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Tonight, as we approach the ten- year anniversary of the war in Iraq, | :02:41. | :02:45. | |
we explore how Iraq, Britain and the world changed. | :02:45. | :02:50. | |
I'm with an audience made up of members of the public, as well as | :02:50. | :02:55. | |
former players, experts, thinkers, including Colonel Tim Collins, | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
weapons inspector, Hans Blix, and the author, Michael Morpurgo, and | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
the Prime Minister who took us into war, Tony Blair, tells us Iraq | :03:03. | :03:13. | |
:03:13. | :03:16. | ||
remains a devisive issue for Welcome from the BBC Radio Theatre | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
at broadcasting House, to a Newsnight special, Iraq, ten years | :03:19. | :03:23. | |
on. An invited audience of experts, players, as well as members of the | :03:24. | :03:27. | |
public joins us tonight. Ten years ago we were told that Iraq had | :03:27. | :03:31. | |
weapons of mass destruction. That the war could rid the country of | :03:31. | :03:37. | |
those weapons and a brutal dictator. Things look very different now. A | :03:37. | :03:40. | |
conservative estimate says 100,000 Iraqis have died since the war | :03:40. | :03:45. | |
began. Other estimates put that figure as high as 650,000. But both | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
are heavily disputed, what is not disputed is that 179 British | :03:50. | :03:56. | |
soldiers lost their lives in the conflict. We pulled out over three | :03:56. | :03:59. | |
years ago, but sectarian violence continues. First I want to talk to | :03:59. | :04:05. | |
our panel, and I'm joined by the Iraqi film maker, Mohamed Al- | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
Daradji, life is still very precarious? Life is not easy in | :04:10. | :04:15. | |
Baghdad today. I just came from Baghdad last week, and it is still | :04:15. | :04:22. | |
difficult. It is you look back and you look like 2003/04, things have | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
changed for the good, but there is a lot of things have been changed | :04:25. | :04:34. | |
for the bad. From the Kurdish point of view, as | :04:34. | :04:40. | |
the Kurdish representative here. Life is not good for all Iraqis is | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
it, Bayan Sami Rahman? Kurdistan there is life, there was an | :04:45. | :04:50. | |
attempted genocide against the Kurds, there was chemical | :04:50. | :04:53. | |
bombardment, today we have a prospering economy, everyone in | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
Kurdistan is better off, young people all over Iraq, not just | :04:57. | :05:02. | |
Kurdistan, instead of worrying about being conscriptsed into an | :05:02. | :05:06. | |
army and going into crazy wars, they are more worried about is | :05:06. | :05:11. | |
their Facebook profile correct. Things are better for many Iraqis, | :05:11. | :05:15. | |
but much better for Kurdistan. Coming to you in Baghdad, as an | :05:15. | :05:19. | |
opposition leader, you wanted to persuade Tony Blair and George W | :05:19. | :05:23. | |
Bush to invade Iraq. Did you think it would look like this ten years | :05:23. | :05:31. | |
on? Absolutely not. I did not encourage neither Tony Blair nor | :05:31. | :05:38. | |
Bush to invade Iraq. We were all ourselves in agreement with trying | :05:38. | :05:44. | |
to change the regime from within Iraq. Rather than to invade Iraq. | :05:44. | :05:52. | |
So this is what has happened, unfortunately. We were faced by a | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
lack of policies, post-conflict policies, what to do with Iraq | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
after the occupation of Iraq. That is what we are left now. We will | :06:00. | :06:03. | |
talk about that in a minute. We will carry on the conversation | :06:03. | :06:07. | |
after we have heard from the BBC world affairs editor, Jon Simpson, | :06:07. | :06:10. | |
who has travelled to the country regularly since the 1980s. This is | :06:10. | :06:20. | |
:06:20. | :06:24. | ||
his personal assessment of Iraq, ten years on. | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
Iraqi denials of weapons of mass destruction, this is part and | :06:28. | :06:32. | |
parcel of a policy of evasion and deception that goes back 12 years. | :06:32. | :06:39. | |
It is all the web of lies. He has existing and active military | :06:39. | :06:44. | |
plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be | :06:44. | :06:51. | |
activated within 45 minutes. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
Iraq within 48 hours. Tonight British servicemen and women are | :06:56. | :07:01. | |
engaged from air, land and sea. Their mission, to remove Saddam | :07:01. | :07:11. | |
:07:11. | :07:12. | ||
Hussein from power and disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. | :07:12. | :07:17. | |
It came as a genuine shock to Blair and Bush to find that Saddam had | :07:17. | :07:26. | |
craftly got rid of his weapons beforehand. There was another | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
serious miscalculation, the man who later became Iraq's vice-president | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
told me he went to see President Bush not long before the invasion, | :07:34. | :07:38. | |
and was horrified to realise that neither he nor the people around | :07:38. | :07:45. | |
him had any conception of the deep divisions between Shia Muslims and | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
Sunni Muslims in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein's ferocious control, those | :07:50. | :07:55. | |
kind of divisions had been heavily stamped on, now they were to come | :07:55. | :08:00. | |
out into the open once again. They are urging them to pull the | :08:00. | :08:08. | |
statue down, there it goes. 25 years of hatred and rage as they | :08:08. | :08:13. | |
jump up on the statue, trouncing it with anything. At first the | :08:14. | :08:18. | |
Shi'ites were delighted with the invasion, and celebrated around the | :08:18. | :08:23. | |
