will of course be incidents in different parts of Iraq which will result in the situation varying from day to day, but the overall assessment, as recently as this morning, is that particularly in the south the situation is getting better in many respects. Electricity and water supplies, for example, in most, but not all, parts of the south are better than they were before the regime fell.
§ Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax)The Foreign Secretary reminded us that the invasion was not cost free, when he asked us to remember the coalition dead. Can we also remember the 6,000 Iraqis who died and the 15,000 who were injured? Does the Foreign Secretary accept that this business of uranium from Africa is rapidly becoming a farce for the British Government? Despite the attempts of the US Administration to recoup the situation, President Bush and the Prime Minister are apparently no longer singing from the same hymn sheet. This is about trust between our Government and the British people, so will the Foreign Secretary reconsider the request for an independent inquiry, as I do not think that anything else will satisfy my constituents?
§ Mr. StrawI have to say that many of us have constituents who might otherwise take a similar position, but on this they all have different views. I repeat to my hon. Friend that, when I was on the Opposition Benches, I called for the establishment of a parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. The Committee that was subsequently set up is composed of people who are at least as eminent and trustworthy as the very eminent and trustworthy members of the Franks committee 21 years ago, and we should show faith in the job that they are doing along with the job done by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs.
§ Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire)Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us worked with representatives of the Iraqi Communist party to oppose the invasion? Since then, we have worked with them on reconstruction and development of democracy, and we do not think that there is anything inconsistent about our involvement in those two activities. Can my right hon. Friend tell us, from the material that he is placing in the Library about the make-up of the Iraqi governing council, how much detail will be provided? Will details of the profession, political party, trade union links, press links and connections, and background in Iraq and elsewhere in the world be supplied? That is important to many of us who are looking towards the future reconstruction of Iraq.
§ Mr. StrawA lot of information is on the sheets that will go into the Library. If my hon. Friend wishes for more, he should get in touch with me.
§ Helen Jackson (Sheffield, Hillsborough)How many prisoners are being held by coalition forces, and where? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the record of the United States is appalling in its disregard for international human rights in the way that it is treating 680 detainees at Guantanamo bay? Can he give us an absolute assurance that the highest levels of fair justice will be exercised when dealing with however many prisoners are being held in Iraq?
§ Helen JacksonCoalition forces.
§ Mr. StrawYes, by coalition forces. I cannot give my hon. Friend an exact number straight away. I will write to her and place the reply in the Library of the House. I accept entirely the clear obligations of the coalition provisional authority under international law and under resolution 1483. For whatever reason they are held, people must be treated with proper regard for their human rights.
§ Mr. Jon Owen Jones (Cardiff, Central)Further to the question from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), when the Foreign Secretary says that we will remain in Iraq for as long as it takes to establish elected representative Iraqi government and internal security, given that we are by far the junior partner in the coalition, is he not saying, in effect, that we will remain in Iraq for as long as the Americans want us to? What capacity do we have for independent judgment about these issues?
§ Mr. StrawIt is the confidence that I have, which I am sorry my hon. Friend does not share, in the judgment of this House of Commons. It is we who decide whether or not troops should take up positions and how long they should stay there. Of course we are working with the Americans, but that is up to us. There are many situations in the world in which we do not join the Americans. In this case, we do. That is an independent decision by the House of Commons. My hon. Friend should have faith.
§ Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge)Has any decision yet been made about the considerable financial debt of the previous Ba'athist regime?
§ Mr. StrawNo decisions have been made. The matter is covered to a degree by 1483. However, quite a lot of the debtors—sovereign states and others—have been in touch with the coalition provisional authority to ask for their money, and we are considering their claims.
§ Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside)Have any serious challenges been made to the credibility of reports from the UK forensic team that there are at least 50 mass graves and evidence of at least 300,000 murders 171 during Saddam's regime? How many more people would have died or been tortured if Saddam had been left in power?
§ Mr. StrawI have seen no challenges to those figures, horrifying though they are. I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) that we grieve for anybody who has been killed or injured in whatever circumstances in Iraq. We do not know the exact number of people who were killed as a result of coalition action, but I grieve for them. I know for certain that within a year, far fewer people will have died as a result of coalition action and far more will have been free than ever would have occurred under the Saddam regime.
§ Paul Flynn (Newport, West)Members of two of the bereaved families have publicly asked the agonising question, "Did our loved ones die in vain?" For the first time in our history, it was we MPs who took the decision to send our soldiers to kill and be killed. Because of that, we cannot make independent judgments on our own decisions, whether we do it individually or collectively as Committees. Do we not need to give those bereaved families not just sincere condolences from every Member of the House, but an assurance that the reasons for the war will be exposed faithfully? Cannot that be done only by a fully independent inquiry?
§ Mr. StrawNo doubt we will discuss the matter further tomorrow, but I do not accept that. I shall develop the point tomorrow. My hon. Friend is right to this extent: it was not quite the first time that a substantive vote was taken, but it was the first time in the circumstances. I am proud to be a member of a Government who introduced that constitutional change, which will stand for all time. Of course, responsibilities go with it, but I do not accept that in a House of 651 Members, those whom we have chosen to serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee are not capable of independence of judgment in the circumstances. It must be acknowledged—this could not be examined by some independent judicial inquiry, as it is a political issue—that overwhelmingly, the basis on which we went to war was 1441. People talk about dossiers. I remind the House that those were the two dossiers that I submitted to the House in February and March, containing page after page of material, above all from UNMOVIC and the IAEA, revealing the extent of 172 Saddam Hussein's failure to comply with the will of the United Nations. That was at the heart of the argument before the House on 18 March.
§ Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that both he and the Prime Minister, on numerous occasions and in numerous interviews, told the House and the public that the purpose of the war against Iraq was to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction? Does he accept that what he said today is an attempt at rewriting history, pretending that that was not the motive that was given, when it clearly was the motive that was given? In those circumstances, why does he not support an independent judicial inquiry that can make a judgment on the assertions that were made, the documents that were presented and the arguments that were put for war against Iraq, and the reality of what has happened since?
§ Mr. StrawWhat I said is what I said. My hon. Friend needs to apply himself to the basis on which the House voted, after intense debate and a period of consideration going back for eight months. Yes, we did speak about the need to disarm Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction. So did the Security Council. It was not a hole-in-the-corner thing, as is sometimes implied, all depending on whether it took 45 minutes or 90 minutes for those weapons to be prepared. It was on the basis of the clearest possible evidence of two key sets of facts: in the words of the United Nations Security Council, Iraq's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the fact that it had had such programmes and was plainly seeking to rebuild them, and above all its defiance of the will of the United Nations. I say to my hon. Friend and the House—and this underlines the nature of the argument back in March—that had Saddam Hussein complied completely, immediately and fully with the terms of 1441, and had the inspectors been able to say that, there would have been no basis for military action. It was Iraq's wilful failure to comply that was at the heart of the decision that the House rightly took on 18 March to take military action.
§ Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle)The Americans have offered $25 million for information leading to the capture of Saddam Hussein, and since then there has been the tape allegedly portraying the dictator. Is there any evidence to suggest that Saddam Hussein is still alive and in Iraq?