§ Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.
§ Mr. DalyellYet from the Pentagon come very different reasons. First, the attack on Libya provided a proving ground for weapons. US News and World Report carries an article by William Broyles, Junior, on 12 May 1986, on the politics of war, in which he writes:
The budget, in short, is the mission. 'It all comes back to the budget', says one ex-Pentagon analyst. For years we've been saying that radar, infra red and smart bombs are the way to go. We've spent billions on night-mission avionics, so we had to try to use them, even if a daylight strike would have been better.Equally bluntly, Aviation Week of 21 April asserted that the attack on Libya:provided a good proving ground for the F111s to be flown into the Mediterranean, and gave the Air Force a chance to demonstrate its capabilities.A raid of this kind was deemed to have great value in the presentation to Congress of the case for greater spending on the United States Navy and Air Force. But it was not a reason given by our Prime Minister to our House of Commons.Secondly, there was inter-service rivalry between the United States Navy and Air Force. As a senior official of the Pentagon artlessly put it to Aviation Week, page 19, 21 April: 1143
Understandably, after the all-Navy action in Libya last month, the Air Force wanted a piece of the action.Again, that was not a reason given by our Prime Minister to our House of Commons for the use of territory in Britain as a base for non-NATO operations.I refer again to Spaven, page 23, who says:
Libya has large numbers of Soviet-built weapons; engaging them in limited combat would give US forces experience in employing electronic countermeasures and untested new weapons, and assessing the performance of Soviet weaponry.Thirdly, there has been the formidable lobby in the Pentagon which has been championing the idea of joint service operations, particularly the land-based aircraft in support of naval operations. When the joint chiefs of staff sat down in December 1985 to consider the military options against Libya, Admiral James Watkins, and others—Watkins was chief of naval operations—saw a useful opportunity for a joint naval-air force operation to demonstrate the value of their concept to doubters in Congress and the Pentagon. Again, that was not a reason hinted at by our Prime Minister to our House of Commons.We are dealing with what is referred to as the best all-weather precision aircraft in the world. Spaven said:
The main night-attack capability on US Navy aircraft carriers is the A-6E. in 1984, US Secretary of the Navy John Lehman described this aircraft as 'the best all-weather precision bomber in the world'".Why could not they do the job? Why could it not be done by the Coral Sea or the United States sixth fleet? It is simply not true that the bomb-aiming equipment of the F111s was superior to the bomb-aiming equipment of the carrier-borne A-7s. They both had the same TRAM system, or its equivalent.Fourthly, and possibly most important of all from the point of view of the House of Commons, whereas certainly the internal politics of the United States military were an important reason for the attacks on Libya, the nature and timing of the raid had much wider political implications.
I quote from the April 1986 issue of Sanity. On page 18, Dan Pleasch asked Rear-Admiral Carroll of the Center for Defence Information in Washington:
In your experience, would it have been practical to use the F111s, and ask the British afterwards?Rear-Admiral Carroll replied:That was the basis on which the plan was prepared.The implications are chilling. A major reason for including the F111s in the operation was to tie in Britain as one European country seen to be supporting the United States. Again, this was not a reason that the Prime Minister offered to the House.On 3 June I put to the Prime Minister a question about the characteristics of the F111 aircraft based in the United Kingdom which rendered their use essential for the United States' attack on Libya. The Prime Minister replied:
The F111 aircraft based in the United Kingdom provided the best equipped means of carrying out the United States operation against specific terrorist targets in Libya, with the lowest possible risk of Libyan civilian and United States service casualties. As the United States has indicated, the F111 possesses advanced avionics and other capabilities which made it particularly suitable for such a mission.I then asked the Prime Minister to:name the senior American, or Americans, who told her that the F111s were more precise than the carrier-based aircraft.The Prime Minister replied:That was the advice that we received both from across the Atlantic and from home."—[Official Report, 3 June 1986; Vol. 98, c. 730–1.]1144 When pressed on that occasion and later by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Welsh) the Prime Minister becomes uncharacteristically vague about the question of what she was told by the Americans. In The Scotsman Martin Dowle asserts that President Reagan did not talk personally to the Prime Minister in the week before the Libyan raid. What senior American speaking to our Prime Minister implied that the expensive carrier-borne A6s and A7s were so inferior to the F111s that they could not carry out the Libyan mission? Any American who said that would have been asked some awkward questions by the United States Navy and by United States taxpayers back in Washington. I ask the Prime Minister to let us know who exactly did tell her, if anyone did, about the F111s being more precise, avoiding collateral damage, and cutting down civilian casualties? The Prime Minister has got to the stage where she will invent any cock and hull story that will get her out of a jam.On page 63 of Aviation Week of 2 June we read:
