14/04/2016 House of Commons

desire to share that opinion both with the House and with the wider

world. In that objective he has today undoubtedly succeeded. If

there are no further points of order we come now to backbench business

and to the motion on national security checking of the Iraq

enquiry report. To move the motion I called the Right Honourable

Gentleman Mr David Davis. I never cease to be impressed by your

short-term memory. I beg to move that this House calls on the

Government to include the National security checking of the Iraq

enquiry report as soon as possible in order to allow public occasion of

that report as soon as possible after the 18th of April 2016. And no

later than two weeks after this date in line with the undertaking on time

taken for such checking by the Prime Minister in his letter to Sir John

Chilcot of 29th of October 2015. The second Iraq war was started to

liberate the Iraqi people. Instead it shattered their country. Intended

to stabilise the Middle East, is destabilise the Middle East.

Intended to remove the threat of weapons of mass destruction that did

not exist, it exacerbated massively increased a threat of terrorism that

does exist. And supposedly for in defence of our values, it has led to

the erosion of civil liberties at home and the use of torture abroad.

Because we were misled on the matter, Parliament voted for this

war might 412 votes to 149 votes. So, the very good reasons for

setting up the enquiry in the first place. The war led to the deaths of

4800 Allied soldiers. 179 of them British. The lowest estimate, the

lowest estimate of Iraqi civilian casualties was 134,000. But

plausible estimates put the number at up to four times that. The war

immediately created 3.4 million refugees and half of them fled the

country. It cost the British taxpayer ?9.6 billion. It cost the

American taxpayer 1000 $100 billion. The war has done untold damage to

the reputation of the West throughout the Middle East and

amongst Muslim populations both at home and abroad. Initiated to

protect the west from terrorism it has in fact destroy the integrity of

the Iraqi state and triggered a persistent civil war that has

created the conditions, perhaps the worst terrorist threat yet to the

west. Isil or Isis. It is done huge harm to the self-confidence and

unity of the West, in effect neutering or foreign policy. The war

was, with hindsight, the greatest foreign policy failure of this

generation. And I say that as someone who was misled into voting

for it. It has now been over 6.5 years since Gordon Brown launched

the Iraq enquiry and over five years since it heard its last evidence. It

has been over a year since this House, in a similar debate, called

for the Government to publish the Iraq enquiry report as soon as

possible. And yet that report has still not been published. It is no

surprise that one of the most pre-eminent politicians of our era,

the highly respected, very civilised ex-Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd

branded the delays as a scandal. He is right. It is a disgrace. In 2009,

the then leader of the is on and now Prime Minister was scornful that it

would not be published before the 2010 General Election. In that year,

Sir John Chilcot told families that he would complete the enquiry in a

year, this is 2009, he said they would complete it in a year, if he

could, but definitely not more than two years. In fact the evidence

taking did not conclude until the 2nd of February 20 11. Nevertheless,

and that was over five years ago, at that time, Sir John Chilcot said, it

is going to take some months to deliver the report itself. Some

months. Well, it is 62 and counting so far since then. In the enquiry

started the declassification process. The enquiry protocols,

there are nine different categories of reason for turning down

declassification, for preventing, not from seeing the information, but

from Sir John publishing it. What the enquiry is published is

destroyed by a series of articles by precarious so broad that a veto on

application can virtually be applied at Whitehall's discretion. Compare

this is Scott enquiry, the Iraqi super-gun affair. It also covered

issues of incredible sensitivity in terms of international security,

relations, intelligence agency involvement, judicial propriety and

ministerial decision making, the whole gamut. Sir Richard Scott was

allowed to decide himself what he would release into the public

domain. Unfettered by Whitehall. That whole couple of years of time

would have been unnecessary. By contrast, Sir John Chilcot was a

past Northern Ireland official office Permanent Secretary who

chaired an incredibly sensitive enquiry into interceptor, some

members of the House may remember that, and was considered

irresponsible keeper of the Government secrets, tied up in

protocol subject to the whim of Whitehall. We know there have been

long negotiations between the enquiry and Sir Jeremy him in the

Cabinet Secretary and his predecessors over the disclosure of

some material, most notably correspondence by Expo Mr Tony Blair

and George W Bush. There is no point whatsoever in the enquiry if it

cannot publish the documents that show how the decision to go to war

was arrived at. It is after all the point of half of the enquiry.

Chilcot himself wrote a letter to the Cabinet Secretary, the question

when and how the Prime Minister made commitments to the years about the

UK's involved in military action in Iraq and subsequent visitors in the

UK continued a ball that is central to its considerations. The

negotiations between Mr Chilcot and Jeremy Heywood concluded only in May

2014 when it was announced an agreement had been reached. The

process was clearly frustrating for Sir John. He queried why it was that

and I quote, individuals may disclose privileged information

without sanction whilst the Committee of privy counsellors

established by the former Prime Minister to review the issues

cannot. He was of course referring to Alistair Campbell and Jonathan

Powell's perspective diaries which quoted such information, again

without Whitehall veto. Then came the excruciatingly long process.

This was meant to be a process of notifying any people criticised in

the report so they can correct factual errors and be ready to

respond to those criticisms when they become public. Not intended to

allow protracted negotiations between the commission and teams of

expensive lawyers, incidentally expensive lawyers paid for by the

taxpayer, who negotiate ad nauseam at any cost to protect their

client's reputation over and above the national interest. That is what

has happened. We know that the Iraq enquiry is now finally after all of

that due to submit its report to the Government next week. The next stage

would be security clearance before publication. The Prime Minister

stated in October last year that he fully expected security clearance to

take less than two weeks. As it took for the equally enormous Savile

enquiry, remember that two decades to come to its conclusion -- took.

It was cleared in two weeks. I cannot believe that the clearance

will take a longer than this, given as we already know every single

piece of this report has already been negotiated with Whitehall.

Presumably on the basis of security considerations. So, given this and

the Prime Minister 's declaration that he is as exasperated with the

delays to publication as anyone, the public ought to expect publication

of the report in the first week of May. That should be the reasonable

conclusion. But this is not the case. There are no reports that the

publication of the report is going to be postponed until after the EU

referendum at the end of June. This is frankly outrageous. I had this

for this reason that I together with right honourable and honourable

members from all parties in this House have called for this debate.

Demanding that the Government published the report as soon as

security clearance is complete and certainly no more than two weeks

after receipt. While this enquiry has lumbered on, there have been at

least three significant foreign policy decisions that could have

been dramatically different had we had the benefit of the Iraq

enquiry's findings. The decision to intervene in Libya was intended to

prevent a massacre, but since then partly because we changed the aim to

regime change, the country has descended into civil war and

miserable fractured chaos. And on the question of regime change, the

Government first asked this House to support military action against the

Assad regime in Syria in 2013, they have turned him down. Had this has

not blocked military intervention, we could have ended up as a military

support of our now sworn enemies IS. And of course in Iraq, the UK's

involvement in ongoing civil war that has raged since the invasion in

2003. There are lessons to be learned from the Iraq war, about our

foreign policy, political decisions, to go to war and about or military

operations. The longer we leave it, the less useful these lessons will

be. And the more likely it is that we will make the same mistakes. When

decisions such as those that were made in Libya, Syria and Iraq are

made without the knowledge of the facts, mistakes are made and

sometimes people die as a result. It is not hyperbole to say delay to the

Iraq enquiry could cost lives, because bad decisions could be made.

I would go further. I would say that it probably did cost lives because

bad decisions were made. Indeed, it will be the case that many of the

revelations reported come too late for use already taken. This is the

irrecoverable harm by the unconscionable delays in this

enquiry. I will of course give way. He is absolutely right in saying

that the Iraq war was the most appalling miscalculation, an idiotic

way of conducting foreign policy in living memory. He is looking out for

the future. They also accept that the fracture within Islam which was

exacerbated -- would heal so accept, the Pandora's box that was opened,

violence and extremism in Islam both Middle East and internationally is

sadly the gift of the Iraq war that will keep on giving and there may be

possibly decades worth of intervention from extreme Islamic

elements across the globe? I don't think the question is maybe, I think

the question is will be. The continued disruption of

International affairs, continued threats from terrorism. The Euro

poll assessment -- durable assessment of number of jihadists in

Europe now of about 5000 implies an arrival rate of a thousand a year.

