§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)In December 1998, when I went to Baghdad with the former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, who is really the father of the peace process in Northern Ireland and a deeply serious man, we were invited by Tariq Aziz to his house for supper. I think that we were the first people to be invited to his home since the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) all those years ago. One of the things he said to us was, "You may think that Saddam Hussein, the revolutionary council and I are extremists. This is a general view in the west. If sanctions go on and there is continued military action, we will be succeeded by people who are far more extreme than us." I have to say that I believed him. There is a real crisis.
I know that there are those in the Foreign Office who suspect that I am sympathetic to the Iraqi regime, but on the contrary, it is a very brutal regime. So are others. The middle east is a very brutal place and others are now beginning to take the same view. Toby Dodge, writing with the authority of Chatham house, said:
The rapid and externally driven decline in living standards and social structures since 1991 could produce an alternative scenario—the rise of militant nationalism. The widespread state inspired credo of Arab nationalism has historically found support amongst a population convinced that their country is unjustly treated by the West and wider international society.One has to go to Iraq to understand the intense feeling. They ask why this is being done to those who were the west's shields during the Iran-Iraq war. Dodge goes on:The present situation heightens such perceptions. There has also been a dangerous polarisation of society between those reduced to poverty and those elevated to the ranks of the super rich. Sanctions, whilst impoverishing the majority, have helped create a small group of nouveau riche profiteers associated with the inner circle of the ruling elite. Their wealth is a conspicuous target for resentment.From observation, I do not believe that that applies to all the ruling elite. Dodge continues:These two factors may coalesce in demands for a militant, active nationalism focused on re-establishing Iraq as a regional power. The potency of such a movement—comparable in some ways to post Soviet Russia or Weimar Germany—would be enhanced by fondly re-imagined memories of when Iraq was strong and could take care of its population.Incidentally, in the 1970s Baghdad got a prize for being the cleanest city in the middle east. Dodge goes on:
If this took hold, a populous government in Baghdad would find it relatively easy to mobilise a population already angry and alienated from the international community. The widespread dislike of the post Gulf War border settlement with Kuwait could serve as a potent rallying call with which to reassert power within the region.The Chatham house paper goes on:
Just what will emerge from a post Saddam or post sanctions era is a crucial issue of geostrategic significance that goes far beyond the Gulf and the wider Middle East. Since 1991, United States and British policy has been focused on the more immediate goal of removing, or at least containing, Saddam Hussein. But after ten years of coercive diplomacy, the regime in Baghdad appears to be as strong or indeed stronger than at any time.Pre-occupied with more pressing issues, policy makers in the five permanent United Nations Security Council member states appear to have paid scant attention to the very problem of what type of Iraqi state and society will emerge in the medium to long term. The post 1991 stalemate has enforced dramatic and 26WH widespread suffering on the population through no fault of its own. Inside Iraq, if not elsewhere, the blame for this has been placed on the governments of the United States and Britain.The danger that seems to have escaped serious consideration among western policymakers is that of an angry population, mobilised by ten years of suffering, venting its ire either on the institutions of the Iraqi state itself and attempting to destroy it, or turning its frustration onto the external forces the regime has blamed for their dire situation. Either way, on the anniversary of the beginning of the Gulf war, surely it is time to think about the possible future of Iraq, for the sake of the Iraqi population, the stability of the wider Gulf and the West's relations with the Middle East.That is exactly the situation that Albert Reynolds and I saw in 1998, even more clearly than when I went in 1994 with John Smith's retrospective approval.I talked over the weekend by phone, when preparing this debate, to the former UN co-ordinator, Dennis Halliday, in Ireland. He talks now about "intellectual genocide".
Halliday is a heavyweight. He was not even seen by Foreign Office Ministers when he was here, though he went to the Prime Minister, President and Foreign Minister of France. I gather that it is also the considered view of Hans von Sponeck, who is being rubbished. I was very impressed by von Sponeck. His evidence to the Select Committee has still not been published, heaven knows why. These are very serious people, who have the gravest of doubts.
Perhaps the most recent visitor was the journalist Felicity Arbuthnot, who I know is not popular in the Foreign Office. She was in Edinburgh on Saturday at the Quakers. She talks about the devastation that she sees, of the pre-industrial age, of women too malnourished to breast feed—chronically malnourished. The calorific value in whole areas of Iraq is now lower than in Mali. One third of the children are suffering. When asked whether it was worth the death of 500,000 children—those are the UN figures—to get rid of Saddam Hussein, Madeleine Albright replied yes. If I may say so without being personal, those are simply not the values that my hon. Friend the Minister of State had for so many years of his active political life.
