Debate on the Military Situation in Iraq

(Extract from Hansard - 9 September, 2003)

Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale): When I listened to the start of the debate, I thought that there must have been some confusion behind the Speaker's Chair. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had bumped into the shadow Secretary of State, that they had dropped their notes, and then picked up each other's by accident. I was convinced that the speech by the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) was being made by my right hon. Friend. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has made many fine speeches, but it was not his finest hour today. The House has been deprived of a proper opportunity to discuss the Iraq issue, and the Opposition motion is very disappointing. If all my right hon. Friend has to worry about is what is coming at him from across the Dispatch Box, he does not have much to fear.

I last spoke in a debate on Iraq last November. I opened my speech with a question: would the world be a safer place if we went to war in Iraq? If not, I believed that we should not go to war. I supported the Government and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on that occasion, and continued to do so until March.

I did not vote in favour of the war, however. That was not because I supported Saddam Hussein, or because I was against military action—had we succeeded in getting a second resolution through the UN Security Council, I would have been quite comfortable about continuing my support. I made my decision because I was worried about the consequences of intervention, and history shows that those concerns were justified.

I do not speak from retrospective spite. I am certainly not one of the "I-told-you-so" brigade, although there may be a few of those. I am expressing my deeply felt conviction. It was not comfortable for me to vote against a three-line Whip for the first time in 16 years, but to this day I am convinced that my decision was correct.

If Mr. Speaker were in his place, he, as a Glaswegian, would understand my next point. Anyone who goes to the wonderful city of Glasgow and who has lost his way will always find a friendly face prepared to give him directions. If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, said to someone in Glasgow, "I'm lost and I want to be there", he would give you a warm reception and say something like, "I'll tell you where to go, but if I was going there, I wouldn't start from here." There is no good our looking retrospectively and criticising what has happened. It is our duty and responsibility to concentrate on how we get from where we are to where we want to be.

I speak from a position of supporting the Government. I am certainly not one of those who criticises the Prime Minister—quite the opposite. I am a firm supporter of the Prime Minister, and history will prove that his influence on the American Administration from 9/11 onwards was vital. I hate to imagine how the world would be if he had not exerted his influence to restrain the hawks in the American Administration. People criticise the Prime Minister for blindly following George Bush, but that is not my reading of what he has done. The Prime Minister has not done that at all. He supported more the position of the US State Department and Colin Powell than he did the position of the Defence Department's Rumsfeld and others around the President of the United States.

Mr. Jon Owen Jones (Cardiff, Central): My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about how our Prime Minister may have restrained the actions of the United States. Would he care to think whether the new behaviour of the United States, more friendly towards the United Nations, owes more to the influence of our Government or to the practical experience of the Americans in Iraq?

Mr. Hood: Let me give a politician's answer: it is very much a bit of both. However, I am sure that the Prime Minister would much have preferred to have a second resolution. So much was invested in getting that resolution that we were put in the position of not being able to back away and hold back some of the American hawks, and that may have added to the pressure placed on the Government to commit themselves to going in with the Americans rather than letting them go in on their own. I am sure that our Prime Minister has had influence in arguing the case for looking more supportively at the United Nations. I am confident, too, that what has happened in the European Union and in NATO must bring about a revision of how we work together.

It is tragic for the rest of the world that the hawks were given so much power in America, but they are finding out now that they cannot go it alone. The only answer is to go through the EU and NATO, and certainly through the UN. To return to my Glaswegian story, the point is that in order to get to where we need to be, there is only one road to take—the road through the United Nations. I see no other solution. I heard the Secretary of State say that 30 countries will join the coalition in sending troops, and that is always welcome. But the question is how many troops those 30 countries will send.

Mr. Keetch: From memory, and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong, I think that it is 140,000 American troops, 10,500 British and a total contribution of 9,000 Poles and others.

Mr. Hood: There we are. Waiting for someone else to join the coalition and bring a solution is not the answer. The only answer is to go through the United Nations. The sooner we accept that, the better. We must not defend entrenched positions—all that happens when we get entrenched is that we stay in the trench.

Mr. Keetch: The hon. Gentleman will agree that this is not just a question of numbers. The quality and experience of troops is also important. The benefit of having Indian, Pakistani and even French troops is that they have experience of peacekeeping operations and know how to do the work. It is great to have 100 Lithuanian troops in Iraq, but they may not have been involved before in peacekeeping operations, while other troops from other UN forces will have had previous experience.

Mr. Hood: I do not know whether that was an intervention or an amendment to the hon. Gentleman's speech.

Let me conclude by turning to a real problem that has been made much worse by the events of the past six months. We can see what is happening in the middle east, in Palestine and on the west bank. There are people on both sides of that argument—indeed, we have people on both sides in the House. In my 16 years here, I have been fortunate enough never to find myself on either side of that argument; instead, I have seen the injustices on both sides and the need for the two sides to live side by side in peace. There is no rocket science involved in accepting the logic of finding a political solution, but politicians are all too often not part of the solution, but part of the problem. I despair when I see what is happening in Palestine and Israel, but once again the only solution must be a multinational solution though the United Nations. We must unite within the UN to bring solutions to such dark problems. If we do not, we will be here in six months holding another debate on Iraq and the middle east as we discuss more misery, more killings and a continued lack of commonsense political solutions. I hope that we can go forward through the UN and that the American Administration can bite their lip, swallow their pride and seek a UN mandate through the Security Council to solve the problems in Iraq and the rest of the middle east.