It is going up, not going down. It is very clear that the Right

Honourable Gentleman is absolutely right in this and it actually brings

us to a significant point over this. When the individual Prime Minister

is involved in each of these decisions made the decisions, I'm

sure in their own mind they were doing the right thing and stop they

were trying to save lives, trying to save the civilisation ought in

Tabeen to bring further terrorism, but the trouble is, every single one

of them made sadistic decisions and make decisions without -- simplistic

decisions. The complexity of the issues they were reaching into was

beyond their knowledge and is absolutely correct thing and

enhancing and improving the knowledge that the enquiry report is

all about. I am no pacifist. I am no pacifist but I find myself horrified

at the thoughtless, aggressive, unnecessary interventions by the

West in areas which is does not understand. I did not like the

Gaddafi regime. I did not like the Saddam Hussein regime. I don't

particularly like the Assad regime. At ripping them out has lead to

something even worse. And so the honourable gentleman is absolutely

right. It brings the point of why this report and the speed of

preparation in this report is so important.

My right honourable friend is making an immensely compelling point. Does

he also agree with me that when the report is published - we like him I

hope will be as soon as possible - there will be a tendency for the

British media to use it as a trial of the former Prime Minister. "Blair

guilty or innocent." Whereas the great gain of this support will be

to show how the government works in the run-up to a decision to go to

war. A Prime Minister is not a Dr Strangelove it is about the whole

machine and how it works. He will forgive me if I don't follow him

down the comparison of Dr Strangelove and past Prime Ministers

but he is right in one respect, that the most important element of this

is what we learn from our own mistakes. But there is also issues

of accountability, and of course of closure which, as I say, are I'll

return to in a moment. Yes, I will. I'm very much enjoying the powerful

case the right what you is making. But -- the right honourable

gentlemen is making. Can I talk about Tony Blair, forever and a day

he will be associated with this particular war. It is permised with

him, the personality of the Prime Minister. As far as I'm concerned he

could have a tattoo across his forehead, Iraq, such is his legacy.

This will be a comment on him. I was in this House when we voted to go to

war as was the honourable gentleman. I had to listen to that nonsense and

drive from that Prime Minister for the case for war. Please make sure

that the blame to be apportioned is apportioned rightly. I'll come back

to this issue towards the latter part of my speech but my right

honourable friend and I have a dear common friend who thinks that Mr

Blair should be at The Hague but to come to that conclusion today would

be to pre-empt the report. I don't intend to do that but I'll return to

accountability in a minute. All right. I give way. Just to get the

balance correct, that if we go back to the time of the votes, actually a

majority of the non-pay roll vote in the Labour Party, 122 members of the

Labour Party -- and I was proud to be one of the organisers of this -

rebelled against their own Government. Had the Conservative

Party supported us, we would not have gone to war but those are

historical things that I think is important to place on record S that

the biggest parliamentary rebellion, within a governing party was by the

Labour Party on taking to us war when we, many of us at the time,

realised it would be a disaster but none of us realised at the time what

an appalling disaster it would be, that would carry on for decades and

influence us domestically as well as in the Middle East. The honourable

gentleman makes his point well. One of the issues that the report will

face up to, one hopes, is the voracity of what was told to the

House that day. That will be one of the key issues, which is why the

argument between Sir John chill chot and Whitehall is very important. --

Sir John Chilcot. I think the argument, reading between the lines

of his letters, was about the decisions before the House made the

decisions. What was told to the House, whether it was accurate

enough, whether it was based on impartial briefings or whether the

politics coloured the view of the components of the style. I will not

intend to answer that today but I would be incredibly disappointed if

Chilcot, if the Commission's report does not actually answer those

questions in plain English, which is why I will not be drawn by my right

honourable friend, who is a great friend of mine, I think it has to

answer those questions. What the tabloid press and other press does

with it the day after is not for me. I want to press on with the lessons

to learn not just about the war but how we should conduct inquiries. The

Government's intention now is to review the process where those who

have been criticised have been given a chance to beyond. That is to be

welcomed. Maxwellisation is responsible for the delays in this.

It is clear that strict time controls are needed for future

inquiries. It cannot be right that those who can be criticised can

declay publication for their own interest. It cannot be right. --

delay publication. That's what I hope will arise. Despite all of

this, there is no reason to delay further. There is some suggestion

that delay between the report being security cleared and its

obviouslication is due to the need for the report to be proof-read and

typeset. This would be unacceptable if true, it is already in electronic

format. It is already checked for accuracy. It'll be read by more

people than some newspapers are read. The fact is, the report has

been poured over by many people for five years. We are in the 21st

century, we not in the of hot lead type setting. Is somebody said to me

this morning - I might have summarised that long motion rather

more crisply by saying - this House instructs Sir John Chilcot strictly

to press send. I'm sure my right honourable friend

will agree that we need answers. And redaction should be kept to a

minimum. These families should not have to endure a cover-up. She is

right. I would be astonished if there are any redactions in this

report. I remember when I was of the accounts committee, I had a report

on MI5 and MI6 buildings. The report came in four whys. The chanter from

MI5 and six were almost identical. We rang up MI5 and said we had

agreed and MI6, they had agreed. We removed them. They were political.

It preserved the interests of the bureaucracy sis involved, not of the

organisation or national interest. The simple truth here is that the

facts in this report have been lore cleared. That's what two years of

this argument is about If there is a single redaction, and I others will

be looking at it closely to see why was it not redacted years ago, not

now but she is right about the rights of the families in this

affair. Now there is no doubt that the whole council industry fed up

with waiting for the final report. And we know more so than the

families of the 179 families of those who died fighting in Iraq. --

and no more So they have suffered for years as the inquiry has dragged

on and on and it would be frankly disgraceful to make them waits

months longer, just because the Government is worried what effect it

will have, if any, on the referendum. What impact that can be,

I cannot imagine, given there is no party political advantage in this,

to either side. But both the Conservatives and Labour supported

the war, as the right honourable gentleman said, half the Labour

Party stood back for it or voted against it. There is no advantage

either way. The inquiry was started by Labour and was supported by the

Prime Minister. So, it is inconceivable that the Government

should seek to wait until after the June referendum to publish the

report. I would hope my right honourable friend the Minster, when

she speaks will make it clear that is not going to happen. I'm sure he

can address that correct. I Let's put this in context. If it waited

until June t would be seven years since the inquiry started and some

of the parents -- let's put this in context, if it waited until June it

would be seven years and some of of the parents of the dead soldiers

would be waiting ten years for an answer. For comparison, the Israeli

Government appointed a commission in 2006 to investigate their Lebanon

war, the war with Lebanon. It produced its interim report in seven

months. Not seven years, seven months. A report highly critical of

the existing government that set it up and its final report in 17

months. Any arguments for delay on the grounds of political sensitivity

or national security will be far more pressing in Israel where, that

is a matter of Israeli life and death, to all of the citizens and

where, because it is a matter of daily life and death for the

citizens is a matter of very high politics, extremely important

politics. So, if they can do it in seven months and 17 months, we can

do it hopefully in a lot less than seven years. Now to return to the

point my right honourable friend raised, there will be, of course,

some people held to account in this report. Or it will properly be

dismissed as a whitewash. So that is to be expected. That is to be

expected, it's got to be right. But it is principally about learning

from the mistakes we made as a nation. It is about ensuring we do

not make the same mistakes again in future. . It's also about

remembering those who suffered great loss. It is about giving them some

measure of solace in the truth, about giving them some degree of

closure. It's about doing the honourable thing by those ultimate

who made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation. To delay any further

would be nothing short of an insult to those who died and a cruel insult

for their families who have waited for more than six years to get a

proper answer. I beg to move. THE SPEAKER: Order, the question is as

on the order people. Mr Paul Flynn. I agree with every warm that the

honourable gentleman said and congratulate him on obtaining this

debate. This is an issue that disturbs those of us who were here

at the time, more than any other decision taken in the last - in this

generation. And those members who were in the debate, and voted in

their view, now, in hindsight the wrong way, deeply regret it and

regard their parliamentary careers as failures because they allowed

themselves to be bribed, bullied, bamboozled into believing a fiction

that came from the frontbench but it wasn't just the Prime Minister.