The radiation in Basra is 10 times higher than it should be. We went to the presentation by Doug Rokke, whose views are known to the Foreign Office. He was a medic in Vietnam, and is a patriotic American from the southern states. However, one can see in his person the effects of depleted uranium. He is a leading expert on the matter. His reaction in Basra was simply, "Oh my God."
Felicity Arbuthnot, who recently returned, describes a society that is breaking down. People are selling all their possessions—even their marriage presents. There is no work for all the talented engineers. The trauma caused by the bombing is felt every single day. Iraqi children are the most traumatised on earth. Those should not be the effects of a Labour Government's policy. What is the point of bombing flocks of sheep? All we succeeded in doing was letting loose rockets and killing a few shepherd boys. What is the long-term object of it all?
The article by Robert Corzine in yesterday's Financial Times states:
UN officials say Iraq has received less than $300m (£180m) in oilfield equipment out of a theoretical $1.5bn".27WH How can they achieve anything without the supply of what is necessary for the oilfields?Finally, I want to touch on what is possibly the most serious question of all—the water in the dam. I received two separate briefings: one from Balfour Beatty—a firm with which I have had good relations in the past in constituency matters—and the other from those who predict up to a 45 per cent. reduction in the flow of the Tigris over three years. When I was in Baghdad, I was told that the Tigris was lower than it had ever been in recorded history, and in 1994 I saw that the Euphrates had become little more than a trickle. Balfour Beatty argues that the dams are just for hydro-electricity, and that the flow will be unaffected, but I am not sure. I do know, however, that a proposal exists for another dam at Cizre, in the south. That could take off a great deal of water, which, apparently, is to be used for irrigation.
There are real problems, and many people will be extremely interested in the Government's comments.
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Peter Hain)I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) for the opportunity to debate the important subject of Iraq. He has taken an expert and informed interest in Iraq over a number of years, and I have never questioned the integrity of his views or his genuine humanitarian concerns about the plight of the Iraqi people. I share those concerns.
First, we should remind ourselves why the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq in the first place. They were imposed following Iraq's brutal and unprovoked invasion of Kuwait in 1990. At the end of the Gulf war, in 1991, Iraq accepted the terms of United Nations Security Council resolution 687—the so-called ceasefire resolution. That resolution, and others implementing it, imposed a series of obligations on Iraq, including accepting the destruction of its weapons of mass destruction under international supervision, submitting full details of locations, amounts and types of weaponry, undertaking not to use, develop, construct or acquire weapons of mass destruction in the future, and co-operating with UNSCOM in carrying out those obligations.
Resolution 687 also set out the circumstances in which the Security Council would lift the sanctions imposed on Iraq. The resolution provides that sanctions will be lifted following compliance by Iraq with its weapons of mass destruction obligations, and following a review by the Security Council of Iraq's policies and practices, including its implementation of all relevant resolutions. By persistently avoiding compliance with its undertakings under resolution 687, Iraq, not the international community, has prolonged the sanctions regime—which was originally envisaged as lasting for only a period of months—for over nine years. Iraq is responsible for the fact that the sanctions are still in place.
I shall give some examples of Iraq's poor record on compliance. More than 600 Kuwaitis detained by Iraq during the Gulf war are still completely unaccounted for. That represents about 0.1 per cent. of the Kuwaiti 28WH population, which would be the equivalent of 50,000 British citizens. Eighty-seven per cent. of the Kuwaiti missing are civilians, some of whom are elderly. To date, Iraq has provided sufficient information to close just three of those 600-plus cases. Meanwhile, the families of those who remain unaccounted for continue to live under a cloud of uncertainty over the fate of their loved ones.
On weapons of mass destruction, because of Iraq's persistent evasion, obstruction and mendacity, the obligations under resolution 687—which could have been completed within just a few months if Iraq had cooperated fully with the weapons inspectors—have still not been met. That is not just our judgment; it is the judgment of an independent United Nations panel which met last year. Until those obligations are met, Iraq will remain a threat to regional peace and stability.
Let us not forget that Saddam Hussein has used his weapons of mass destruction before, with devastating results. We remember in particular the Kurdish town of Halabja, where Saddam ordered the use of chemical weapons, including nerve agents, killing 4,000 to 5,000 civilians and injuring perhaps 10,000 more. Saddam also used chemical weapons against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. We are not prepared to run the risk again that he will use those weapons.
§ Mr. DalyellThis is part of the difficulty. When I went to Iran on holiday, I saw the war memorials, which are like our first world war memorials. Although the Iranian people suffered terribly during that war, the Iranian Government's official view—as expressed by the Foreign Affairs Minister when he visited this country—was that sanctions should be lifted, because they strengthen, rather than weaken, Saddam Hussein's regime. That is the view of people who have suffered from it.