In the Libyan Raid the 6th Fleet Commander was given the time frame to attack, and he had the responsibility of putting it all together,The implication is that it was the sixth fleet commander, down in the Mediterranean, who planned and organised the raid, and for that reason the House should be told how the Prime Minister could possible know how the raid would be conducted. The sixth fleet commander had full responsibility. Command and. control of the operation was given to the on-scene commander. How does the Prime Minister make out that she had any kind of a British veto?The Minister may switch ground, and claim, as the Prime Minister claimed, in answer to the hon. Member for Thanet, South on 15 April when she said:
We were also influenced by the fact that the United States has hundreds of thousands of forces in Europe to defend the liberty of Europe. In that capacity they have been subject to terrorist attack."—[Official Report, 15 April 1986; Vol. 95, c. 726]If this is a reference to the bombing in West Berlin. Could the House of Commons be told why the Bundeskriminalamt, the Federal Police in West Germany, have even now refused to confirm the Libyan connection and why Herr Lochte, the chief of the Verfassungschutz, the bureau for the protection of the constitution, has said that he excludes any Libyan connection, and why the German intelligence, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, differs substantially for the Americans about the interpretation of Libyan messages?The Parliamentary Questions that I put down for the Prime Minister and the Foreign Office have got me nowhere and the answers are misleading. For example, on 3 June the Under-Secretary replied:
No. Berlin is not part of the Federal Republic of Germany and is not governed by it. The allies, who have supreme authority in Berlin, remain in close touch with the German authorities in the city. [Official Report, 3 June 1986, Vol. 98, c. 414.]I ask the Government to be a little more candid about the advice that they are receiving from Germany about the connectionss between the tragedy in West Berlin and Libya. Before someone launches an attack on Benghazi or Tripoli, he had better be very clear about the basis for doing so.I am no admirer of Mr. Botha, but he was quite justified in drawing comparisons between what our Prime Minister and President Reagan did, and the attacks so universally deplored on Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana. It is not just the Prime Minister's critics who think along those 1145 lines. Ferdinand Mount, writing in the Spectator—not exactly the house journal of the Labour party—on 24 May 1986, says on page 6:
For the comparison does throw a fascinating if rather eerie light on our confused and conradictory attitudes towards terrorism and the response to terrorism. The two raids are as nearly alike as any two events in an untidy world. The Governments of Zambia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe may not sponsor terrorism in quite the same way as Colonel Gaddafi does; but the distinction is not a crucial one.But what is crucial is the whole question of the control of operations. I shall refer briefly once again to the excellent case deployed by Michael Spaven in the book entitled "Mad Dogs". I shall quote three extracts. The first states:What Mrs. Thatcher's words do not indicate is whether there are any circumstances in which Alliance solidarity would not operate, making refusal possible. Nor do they give any indication of whether such a refusal would be accepted by the United States; in other words, whether Britain actually has the power to control the activities of US military forces stationed here.The second extract states:Early in 1986, Mrs. Thatcher could say only that she `would expect to be informed, when US nuclear forces in Britain were placed on alert.
§ Mr. CorbynI thank my hon. Friend for giving way on this important point. Will he confirm that under the 1953 war plan made by the then United States President Eisenhower, when the United States considers itself to be 1146 in a state of war or readiness for war, it does not necessarily consult any of its western European allies before attacking a third country?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Before the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) resumes his speech I remind the House that five Back-Bench speeches have lasted for more than 20 minutes. The debate started late, and some hon. Members who have sat in the Chamber throughout the debate will not have an opportunity to speak unless hon. Members speak briefly.
§ Mr. DalyellI reply to my hon. Friend by saying that the Foreign Secretary said that
it is not a question of a publishable agreement".Mr. Spaven adds:Nor is there any way in which the British air traffic control authorities could stop US aircraft from taking off; they have no right to question the purpose of US military flights, which in any case are under no obligation to file flight plans with the authorities unless they are intending to fly through what is termed `controlled airspace'.Finally, Mr. Spaven says:The danger is that the US will not sign any deal on control of its bases which does not contain a get-out clause of that sort — which would bring a future British government right back to the square one of 'joint decision in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time'.That is a real problem for the Alliance. However, in view of the time factor, I shall leave it at that. Nevertheless, the question of controls is a very important issue. I ask for a considered reply by letter.