Let's remember this was the whole establishment. This was three

parliamentary Select Committees that supported it, Farne affairs, defence

and intelligence, the military supported the idea. The Conservative

Party were more gung ho than the Labour Party. And so, we have to

look at that because the repercussions for today, they still

continue. The suffering continues. The mother of the 200 soldiers that

died in Afghanistan, Hazel Hunt has set up a foundation she runs, a

successful charity. -- the 200th soldier. But it is dealing with the

thousands of those soldiered who have been maimed in mind or in body

as a result of that terrible mistake but we also need to get the Iraq

inquiry over, so we can have another inquiry. Because there was another

terrible mistake made in 2006, when it was decided to go into Helmand

province, in the belief that not a shot would be fired and at that time

we had been in Afghanistan for five years. Only six of our soldiers have

died in conflict but, as a result of that terrible error of invading

Helmand in 2006, 450 of our soldiers died. I think the important point,

and this is not being wise after the event, I sent a letter to Tony Blair

in March 20003, saying that if we go into Iraq, in support of Bush's war

t would mean that we drive -- d, it would mean we drive a wedge between

the Christian Western World and Muslim world. There would be

antagonism and inus is just tis. From the Muslims in my local mosque

to the far corners of the world. The memory is right, that ISIS is the

daughter of our decision to go to Iraq. We must look at that with

great seriousness. They made a number of strong women

distance. The main one was that it should not be held in secret. --

recommendations. That it should be an enquiry with a large

parliamentary element in it and there should be to enquiries, one

into the reason going to war and one until you reach percussions. --

repercussions. Never in our wildest nightmares did anyone believe that

it would take seven years for the loved ones of those who had fallen,

to suffer, this period of not knowing whether their loved ones

were sent to a battle but was based on the vanity of politicians and not

on the real interests of our country. The agony goes on. Of

course the honourable member is absolutely right, with modern

printing and publishing techniques it is possible to write a book,

e-mail it to the printers and get it back to three days later. It is

virtually instantaneous. The whole system of setting up things in type

was immensely laborious and time-consuming. There is no excuse

for delaying this any further. Not for a single day. Loved ones deserve

closure. They have waited far too long and it was only in the

political interests of those who were responsible. Would he also

accept the publication would be part of what is necessary to purge our

own party of the fault line that occurred around the time of the Iraq

war and continues to this day and also besmirches the reputation of an

otherwise very fine Prime Minister, who until we admit the mistake of

going to Iraq, opening this Pandora's box will forever be known

as the person who took us to war on the coat-tails of George W Bush

against so many of his colleagues who were in the House at the time

and a mistake it is to be corrected. It would be good for all of us on

these benches if nowhere else. As someone brought up with their

religious background, I am well known to realise fully the

advantages of confession and be beneficial nature they have on us.

That must be the case. It is absolutely crucial we understand

that mindset that drove us into a war and that mindset is one if we

heard recently in other debates here when going into Libya or Syria and

is this myth that infects English MPs rather than Scottish or Welsh or

Irish MPs, the idea that the UK, our country must punch above its weight

militarily, but always means spending beyond our interests and

dying beyond our responsibilities. Madam Deputy Speaker, I'm delighted

to take part in this debate and congratulate my Right Honourable

friend and others who are responsible for initiating this

extremely important debate. I agree that when the former Foreign

Secretary, former Home Secretary Lord Hurd described it delay in the

publications as a scandal, he was absolutely right. I think many of us

in this House were absolutely horrified by the way in which Sir

John Chilcot's buried his head in the sand amidst criticism all-round,

I think it was last year by 2014, and my Right Honourable friend set

out the timetable where we have been assured that action was going to be

taken, the report was going to published and we have just been

strung along and it has been said, it has been the bereaved who are

paying the ultimate price for this delay. I'd like to start off if I

may by saying that we as the official opposition, the

Conservative Party, in 2007, called for a public enquiry into the

reasons why the Iraq war happened and the conduct thereof and we

initiated that debate on the 11th of June 2007 and I happened to wind up

for the opposition as a Shadow defence minister at the time. The

Labour Party opposed it and the then Foreign Secretary described it as

self-indulgent retrospection and our debate as opportunistic. Of course

that is because Gordon Brown did in 2009 eventually -- changed. He

ordered the Chilcot enquiry but by that time already, something like

six years had passed. We weren't alone, there were others on the

other side, the honourable gentleman, I don't know whether he

was a supporter at the time. We give three reasons why we felt enquiry

news to take place. There was a lack of a discussion in the run-up to the

conflict about post-conflict reconstruction. I do remember going

to Washington at the time. The debate at Washington in the run-up

to the conflict was all about. Conflict reconstruction. It wasn't

delivered, that fact is another matter altogether, but we will not

having a debate here. The debate, I figured was the 3rd of January in

initiated by my Right Honourable friend the member from Meriden whose

Shadow Secretary of State at the time. They were not willing to

discuss the aftermath of any conflict. Of course. I don't think

we have learnt anything if you look at the situation in the Middle East,

Libya is a mess, a dictatorship. We learned nothing because we did not

plan any post-war reconstruction. I couldn't possibly disagree with the

honourable gentleman. I think that is entirely right. The second reason

why we felt the enquiry was necessary was to consider, and I

will quote from what I actually said in the debate in June 2007, how we

should adjust our whole military posture to the new type of military

operations we face including at the tactical level, whether or soldiers,

sailors are getting the right training package for the type of

warfare, whether we have the right equipment for the task, whether we

have the correct balance of forces and what needs to be done so that we

do not become disproportionately reliant on urgent operational

requirements come a kind of panic buying formula to make up the

shortfall in equipment. That was the second reason why we felt that we

needed to hold that enquiry. The second was, the third reason was

because a number of Select Committee enquiries, there was a real need for

a copper heads of enquiry to be conducted by an independent

Committee established by the Government. We suggested there was

real urgency for that to be done and by Right Honourable friend in

introducing this debate mentioned the effect of the time like --

time-lag. The reason for the relative urgency is that as my Right

Honourable friend now Lord Haig said, while the events are fresh in

people's minds and the e-mails have not been destroyed, we need to learn

whatever lessons we can from the diagram to operations in Iraq so far

and to apply them to Afghanistan before it is too late. There was an

imperative and I think there has been a great disservice done to

everybody in that this enquiry was not established immediately in the

aftermath of the Iraq war. And indeed was six years late. As I say,

I think it is the bereaved who are owed an explanation first of all. He

has been a Defence Minister and eight defence... Before he goes on

his leg section, if he would give his opinion on the argument that was

put the time which was that whenever our forces are in the field we can

have an enquiry, it seems to me to be members. -- can't. In Norway we

had an enquiry, would he give his opinion on that. I agree. He

mentions Norway, so there is plenty of precedent for that. I think it

was an excuse for not holding an enquiry and I think it was a

mistake. It is not just the bereaved, it is those of us who were

in the South at the time, for all of us bought a responsibility -- in the

House at the time. A responsibility whether to vote for the war or not.

Those of us on the front bench had a special responsibility but we had no

more information than what you read the newspapers. When I voted the

war, I did so for three reasons, I had a meeting with Hans Blix in New

York, the United Nations chief weapons inspector, he said in his

view he had no doubt that Saddam Hussein intended to develop weapons

of mass destruction and if they could develop them he would use

them, he just couldn't at the point find them and that was just a month

before the war started. I thought that was pretty compelling.

Secondly, the 45 minute claim. When we were told, and I remember

vividly, it was all over the front page of the Evening Standard, that

Saddam Hussein could launch, I think it was described as battlefield,

biological and chemical weapons at 45 minutes notice and would reach

the sovereign British base of Cyprus, I thought I had a

responsible at the, I am a Shadow Defence Minister, if that happened,

I could hear Mr John Humphrys on the today programme saying, well, you

knew all about this, why didn't you take action to time? So, I felt that

claim was one that one had to take seriously and thirdly I thought as a

key Islay of the United States, -- ally of the United States, we had to

have a good reason for not supporting our US friends. Not a

view I am sure will be shared universally throughout the House.

Could he tell me, because he has a very nodule position on me, -- --

very nodule position on this. Was there any plausible case to say what

scenario he would ever use them against the West, without

guaranteeing his own suicide? A good question, but a question in

retrospect, at the time, not only did the chief weapons inspector tell

me to my face and the rest of us on the Defence Select Committee who met

in New York, that he thought that Saddam Hussein was intent upon

developing weapons of mass action, but then I read also that I am told

by the Government, the British Government, my government, that

there was a possibility that he would be able to launch these little

weapons at 45 minutes notice. -- lethal weapons. Also the point that

this involved Doctor David Kelly and all the tragedy surrounding that

poor chap and the dodgy dossier. I do believe that one of the things

that Mr Blair and the rest of that government will have to account to

the nation for is what I believe to the usurpations of the joint

Intelligence Committee by the Prime Minister's spin Doctor Alistair

Campbell. He was the man who was putting pressure on the joint

Intelligence Committee led by Sir John Scarlett to release as much

information to make, to coin a phrase, a sexed up dossier, to make

the case as convincing as possible to us in this House and to the

British people that there was a real threat that we could not ignore and

upon which we had to take action. If I may just finished. I do think one

of the lessons that we have to learn now is that the joint Intelligence

Committee has to be led by a ban for women of experience in the security

-- man or woman. Subject to political pressure. Their

professional view must be respected and their authority must not be

usurped. I give way. I thank my very good friend for allowing me to

intervene. One of the things that has confused me and I agree with

absolutely every word you said so far, sir, one thing that has really

worried me and I'd think we have heard answer yet, if there were no

weapons of mass disruption, particularly of rank to chemical

weapons, what was it that killed the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs cos we