§ Mr. HainWhat I find interesting about the deployment of that argument is that nobody—including my hon. Friend—has suggested an alternative policy to the lifting of sanctions.
§ Mr. Dalyellrose—
§ Mr. HainPerhaps I could just finish this point. We all share the concern about the humanitarian situation in Iraq. However, it is not right to blame sanctions for that suffering; nor would the situation necessarily improve if sanctions were lifted.
§ Mr. DalyellI suggest that as a first step the Foreign Office should talk to some of the former distinguished ambassadors, such as Sir Stephen Egerton, Sir John Moberly and Sir Harold Walker. There is a good case for starting to talk to the Iraqis.
§ Mr. HainI am happy to talk to former ambassadors; indeed, we talk to them and to others. The suffering of the Iraqi people is caused by the policies of Saddam Hussein's regime. The evidence is there for all to see, and I am surprised that my hon. Friend does not take account of that. The latest report by the Secretary-General on the implementation of the oil for food programme notes that a quarter of all medical goods delivered to Iraq since the programme began have not 29WH been distributed. In the meantime, basic items such as antibiotics remain in short supply. That is the Iraqi regime's responsibility.
Iraq claims that the problem is caused by lack of vehicles, but thousands of vehicles have been authorised by the sanctions committee since the start of the oil for food programme. The real problem is the Iraqi regime's lack of commitment.
In February 1998, the United Nations Secretary-General recommended a daily food ration of 2,463 calories. Iraq responded not by accepting that, but by setting a lower ration of 2,200 calories and failing to order sufficient food to make up even that reduced level. The Secretary-General's latest report on the oil for food programme notes that Iraq is ordering insufficient quantities of pulses and dairy products and not including sufficient protein. At present, the average daily food ration is just 1,993 calories, which is significantly less than the ration that was set.
The Secretary-General also recommended targeted feeding programmes aimed at a population of just under 2 million. After considerable arm-twisting on the UN's part, Iraq allocated only $9 million—a fraction of the sum available—to those programmes. The Secretary-General called on Iraq to increase funding for targeted nutrition, so that children's nutritional status could be expeditiously improved.
Iraq's distribution plan for the oil for food programme allocates insufficient funds to key areas such as food and medicine, but allocates $10 million for the purchase of bank note counting machines. How will that assist humanitarian relief? The Secretary-General has refused to approve that allocation.
Iraq is also exporting humanitarian goods. We know that it has sold food to Syria and tried to sell food to Jordan. If it had any concern for the humanitarian plight of its people, it would not do so. Several vessels exporting goods from Iraq have been intercepted in the Gulf.
During the past few days, evidence has come to light that Iraq is exporting oil outside the oil for food programme. That oil could, and should, be exported within the programme, thereby attracting humanitarian relief. By exporting oil illegally, the regime is depriving the programme of revenue and the Iraqi people of humanitarian relief. The revenue goes straight into the pockets of Saddam Hussein and his cronies, and the Iraqi people see none of it.
Some argue that the oil for food programme is inadequate. It may not be perfect, but we firmly believe that, while sanctions remain in place, it is the best way in which to address the humanitarian needs of the people of Iraq. According to the Secretary-General's most recent report, the implemention of the oil for food programme is making a difference to the humanitarian situation in Iraq. It has delivered 12 million tonnes of food, and medical supplies worth more than $700 million, but, as Kofi Annan himself has noted the programme's potential impact is far greater. Unfortunately for the Iraqi people, it is not being realised because the regime appears indifferent to their suffering. It is no coincidence that the oil for food programme has had a substantially greater impact on the humanitarian situation in northern Iraq, where the regime is not involved in implementing the programme, than in Baghdad-controlled Iraq.
30WH While, for its own propaganda purposes, the Iraqi regime allows the people of Iraq to suffer, the international community has sought to protect them from the effects of the embargo and the regime's cynical policies. Britain has consistently taken a lead in those efforts. Our most recent initiative was resolution 1284, a comprehensive resolution which was adopted after months of painstaking and intense negotiation. That was an excellent result and a remarkable achievement for British diplomacy. The resolution provides a new platform for the Security Council's dealings with Iraq on matters such as weapons of mass destruction, and humanitarian and Kuwaiti issues. The creation of UNMOVIC, a new disarmament body, represents a real opportunity for Iraq to make rapid progress on the remaining disarmament issues. That, in turn, would trigger the suspension of sanctions, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow has consistently argued. If Iraq implements the resolution, the opportunity will exist for sanctions to be suspended.
