§ 17. Mr. George Galloway (Glasgow, Kelvin)What military action Her Majesty's forces engaged in during June over Iraq; and if he will make a statement. [1199]
§ The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon)During June, coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones came under attack from the Iraqi air defence system on more than 80 occasions. They responded in self-defence against elements of that system on six of those occasions. The House should note Iraqi claims that some 23 people lost their lives on 19 June during a football match in the town of Tal Afar. On that day, coalition aircraft were certainly fired on by a range of 540 systems, including anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles, but there was no coalition self-defence response on that day. We believe that the incident was the result of an Iraqi missile falling back to the ground.
§ Mr. GallowayOf course I accept my right hon. Friend's unequivocal and categoric assurance that the 23 young people who were killed on that killing field that had been a football field were not killed by British or American forces. However, they are dead, and their families are in mourning. Will my right hon. Friend not reflect with me—and, more importantly, with former supporters of the no-fly zone policy, such as Liberal Democrat Members and, even more significantly, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, from whose territory those missions were flown—that the no-fly zone operations are becoming part of the problem rather than the solution, and that those 23 victims have to be added to the long melancholy list of victims of war and sanctions in Iraq? Would it not be better to pause for reflection on whether the no-fly zones should be suspended?
§ Mr. HoonI might feel a little more confident about my hon. Friend's assertion if he had raised the matter directly with Saddam Hussein, who is responsible for those 23 deaths, and who has inflicted on his own people the horrors that we are seeking to prevent by patrolling in the no-fly zones. I commend my hon. Friend for his concern about those deaths, but that concern would have been much strengthened if he had raised the matter directly with Saddam Hussein.