never found them, where the heck did they go? My honourable gallant

friend raises a good question but I don't think that will be in my

contribution to the debate and perhaps you can develop that if he

is able to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have set out the

position of the opposition at the time, the Conservative opposition at

the time, we believe it was imperative that an enquiry were

held, but it was urgent that that enquiry be held and I have expert

and why it was that I supported the war and some of the shenanigans that

went on to try and persuade the British people that there was

justification of it. I think, to conclude, the delay has been in

publication of this report, it has been wholly unacceptable. I entirely

agree with my Right Honourable friend. Five years on from when Sir

John said that it would take him a few months to prepare the final

report, five years on, those families have had to wait and being

held in limbo. I agree that the maximisation arrangement has got to

be revisited. We cannot have an open-ended allowance for people who

have been criticised in a draft report to be able to come back. The

mostly a time limit on matters. As one who is deeply critical of the

Salve report, which took many years and cost millions of pounds -- the

Saville report. Finally, let's compare what has gone

on in the last seven years with what went on after the Falklands

campaign. Three weeks after the end of that war, the Prime Minister

announced an inquiry. That inquiry took six months to deliberate and

report. And there were international ramifications. Because, of course,

the United States was initially tempted to be on the side of its

South American neighbour. So, there were sensitivities which I know will

apply in this case, with regard to the relationship between Prime

Ministers Tony Blair and George W Bush, but there were similar

sensitivities in the case of the Falklands' campaign. That inquiry

cost ?81,500 which, at today's prices is about ?280,000. I

understand this morning, I have been advised by a friend that it is

likely that the Chilcot report will be 2.5 million words and 12 volumes.

Whether the interests of better understanding of are served by a

report of this length or not, I know not but what I do know, is that in

this House we are right to demand that report be published as quickly

as possible. Thank you very much, Madame Deputy

Speaker. This is a debate which I have an honour to take part in but I

have to say I have no pleasure. I don't think we should have be having

this debate because the Chilcot Inquiry should have been published

by now. I think it is important we look over the key times. Time has

been a huge issue in the whole Genesis of this report. We have to

bear in mind that John Chilcot promised to have his report

delivered been the week commencing 18th April. I think from what I

understand that John Chilcot will be honouring his word on that. The

Prime Minister also promised to have it security cleared within a

fortnight. That's the week beginning 2nd May. I think the promise I'm

looking for, from the Government frontbench is that the Government

will keep its word and a fortnight after Sir John Chilcot has given

that report, that we do see that report published. It is shall as

many have said and as has been said earlier in the press conference, not

a difficult matter. It is as another member said, a matter of pressing

send and it is published. People have waited far too long for this

report and further delays are only add together pain of the families

who are looking for closure on this report. But, it is also adding to

the ever-increasing time where we fail to learn the less of Iraq,

lessons we should have learned several years ago. Indeed it is not

just the timeline as mentioned there, there are more timelines in

this romplt last year there was a debate again hold and hosted by the

member for, on 29th January, calling for this to be published by 12th

February last year. There was uproar in the House at Prime Minister's

questions and other times to imagine the report would be delayed upon the

general election of May 2015. We are now in April 2016 and again there is

uncertainty about the report. But this report kicked off in 2009.

Again there is another timeline before that, of impatience, with the

report and I would like to remind the House of a debate here when I

was quite a new MP here, for about a year-and-a-half, fted 31st October

2006 when a cross-party debate was held and led by the then honourable

member, Adam Price, I think it is instructive to go back and look at

the words that Adam used at the beginning of that speech, he said

"It is about accountability. It is about the monumental catastrophe of

the Iraq war, which is the worst foreign policy disaster certainly

since Suez and possibly since Munich. It is about the mores a in

which greatably we find ourselves, it is about the breakdown in our

system of government, our fault flooin our constitution that only

we, as a Parliament can fix, fix it we must, if there are not to be

further mistakes and other Iraqs under other Prime Ministers in which

case we shall have only ourselves to blame." I think those words that

were used in that speech in 2006 still ring very true today. Other

debate, Tony Blair refused to come, the then Prime Minister, despite

saying a number of weeks earlier to a member from the party opposite

that he would come at any time to a debate on Iraq. During that debate,

part of the defence given was that soldiers were in the theatre of

operation. But that was admirably dealt with by Douglas Hogg who was

then a Conservative MP, now Lord Hogg, who said that during World War

Two, the Norway debacle had been led by his father and that was when

troops had been in action. And that key moment, of the Norway inquiry,

am in the certain of the name, led to the removal of can Chamberlain

and the installation of Churchill instead, which may have been

instrumental in changing the course of World War Two because this

Chamber then was not afraid. I think hank the honourable member for

giving way. This is an issue which I think this House needs to address in

terms. The idea that we cannot debate or investigate anything when

troops are in the field. When I have spoken to our troops in the field,

they want our democracy to work properly. They want to feel they are

fighting for a cause, which is an honourable cause. It seems to me n

future we should dismiss that argument, the idea that somehow we

are undermining our troops when what we are doing is standing up for

something which will ensure their lives are not wasted in the few

future. The honourable member is right, people and troops want to

feel that this place is not on autopilot. It is a living,

functioning, thinking and reacting to lessons and to have committed

them to the mores a, as I have said, and to refuse to learn lessons is an

absolute abdication of be responsibility that was taken by

this House. I will give way. Picking up the point from my honourable

friend, if I may - shouldn't the default position of the House be

that there will be an inquiry once we have committed troops into

action, and perhaps when that action is either in the midst of the action

or once it is concluded, that there shall be, normally an inquiry. This

is a very serious matter. People died. Very serious foreign policy

issues. Rather than - oh, we might make a decision to have an inquiry

if we really think that's necessary. That's the Government saying that.

This House, the legislature should have a default position that there

should automatically be an inquiry when we have committed people to

war. The honourable member is quite right, very right. We expect the

military to do their jobs when we commit them to war and I take the

word "we" I did not support T I wasn't an MP at the time. I didn't

support Iraq like most of the rest of the citizency of the UK and

certainly Scotland. But when we ask them as a collective to do a job, we

ourselves should be prepared to do our job and to change, if necessary,

not to run awane not to be scared. We have to remember there was a

Butler inquiry around the time of the Iraq war n 2004, before became

an MP, which was on the front page of the Evening Standard dismissed as

a white wash. So when the Government thought they were getting inquiries

of a certain type they were willing to have them t would seem. I thank

the honourable member for giving way, as well as the other important

points made by himself and other honourable members, is it not hugely

important that we remove this false parliamentary rue Rick of no inquiry

while troops are in the field. Otherwise governments will have a

perverse incentive to keep troops in the field, in a possibly

disintegrating and changing situation, precisely to avoid an

inquiry. I'm grateful for the honourable member for making that

point. He probably long-know s I'm a great admirer of his thoughts and

ideas, he is right, about the perverse incentive the government

would have to keep a war going to keep away from an inquiry. Hopefully

that with never happen but we never know the machinations of politics,

just to keep it going another month, kick the can further down the road.