The resolution also implements a range of humanitarian measures that provide for a bigger and better humanitarian programme—including the immediate abolition of the ceiling on the amount of oil that Iraq is permitted to export under the oil for food arrangements—and the speeding up of UN sanctions committee procedures.
Our priority is implementation. We welcome the appointment of Dr. Hans Blix as executive chairman of UNMOVIC. Work is well under way on the implementation of humanitarian provisions. We are very encouraged that all members of the council, including those who abstained in the vote on the resolution, voiced their commitment to its implementation. Meanwhile, Iraq's refusal to accept and implement the resolution yet again cynically denies the Iraqi people the prospect of relief from sanctions for which my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow so eloquently argues.
My hon. Friend also raised the question of the no-fly zones over Iraq. I would first like to record our gratitude for the invaluable role played by the RAF air crews who have risked their lives for eight years to protect Iraqi civilians from repression. The no-fly zones were established to protect innocent Iraqi civilians from persecution at the hands of the Iraqi air force. Although 1991 may seem a long time ago, it is still vivid in the minds of those Iraqi Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmen who fled their homes in fear as Iraqi helicopter gunships attacked their villages. That was not the first time that those villages had suffered. In the 1970s and 1980s, Iraqi forces destroyed more than 3,000 Kurdish villages. That is never referred to by the critics of our policy in the debate on sanctions.
On the question of the chemical weapons attack on Halabja, I recently met Professor Christine Gosden of Liverpool university. She has expert knowledge of the awful medical conditions suffered by the people of that town: infertility, miscarriages, congenital abnormalities, and cancers. They also suffer from respiratory problems caused by the inhalation of mustard gas. These dreadful illnesses continue to afflict people born in those areas even today.
Anyone who has seen the effects of such attacks on innocent civilians will want to ensure that such atrocities can never happen again. That is what our pilots do in the 31WH no-fly zones over Iraq. They patrol the zones every week, as they have for the past nine years, to deter Iraqi air attacks on Iraqi civilians. That happens not only in the north. RAF aircraft have also patrolled in the south since the establishment of the southern no-fly zone in 1992, to limit the repression of the Shi'a Muslims.
My hon. Friend mentioned water issues. He will recall the devastation wreaked by Iraqi forces in the southern marshlands. They burned houses and fields, demolished homes with bulldozers and deliberately drained the marshes, destroying a vast regional wetland for ever.
§ Mr. DalyellI have made an unannounced visit to the marshlands at Querna, and I do not believe that having seen the area with my own eyes.
§ Mr. HainI am surprised by the hon. Gentleman's statement. As well as causing grave environmental damage by diverting water flows and burning large areas of reeds—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Nicholas Winterton)Order. If the hon. Member for Linlithgow wishes to intervene, he must do so in the proper way and not from a sedentary position.
§ Mr. HainAs well as carrying out the damage that I have just mentioned, Iraqi forces did much to destroy the way of life of the marsh Arabs. The persecution continues today. In March last year, Iraqi firing squads summarily executed a number of alleged demonstrators from Basra, who had already been tortured while in detention. Afterwards, they were buried in a mass grave. Why is no attention focused on that?
We must not forget what happened in the years leading up to the creation of the no-fly zones, nor should we ignore the repression that continues on the ground.
32WH Security Council resolution 688 called on Iraq to end its repression. The zones were set up in support of that resolution. Since December 1998, Iraqi forces have maintained a sustained campaign to try to shoot down our aircraft, which are defending the rights of Iraqi citizens. Iraqi forces have shot at, or otherwise threatened, UK and US aircraft more than 630 times. Those threats are real, and our forces have responded in a proportionate manner, in self defence. That is their right under international law, and their safety must be paramount.
I must make it clear that we do not target civilian infrastructure. All defensive action is strictly limited to responses against Iraqi weapons and facilities that pose a threat to our forces. Our forces make every effort to minimise the risk to civilians when responding to threats. I urge hon. Members to treat Iraqi reports of civilian casualties with great caution. As my hon. Friend is aware, the Iraqis have, in the past accused us of killing civilians on days when we have not even been flying, and of damaging buildings later shown to be intact.
My hon. Friend also raised the question of the Ilisu dam. We have received representations from the Iraqi and Syrian Governments about that project. That is reflected in the four key concerns that were listed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in his statement on 21 December. One such concern involves the need to ensure adequate downstream flows to neighbouring states. It is worth nothing in this regard that the construction in the 1980s of the Anatolian gap project on the Euphrates by Turkey has had no demonstrable effect on Syria's water supply. The Ilisu dam is a hydro-electric project, not an irrigation project, and there should therefore be no disruption to downstream flows along the Tigris. No decision has yet been taken about cover from the Export Credits Guarantee Department—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. We must move on to the next debate.