I think it was kicked down the road in 2009. A pivotal thing changed,

the Prime Minister of the day changed, from Tony Blair to Gordon

Brown. Many people can draw their own conclusions on that but I feel

that was significant. I will wait for the inquiry to see how

significant that was. We can't have a situation where we have, in this

Parliament, and it has been said by honourable members, running away

from the reality of what they have committed other people to do. The

Iraq war cost ultimately 179 UK lives, that's not to count as has

been said, those wounded in body and mind. It is not also to account the

knock-on effects to families and loved ones and people dealing with

those who have been wounded in body and mind. It has taken a toll of

people in the UK atloevenlt has cost 4,800 Allied soldiers but sadly

those figures, terrible as they are, are dwarfed by the civilian

casualties in Iraq itself. It is about 134,000, at the Lows

estimates. Possibly four times higher than that. The war created

3.5 million refugees. Lessons we must learn of what we got ourselves

involved with and what we might be doing again f we haven't got the

courage to face up to what was done. High honourable friend is being

generous in giving way. He is talking about figures when peace was

declared. What a disastrous, unprepared peace that was. Would he

also take into account, possibly, at least as much, probably certainly

more than those casualty figures that have occurred subsequently

because of opening up the rift between Shia and sunny and allowing

-- and Sunni, and allowing the opportunities for a warfare that is

spreading to an international guerrilla warfare. If he includes

those numbers, too, won't he in fact find an enormous death toll, running

currently into #34i8 yobs and who knows to how many in the future. --

running into millions. The honourable gentleman is right. A

further addition I would add to that is the other fallout from the Iraq

war, which was, as we must remembered was demonstrated by over

1 million people on streets of the UK, and if 1 million people were

demonstrating, we can sure there were many, many more, several

factors more that would be in support of those million but I would

add to that, the creation of Daesh in the camps of Iraq. It was the a

myth at the time that they went into Iraq because Al-Qaeda was there,

which was part of the myth-making in America foray jeep chavenlingt the

reality is they weren't there until the Americans went in and created

something far worse in those camps and the responsibility of what was

done there, not just in loss of lives but certainly in the loss of

lives, but in the costs and creation and terror of the future is

something that holds and hangs very, very d a aptly over the Iraq war and

we should learn from it and make sure we get the report published

soon. Time is of the essence. Time is the big factor, kick the can down

the road even further is not acceptable. On 29th October 20 #15,

the Prime Minister seemed to be unequivocal on clearance taking two

weeks which is the point of this deba. He said in relation to

national security checking, the Government will aim to complete the

process as quickly as possible, "As you know, national security checking

for the Saville quieny took two weeks to complete. It would be a

plan and expectation it take no longer than this and we will look to

complete the process very quickly", said the Prime Minister. "We need to

do that for the families who are expecting that some closure will

come." "This inquiry should have started many years before. On the

debate I referred to on 31st October 2006, there was frustration then

that it took so long to get in front of this House of Commons. At that

point we used an Opposition day. Those were the time when SNP Plaid

Cymru Opposition debates are few and far between. We are not like that

now, Has my honourable friend considered the reputational damage

done to the UK by the series of earlier delays and would he agree

with me that if it is the case that as the EU referendum, which is

causing this delay, then the reputational damage to the UK is in

danger of becoming ridiculous? Inquiry I am grateful for that

intervention. I said the UK risks becoming an international laughing

stock by this infinite and eternal delay that is tied to this report.

He is absolutely right in what he said. This delay is annoying many

people, it is not to the satisfaction of the people who would

concur with him about the EU referendum. One of my constituents

said, to allow the EU referendum to get in the wake seems to be

completely wrong and smacks of political and new friends that

should not be taking place. Interestingly, the former Amber of

the Foreign Affairs Committee, was Labour MP Andrew McKinlay, called

for the publication of Chilcot and said it shouldn't get lost in the

referendum because it would suit the security institutions for it to be

lost in the flurry of the referendum campaign. That suffered at the

beginning of May. That is when the report should be covered. We are

looking here for government to keep its promise. We are looking for John

Chilcote to keep his promise. The families certainly deserve that. I

think the honourable member for being generous enough to give way.

Some of us know John Chilcott and have worked with him in his previous

roles. When he was appointed to do this enquiry was accused of being

uncharitable. I said he wouldn't be independent or challenging. He

perhaps is going to prove something different. In one road he did

conduct, it was the review done after the Castlereagh Road had. What

he did then was what we and my party predicted. He would come out with an

outcome that would suit the security services that would be more about

their interests. It shows this is a man well attuned and sensitive to

the interests and demands of the security services. The idea he has

written a report that will need serious national security checking

is somewhat preposterous. Interesting words from the

honourable member. We have two return to the words of the Prime

Minister who said the saddle enquiry took two weeks to complete and we

expect an indication that this will take no longer. It is the

expectation of this chamber that the report will be published on the week

beginning the 2nd of May. The lack of publication of this report has, I

think, that the report will be published on the week beginning the

2nd of May. The lack of publication of this report has, I think, but as

uninformed with other engagements that have subsequently taken place

since Iraq. Military action since Iraq has been a chaotic mess. That

has been the case in the beer. We had a bombing campaign costing 13

times more than was spent on the rebuilding of Iraq. Had Chilcott

been republished, perhaps we would have the hard lessons laid in front

of this in black and white which would hopefully guide and a

government in the future planning any military adventures or

interventions, that they plan for the peace afterwards, but they do

not leave a vacuum or an opportunity for terrorists to move in and

destabilise the state. Again, we are selling ourselves short selling

those in other countries particularly short when this report

was delayed in it lunch and has been eternally delayed in its

publication. I think I want to finish today on the words of a woman

I admire greatly, Rose Gentle from Glasgow, who is the mother of a

Royal Highland Fusilier, Gordon Gentle, who was killed 12 years ago

in Basra at the age of 19. She said she was disappointed by the latest

news on the enquiry and thought it would be better sooner than this. We

thought this enquiry would be sooner, he thought it would be

covered by the end of the year because they have everything there.

It is another let down. It is another few months to wait and

suffer. That was set in October 2015, 15, nine years after the

initial debate on Iraq in this place. I don't think brief parents

should be waiting a week or a day longer beyond the first week of May

2016 for the publication of the Chilcot report. I completely agree

with the right honourable and gallant member. It is completely

unconscionable to continue to delay the publication of this report.

National security checking of the Iraq enquiry is holding up

publication of the report I believe is critical to our national security

because only by understanding how we got involved in this gigantic

geostrategic error of an invasion can we learn the profound lessons

for our political class, the military and establishment. I think

this is about the whole mechanism of government. The subtext I think 40

many of us in politics and the media is who might be damaged by the

contents of the report. We play to the gallery. We love to play the man

and not the wrecking ball that shattered security assumptions and

the balance of power in the Middle East. Is not the real question the

substance of the report and what answers it may give to how we manage

to get embroiled in Iraq and perhaps provide -- pointers to the sister

conflict in Afghanistan? A well intentioned but disastrous

intervention in Libya and are clueless response to the rise of

so-called Islamic State. 634 British troops and at least 150,000

civilians were lost between them and in consequence of these I believe we

face a far greater strategic threat from theological phosphors that we

faced at 911. We might hope that when the report is published through

the witnesses and access, we can begin the self examination of how we

got ourselves into these waters and I believe that our ongoing failure

is caused by the lack of effective political and military leadership.

From what I have seen on the ground since becoming a member of

Parliament in 2005 in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Libya, this week in

Syria, I think that the phone monopoly of the government machine

has become dysfunctional. Firstly, we have suffered from a narrowly

focused class of political politicians who understand politics,

leadership and who have almost no understanding of the complexities or

realities on the ground. Secondly, we have ambitious civil servants who

note that careers at fans by staying close to what the rest of the group

thinks. Thirdly, we have military officers with a civil service

mindset who have also learned that the right answer is we can do it,

not we cannot do without... Finally, the experts who are ignored or who

are marginalised to stop no experts were present at the ranch in America

when Prime Minister Blair agreed to support a US led invasion of Iraq.

Of course he was informed by the importance of keeping the US- UK

alliance, but he didn't seem to make even the slightest attempt to stop

his friend, President Bush, driving us drunk into Iraq. Blackcomb, from

then, we needed to find reasons to go to Iraq. We created the infamous

dossier in a late night essay crisis. In Downing Street, so close

into the night did the work that they managed to read the bit from

the top secret single source report about the missiles, but failed to

read the comments from the analysts. What they fail to see here was her

comment that there was no way that the missiles referred to could

possibly still be in the hands of Saddam Hussein. Most of the public,

as well as many people in Parliament, in good faith were

convinced by the Prime Minister. Later, we convince ourselves that we

were in Afghanistan to fight them over there so we didn't have two

fight them over here. Several years ago, after I give a presentation to

an immensely senior person in a previous government, he asked me,

are you really saying that the Taliban threat to the UK? This

reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference

between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It almost beggars belief. A local

xenophobic tribal traditional movement as against a death cult.

The difference was, and I think he did not understand, but we cannot be

too unfair on the politicians because they are sometimes not very

well served by the civil servants. Throughout these waters there has

been a tendency to push a good use of the culture, what General

Petraeus describes as putting lipstick on pigs. We have all heard

the mantras. We are making progress, there are some challenges, but

overall we are really moving forward. The Secretary of State for

Defence was in a briefing attended by a friend of mine, though he

denies this, the Minister bind the table and said why have you not been

telling me the truth? I did not know things were quite so bad. Another

friend was astonished to find himself in a briefing in Basra when

all those assembled were being told what they should and should not tell

Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In a briefing in Helmand, the defence

committee, which I then sat on, were told how brilliantly things are

going and a few weeks later I was on a private trip to Afghanistan and

the official in question pondered up to me in a bar and said I am really

sorry for that briefing we give. The trouble is we just don't get

promoted for telling the truth. I am enjoying his assorted speech but I

would like him to confirm what he just said. That was expelled from

the House forcing it some years ago that this story that those young

people going to Afghanistan would actually stopping terrorism on the

streets of Britain was on truth, that those people were deluded into

conquer in the belief they were defending their families here and

the only reason the Taliban are killing our soldiers in Afghanistan

was because we were there. As soon as we came out they lost that

interest. Can he say he thought that was the continuing perception of our

soldiers for which many lost their lives? I entirely agree with them.

The original invasion of Afghanistan was a highly effective Act and the

Afghan people removed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban themselves. It was this

disastrous new to implement that whipped up the insurgency and I will

come to that in a minute if I may. So, people don't get promoted for

telling the truth. When I first drafted this, accented to a well

known and courageous BBC foreign correspondent and he e-mailed me

back. He said it reminds me of being attacked for negative coverage that

I put out in Iraq and Afghanistan by officials who later admitted either

privately to me or in memoirs that things were actually worse than I

was saying in my news report. With hugely honourable exceptions, the

same is true of senior military officers. After a wrecking of

Helmand in 2004, a military officer reported back to his bourse, a

general, and the general ask them, but is the insurgency like in

Helmand? The officer replied, there isn't one, but if you want one I can

give you one. At the same time, the mission statement actually said that

the military were to give a politically aware advice. The top

brass volunteered the UK for Helmand and like Iraq, the short ministers

that it was doable with the original force numbers and we heard exactly

the same when it came to a lack of equipment. I remember military

people reminding us in Afghanistan that we'd had enough helicopters to

do the job, but if you weeks before the death by an improvised explosive

device of people -- Trooper Joshua Hammond, Rupert wrote that he and

his men were making unnecessary removes because of the lack of

helicopters. He went on to say, this increases the Ie the threat and our

exposure to it. A senior British general briefed us and for my head

off in a meeting for being a naysayer. I went back to Afghanistan

on a private trip and went to see him nervously and as I walked into

his office I said to him, are we still winning? And he said to me, if

we are I will be dead by the time we do.

As a soldier I was in Iraq before the war in 1991 and in 2003 I found

myself back on the ground, I'll never forget driving into my soul

after the regime dissolved after that city before I is collapsed into

anarchy and it was the first time as a journalist that I kept close to me

a submachine gun. There were bodies on the streets, chaos and really

nasty threatening environment. American jets were coming down low

and fast noisily to intimidate. I went to the police station to find

out where American troops were in the city and all these Saddam

Hussein lookalikes were standing around and the police Brigadier

General told those, when you fight the Americans can you please get

them to come up here and give us our instructions, which is an astounding

thing to do as the resume is effectively falling. -- regime. I

went and found the Americans and I found the kernel and when I do my

business with him I said by the way the Iraqi police general wants his

instructions. The American said to me, you can tell him to go and

something himself. It was extraordinary. Fourthly, we ignored

other experts who could have helped others. Of all the people who knew

anything about Iraq, did anybody actually suggest that it would be a

good idea to dismantle Baathists like police officers from the

various structures of the government? Would any expert of

thought that was a good idea if asked? I don't know of anyone apart

from general Tim Cross who thought about are responsible it is to the

people of Basra after the invasion. In Afghanistan, the experts were

consistently ignored. I was in 1984 there for my gap year before I went

to university with the magenta Dean when there are fighting the Russians

and though one listens to our officials who had run the trading

programme for the Afghan resistance back then. No one listens to the

senior ex-Mujahideen commanders who live in North London or suburbs of

car. No one heard the concerns of the expert contractors to our

foreign intelligence service who personally knew many of the Taliban

leadership. No one spoke to the agronomists who have been working

for decades in the Pashtun belt. Will my honourable friend agree with

me that the criticisms he's absolutely rightly making at the

door of the services are laid at the tops of the establishment Gretchen

Mark I remember before the Iraq war a colleague about us who are serving

in the planning section said I have never known a war in which the

British officer class is less happy so somebody was asking questions and

not getting answers. Absolutely. Forgive me for another anecdote. I

remember having a barbecue in my garden in Gravesend for the officers

of a regiment about go to Afghanistan and I asked the officer

responsible for engagements when they got the Afghanistan, engaging

the local community in Helmand province and asked how you would do

it he had an on to cancer. 50 minutes later the kernel to me aside

and said I will play the best way to influence the people in Helmand

possibly towards us. It is not to get on the plane in the first place.

-- positively towards us. No one listened the experts. The Pakistani

is now a bit about Afghanistan and they know about the Taliban. The

Russians do. But of course as ever we know it all. In Cabo I was

sitting with a general who had looked after Helmand province for a

couple of years after the Russians had left and I said, you must be

being consulted the whole time by ice are. He looked down at as for

mobile telephones and said no one has rung me. I am waiting for them

to ring. I thank my good friend for letting

me intervene. History tells us lessons. When the allies liberated

selfie stage, -- south-east Asia, in order to maintain the safety and

security of civilians distastefully but nonetheless they did it they use

the Japanese army for security and that is a lesson which we should

readily have understood when we went into Iraq after the war was

apparently over. Thank you. To continue my theme about the

inexperienced political class ignoring the experts, Britain's one

ambassador who actually understood what was going on and expressed it

to the politicians now works for HSBC. And Syria, we haven't taken

the advice of some of the officials who have been deployed forward with

the Syrian opposition as was and to argue that Isis is fundamentally

apolitical counterterrorist problem, much less a military problem than it

is a function of broken politics in the countries concerned. We have

thrown ourselves behind an American led the literary strategy that until

very recently threatened to turn the whole of Syria into hell. Iraq went

wrong and the Nato deployment to Afghanistan cannot be counted as a

success, nor can Libya, nor can Syria and nor can the sanctions

being imposed on ordinary people in Syria today. I'm extremely grateful.

I agree with much what he says and I particularly want to endorse what

says about the military commanders, they do themselves, their country

and this house no service by not telling us the truth. They need to

speak truth to power. Can I say on Libya, the reason why we went into

Libya was because Benghazi was about to be subjected to genocide. If we

had not done so, we would have faced the criticism that we allowed

thousands of innocent people to be destroyed. We were on the horn is

wider than and I for one do not blame the primers for the decision

he made. He was in a difficult position. I think we would have been

in just a bad position now had Benghazi fallen. I was in Benghazi

when those armoured vehicles that were hit right on the edge of the

city well worn and I drove down to the front line and I agree with you.

If those armoured vehicles got into town it would've been serious but to

then proceed with Ray Gene change and -- regime change and where some

of our officials didn't accept tribal issues to Libya. It was a big

mistake and it's a mistake that the people of Libya are paying a price

for as we speak. Overall, our approach since 911 has left our

country facing much, much greater dangers. Neither Saddam nor the

Caliban through so much as a petrol bomb the West and yet the images of

Iraq and in fact Afghanistan and Libya and Syria on the websites of

global jihad will have terrible consequences for our people. After

the chemical outrages in Damascus, Parliament was asked to bomb the

sadder Aegean, three years later, we were again asked to vote to bomb but

this time the forces opposing the regime. I wonder how many of us in

here have both voted to bomb the Syrian government and their

opponents. It's little wonder especially after Iraq and

Afghanistan that the public at don't have much confidence when ministers

tell them that they deserve their backing. In conclusion, when

Chilcott does eventually publish we need to scour his content in the

hope that it might take ours to take more seriously the security of our

people and move us away from this dreadful politics of career that has

infected ours. For a country, Chilcott may well point to

dysfunction rather bigger than Iraq. Rather closer to this chamber and

Whitehall. We have do learn from our mistakes and we owe it to our own

people and to the people of those countries where we have contributed

to unimaginable insecurity. Thank you to the members who have

managed to secure this important debate. It's a pleasure to follow

the honourable member for Gravesend and I'm sure that had he been able

to have the opportunity to give evidence to the inquiry am sure the

final Reid will be more interesting than the one we are in the spacing.

There is a great sense of anger and frustration and we have seen that in

the chamber today and in the wider public over recent years following

the Chilcott inquiry not being public so far and that anger and

frustration is understandable. My own constituents in Dunfermline

share this frustration and anger but also find the situation

unacceptable. Six years on and still no report. Today I want to start my

focus on the entirely predictable keep calm and carry on attitude and

I'm sure the government thinks that has been a virtue but I think in

this case that to heap and unacceptable the way upon

unacceptable delay is not the way forward and they inform us that the

final report will be heavily redacted and adds insult to injury

especially to those family members who have lost loved ones in Iraq. It

is a dredge will situation. The conclusion of Chilcott should be a

chance the government to draw a line under Iraq and the Iraqi adventure,

I should say the Iraqi misadventure. This is an opportunity to understand

what went wrong, what is why we fell down this particular rabbit hole and

a chance to find out why a UK strategy in the Middle East is so

feckless that the government had no choice but to follow the United

States down the rabbit hole. Instead we have this. Chilcott has become

something of a corpse in the cupboard as the member for Penrith

put if this time last year. We need to face up to Chilcott and the

lessons that it may offer as an give us. Read to get on with

understanding what the UK once. What are the strategic aims? Otherwise it

will be condemned to living with the corpse in the covered and were still

an ineffective foreign policy. It is this reality which leads us to the

great journal foreign affairs to write that Britain is at risk of

slipping into relevance. It's following policy is devised for

specifically and a short-term outlook. Americans comment that the

UK reside and not a global power. It is only last month that we witnessed

the Foreign Secretary city in the chamber discussing the ceasefire in

Syria and the Foreign Secretary was asked if he had made contact with

his counterpart in Russia to find out more about what the implications

of the ceasefire had meant. The Foreign Secretary replied that he

had not made any contact with the security department in Russia and

while we can criticise Russia for being isolationist we cannot fall

into that same trap ourselves and the equally afflicted. I've seen

this first hand. The defence like committee has recently undertaken an

investigation into Russia and over the course of the inquiry at become

increasingly clear that the symptoms of British strategic impotence are

felt. It's almost as if the end the Cold War brought us to the point

where we are still thinking about Russia just as we stop thinking

about Russia and the Middle East. Instead of that you seriously about

the role we can play in the world, the governments have decided to

subcontract that to other allies who don't always have our best interests

or share our values across the world. Let's break the habit of a

lifetime. But it should make to amend will not do any longer. I

asked the primers of two released Chilcott now, bury the court in the

cupboard, let's learn the lessons of Iraq and get serious about Britain's

role in the world. And Iraq itself, I was in Baghdad several weeks ago

and the country is in a complete mess. It is a shambles. I can assure

the house is far from being mission accomplished. If anything, it's

quite the opposite. After 134,000 Iraqis of all deaths, 179 UK

soldiers killed in action, 6000 30 wounded and who every day have to

live with the consequences of their injuries, in short we took part in a

war which destabilise the country, caused a civil war with neighbouring

states, paved the way for brutal terrorist attacks across Europe and

was a war with no real endgame inside. No endgame plan for. All

those actions have huge repercussions from foreign policy,

national security and the way the decisions to go to war are taken and

this has eroded public trust in democracy itself.

We remember the demonstrations that took part at the time against the

war in Iraq. The people you in Iraq was the wrong thing to do. The

government of the day field to field to listen to these remarks, these

protests and the way the people of the country wanted us to progress.

The current Prime Minister can take a different route. I say to him,

this report does not happen to be written in Perl, it does not have to

wait for the EU referendum, publish the in food. -- in food. I rise to

speak and I didn't intend to because my very good, honourable and gallant

friend has asked me to do so because he knows very well some of my

experiences and in anecdotal form he asked me to speak. My theme for one

or two minutes is how I believe that our senior military officers have

become too politicised. In April 1993 I took soldiers into the

village in central Bosnia. I identified a massacre where at least

over 100 people had been killed. I decided that I had to inform the

world. It was my duty under the Geneva conventions and I decided I

would have a press conference and identify the people who I thought

were responsible. They were special forces of the Bosnian army. Then I

informed the Ministry of Defence which was kissing goodbye to a

glorious military career by that action. I received, when I returned

to my peers, a blistering telegram which demanded to know how I heard

the authority to make such a statement. I was meant to be

neutral, I was not to get involved in the war, I had ordered my men to

open fire in defence of themselves and I was way out of line and I very

much risk being sacked immediately. This was rather depressing for me.

However, as a result of that press conference, front pages in this

country carried the story. It was in the news, on the television, and on

the radio. The reaction from the public and from politicians, members

of This House and ministers, was unanimously supportive. The generals

who had given me this very severe warning, they sent another signal.

Totally ignoring the first one saying I had acted in the highest

traditions of the British Army and I was to be congratulated. It was at

this time that I thought, perhaps, or senior officers are too

politically correct. Since that time, if you do get the Daily Mail

and the Sun today, you will notice I have decided political correctness

is something I do not particularly agree with. Thank you. I think we

will all be gone off to see what is in The Papers as soon as this debate

is over. Can I just thank the honourable gentleman for providing

us with some very personal experiences that relate to the

debate today. Can I also thank the other member for securing it. Today

is perhaps not the day to go back over what happened back as far as

2003 in relation to the Iraq war, though I will use this as an

opportunity to remind people that back then when Charles Kennedy was

the leader of the Liberal Democrats, we unanimously went through the

lobbies to vote against the Iraq war. No exception to that and we did

so on the basis that we thought the weapons inspectors should be given

more time because there was no United Nations backing for that

action. We all know that the Iraq war took place, a mother of members

have referred to statistics, the 179 British service personnel killed and

the 5000 casualties, the number of casualties amongst the Iraqis. There

is a huge range varying from 150,000 up to as much as one million and we

clearly never know. The enquiry was eventually set up to discuss this to

look at the detail of this. In an earlier intervention from The Member

For Perth, he is not in his place, he referred to the fact that he

thought Tony Blair should have Iraq tattooed on his forehead. In

reality, Tony Blair doesn't need to have that tattooed on his forehead

because his visage is sufficient to remind people of his involvement and

the action he took that led us into the war. The remit for the Chilcot

Inquiry talks about examining our involvement in Iraq, including the

way decisions are made to establish as accurately and reliably what

happened and to identify lessons that can be learned. I think,

clearly, there will be, to some extent, the focus on the individuals

involved, but what worries me is that we are not yet in a position to

identify the lessons that can be learned from the Iraq war because we

have not yet had the Chilcot Inquiry published and since the Iraq war, we

have had the first involvement in Libya where, if the Chilcot Inquiry

had been published, I am sure it would have helped the decisions

taken there. It wasn't available for Syria either. Maybe it will be

available for any proposal for the UK Government to be involved in

military action in Libya, further military action in Libya. I was

worried that we might perhaps as a parliament the bounced or advised

that she had noticed that there was going to be a debate on which the UK

Government was going to be seeking permission from Parliament to get

involved in further Libyan military operations. It does seem as if that

possibility has receded, given that the Libyan government have stated

that is not something that they are currently seeking. It may be

something they seek in the future and I suppose what the Chilcot

Inquiry might be able to do is to flag up the risks of mission creep.

Especially in relation to Libya because it is not clear what it is

clear that there are many UK drone strikes taking place in Syria and

Iraq, it is not clear whether that is also happening in Libya and the

risk of further mission creep associated with that. It would have

been very helpful for us, as members of Parliament, who do not

necessarily have access to the detailed briefings to have had the

Chilcot Inquiry published and available for us to refer to. One of

the things that worries me about the Chilcot Inquiry is that it has

clearly gone on for a very long time but I don't think it is entirely

clear why it has. Some have suggested it might have been a lack

of staff though John Chilcot has said he thought that when he wanted

the extra stuff he would get them so perhaps it wasn't a lack of staff.

Some people have said it was down to the Maxwell isolation process. Other

people say that is not the case. It is unclear what it is that has led

to this report taking seven years so far to not be published. I hope, I

am not calling for an enquiry into the enquiry, but I hope someone will

make it clear precisely where the weaknesses with this model or so

that if there is another future enquiry into our involvement in

Libya, for instance, that we follow the right path and do not simply

repeat the mistakes of the Chilcot Inquiry. For instance, I think some

future enquiries would still allow people having access to documents to

make comments on them, but maybe that has... I will give way in a

second. Maybe they have taken advantage of that to the extent of

the process. We simply do not know. On that point, people like myself

who have written reports, in academia and the like, get puzzled

at times with this process. It is one matter to send facts to be

assured, to get people to comment on the accuracy, it is entirely another

thing to give people the other opportunity to comment on the

interpretation. I think the concern people would have is the question of

whether this report can be truly independent if he allows people to

challenge his own interpretations must remark I thank The Member For

that intervention. Perhaps in future what he has suggested is what is

required rather than a response to the interpretation. That may mean

that in future, if that was the process that was followed we would,

in fact see a much snappier report produced. I think we would all

welcome that. The difficulty is that the longer this goes on, the weaker

the memories of people are offered, the information that is available

tends to disappear. We get a less and less clear picture as opposed to

a clearer and clearer picture. Some have suggested that the love is in

model might have been more appropriate for this. If you look at

how long love took to report, it started in July 2011, the first

report was published in 2012, 18 months in which it produced a 2000

page document. It was eight snappier enquiry, albeit, I note that the

debate today is not the subject of the Levenson enquiry, I would like

to use this as an opportunity to suggest that the minister here

should convey to be premised in this blog is possible terms that we do

still expect the recommendations of the Levenson enquiry to be

implemented. As we do love is in part two. That is not something that

has been forgotten and will be allowed to go away. They beat the

Levenson model does provide an answer in relation to Chilcot. The

final thing that I would like to say really is that as others have

indicated, we are now seven years on and we are still waiting to know the

full facts about Iraq. The families of service personnel, the 179

families affected by the deaths of our personnel need closure and they

will not get it until everything is in the public domain. I hope as

others have indicated that given the length of time and the

Maxwellisation process that Arnie redactions, if there are any, will

be extremely limited because it has already been through a very thorough

sifting process that doesn't require any further deletions. And further

slippage of the deadline will add insult to injury. That is why we

need to know that the two week period referred to is on the

government are going to want to. Nothing should be used as an excuse

to develop further. Certainly, the suggestion that the EU referendum

has some bearing on this is one I cannot fathom. I cannot see in what

way that would affect this. It is time we had the Chilcot Inquiry

published and it is time that people got the truth.

Of like the star by congratulating my honourable friend for securing

the debate. I want to begin by signalling my wholehearted support

for the aspirations of the motion. The report be completed as soon as

possible and that only two weeks after the report is submitted, it's

published. We all want to see that. This week I attempted to table a

question for defence questions and the timing of the inquiry and I was

told that it wasn't appropriate because it was an independent

inquiry, independent of government, and therefore it wasn't acceptable

rushing to Aceh government and yet here we are debating today the

timing. Because the intention of the government to delay the publication

of the report until the 24th of June, the day after the referendum.

I would like to respectfully submit that the government cannot have it

both ways, publication of this report is clearly if it is to be

delayed for appropriate security checking then it must be for

political reasons and that's wholly unacceptable. The government needs

to fundamentally rethink this if it's in its intention and for

several reasons I want to cover the contribution today. Making the

statement announcing the establishment of the inquiry on the

15th of June 2009, Gordon Brown said the inquiry is essential because it

will ensure that by learning lessons we strengthen the health of our

democracy, our diplomacy and military. The inquiry will I stress

be fully independent of government. So with the inquiry was essentially

in for those reasons. The logical conclusion is that these lessons

have not been learned. Our democracy, diplomacy and military

are still not strengthened and the way in the way envisioned by Jordan

Brown. The inquiry is not independent of government if the

timing of this release is controlled by government and is intended to be

used and if it is the case that it will be delayed until after the

European referendum it's done so plainly in a blatantly political

way. In terms of... I do know if it was the late. The period could be

used to to say that this report should not be published, it's not

something that I would accept. It was the honourable member who last

year made the point extremely well, he said that purdah exist for a

reason to prevent governments from using information to get a little

advantage. I couldn't have said that that myself.

It brings us the security checks. I accept there is a need to ensure

that the report does not disclose information is detrimental to

national security and that there are other images in this house that can

suit and eyes sensitive matters and provide little oversight without

national security and information being release publicly. As this

report says, the primers the road to John the Chilcott last year about

the checking expressing his wish to see this done quicker than two

weeks. I hope nobody intends to suggest that all of a sudden

national security checking will require precisely nine weeks and

four days to complete rather than the two weeks mentioned in October.

In conclusion, the second Iraq war cause death of a lease 134 Iraqi

civilians and claimed the lives of 179 two soldiers. According to a

casualty monitor, 5970 military injuries Jerry the war. This is a

war which destabilise Iraq, precipitated an ongoing civil war

and has left a fertile breeding ground for terrorist fanatics, it

shattered the credibility of Western countries in the region and invites

seemingly endless military interventions. The continuing delays

in publishing the report are frankly an insult to the families of those

service personnel killed in it the Iraqi conflict who have been made to

wait seven years for a report anticipated to take one year. Those

responsible for leading us into that illegal war have never been held

accountable and the essential lessons have not been learned. It is

high time they were because this episode is an international

embarrassment. I commend this motion and call for the government to

publish the report at the earliest possible opportunity.

Let me thank all honourable members who have spoken so far including the

member for housing who led the debate, teasing out the issues.

You'll be aware as you will be aware that in a number of occasions since

I was elected to this place last May I have raised the issue of delays to

the publication of the Chilcott inquiry. In my maiden speech at that

I was here to give a voice to the voiceless because too often the

cynics who viewed this place view it as somewhere where people's voices

aren't heard. Today I rise to express not only my view but the

view of my constituents Mrs Rose Gentle who lost her son Gordon in

the Iraq war in 2004. Gordon Gentle was 19 years of age. 19. Mrs Gentle

and her family like many military families want answers to basic

questions. Of those serving in our forces anorak provided with the

proper equipment? If not why not? Who is responsible? Have documents

been hidden and why have they been hidden? Why were they there in the

very first place? For those military families like Rose Gentle and her

family, this is reliving an inquest. Gordon Gentle 's case, the inquest

was cancelled on three occasions and concluded in 2000 and nine. Last

year, military families wrote to judge Mr Chilcott to say that they

wish to see the report published by the end of 2015 and if not they

would consider their legal options. The response, so Chilcott threatened

them with legal costs if they took him to court. What a disgraceful and

insensitive thing to say to military families who've lost loved ones.

What kind of behaviour is it that threatens those who have lost those

love ones? What kind of behaviour is it that threatens those who waited

over a decade to find out what actually took place? Not just what

Atchley took place but whether the military should have been there in

the very first place. Rose Gentle 's view on the unnecessary delays is a

simple one. What I've discussed. -- one of discussed. Delays caused by

national security but military families views are all delays now

are not trusted. For those out there, .... I thank the honourable

gentleman. I think we can sum up what the military families feel by

the fact that the longer this takes, the more jiggery-pokery they think

is going on with actually the results of this inquiry and if we

keep going on and on like this there will be total loss of face in what

it produces. -- faith. I agree. I'm sure the families watching these

proceedings will agree. The length of time this inquiry has taken has

put undue pressure on military families. Families who want the

truth, families who are proud of their love ones who served but

disgusted with government and government process. That is the view

of military families like Rose Gentle and the family. Failing that,

the military government has not just been broken but shattered. A feeling

that their loved ones have been buried twice. Once at their death

and twice by bureaucracy and evasion. The Prime Minister wrote to

Chilcott asking for a clear deadline and publication. The government

cannot and should not allow itself to be seen to be backtracking on the

Prime Minister's strong words. Further delays are not acceptable.

Rose Gentle is an inspiration to many. She has done a lot of work to

assist charities such as soldiers off our streets, a charity with an

office in my constituency who look after soldiers who have returned

from the front line and struggled to adjust to civilian life. Rose Gentle

and family have a simple request. It is time for justice for the military

families have lost loved ones serving in Iraq. The Chilcott Report

must, must be published in the first week of May 2016.

I'm delighted to be able to sum up on behalf of the Scottish national

party benches in relation to this debate but before I go ahead I would

like to commend the members who have brought this debate forward.

Critically the member for Halton. Many of the members of these benches

think this is an important issue if not in all constituencies across the

United Kingdom and it is in Scotland. For a very specific

reason, it is a real issue and the doors at the last general election.

And mindful of my and warfarin for Glasgow North West who in a hustings

with their predecessor last year asked the question why did you vote

for the Iraq war? There and so was, I didn't. Hence my noble friend took

out an iPad and looked up Hansard and the rest is on you Tube to

watch. It would be embarrassing, it is embarrassing that that situation

arose where an member of this house couldn't remember whether or not

they voted to go to war or not. Frankly, it was a disgrace. Needless

to say, that member no longer sits in this house for a reason because

Iraq was a critical issue in Scottish politics over the last

decade. I want to declare an interest, my brother is a reserve

list and had a tour of duty in Iraq, he also had two tours of duty in

Afghanistan. I used to write to him on the front line, I knew day in day

out that I might never get a reply. I share the concerns of many members

and those who represent military families, both officers and of the

others personnel, this is a real issue which needs publication as

promised. That goes back to the issue of Rose Gentle. They need

those answers. Our progress, who would believed in any Western

democracy that the a four letter word would have such a profound

effect on domestic affairs and the so detrimental to international

relations in this house with other countries? What are the same time

paralysing any hope of moving and and learning from past mistakes. It

is a word deeply embedded in our psyche and conscious and continues

our work in what is an increasingly unstable and fractured world. The

word is Iraq. In fabric 2003, I along with over 200,000 others