statue of the fallen President, a Sunni himself, who depended on | :08:23. | :08:30. | |
Sunni support. When the Sunni town of Fallujah rebelled in April 203, | :08:30. | :08:36. | |
the Americans made an example of it. Staging all-out attacks and killing | :08:36. | :08:46. | |
:08:46. | :08:47. | ||
rebels and ordinary civilians alike. The insurrection grew fiercer and | :08:47. | :08:51. | |
fiercer, by 2006 it seemed to be a possibility the Americans might be | :08:52. | :08:56. | |
defeated outright. The vital supply road from Baghdad Airport, code | :08:56. | :09:01. | |
named Route Irish, was the most attacked area of the entire country. | :09:01. | :09:07. | |
Plans were drawn up to evacuate the Green Zone if necessary. The | :09:07. | :09:11. | |
American commanders seemed listless and pessimistic. It looked as | :09:11. | :09:17. | |
though they had lost their nerve. But a new American commander, David | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
Petraus, proposed a surge in American troop numbers, that would | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
damp down the insurgency, and at least give the impression it had | :09:26. | :09:31. | |
been defeated. It was degenerating into a sectarian Sunni versus Shia | :09:31. | :09:39. | |
war. Things are unquestionably better nowadays in Iraq, and the | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
economy is doing well. Basic supplies like water, electricity | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
and even rubbish collection, are still a very real concern, whether | :09:46. | :09:53. | |
you are Sunni, Shia or Kurd. So, of course, is security. When I look | :09:53. | :09:59. | |
back on it all nothing has gone as expected. It has been a real mess. | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
Sure, a savage and unpredictable dictator was Joan thrown, but he | :10:02. | :10:08. | |
was the one that was keep -- overthrown, but he was the one that | :10:08. | :10:10. | |
was keeping control over Iran in the region. Now the Americans are | :10:11. | :10:16. | |
losing power and Iran is gaining it. The price paid by ordinary Iraqis | :10:16. | :10:18. | |
has been a terrible and continuing one. | :10:18. | :10:25. | |
We will be hearing a little more later in the programme about that. | :10:25. | :10:30. | |
Out to the audience, you were the spokesman for the Iraqi-Islamic | :10:30. | :10:34. | |
Party, you are a Sunni. How have things changed for you, are things | :10:34. | :10:39. | |
better? Things are worse now, because now there is an ethnic | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
divide and sectarian divide that is very difficult to be bridgeed now. | :10:42. | :10:47. | |
There is a lot of provinces in Iraq are demanding more power-sharing, | :10:47. | :10:50. | |
because they don't trust the Government. Now there is in the | :10:50. | :10:57. | |
western and northern part of Iraq there is a kind of Arab uprising | :10:57. | :11:00. | |
because of the deeply sectarian policies of the Government. Do you | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
feel you are on your way to a Civil War? Yes, I think we feel very much | :11:04. | :11:09. | |
so. Because the Government in the past three or four years they have | :11:09. | :11:13. | |
purged the military and the Security Services of all the other | :11:13. | :11:17. | |
communities apart from the Shia community. This is a problem. | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
You, I know are involved in a number of ways, including trying to | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
get young people involved in democracy, is this the picture you | :11:25. | :11:30. | |
recognise? No, to be fair, there are many problems and I think my | :11:30. | :11:35. | |
colleague did allude to them. But the fact is, Iraqis now have that | :11:35. | :11:40. | |
space to be able to negotiate those power struggles. They are able to | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
express themselves. They are able to look to the future. I think the | :11:45. | :11:48. | |
conditions now are so much different than they were before. | :11:48. | :11:52. | |
Through my work in Iraq there is so many signs for optimisim. Huge | :11:52. | :11:56. | |
challenges. Look these problems were deep-seated and pre-war. Let's | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
not pretend they came out just because of the war itself. In terms | :12:00. | :12:05. | |
of even things like insecurity of water and electricity, do people | :12:05. | :12:08. | |
feel that they are being dealt a tough hand at the moment? They are | :12:08. | :12:11. | |
still struggling and the infrastructure is still struggling, | :12:11. | :12:15. | |
I total low agree with that. But, they are looking -- totally agree | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
with that, but they are looking towards the future and it will take | :12:19. | :12:24. | |
time. Nadia, you have worked in Iraq and with women way back in the | :12:24. | :12:27. | |
late 1990s, it is not black and white about how things have changed, | :12:27. | :12:31. | |
but tell me what do women feel? Do they feel they have essential | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
freedoms now or not? I mean Iraqi women as women in Britain don't | :12:36. | :12:42. | |
think one thing, they are different views. Baseded on my own research | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
and talking to Iraqi women's rights activists, there are lots of | :12:45. | :12:49. | |
problems in terms of basic education, labour force | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
participation is very low. Just moving around, and also we have an | :12:53. | :12:58. | |
increased and gender-based violence. Having said that, despite all the | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
problems, trafficking is high, forced prostitution and forced | :13:02. | :13:05. | |
marriages, domestic violence, rape, all these have increased, and I | :13:05. | :13:09. | |
mean I agree that in the Kurdish region it is actually much better, | :13:09. | :13:14. | |
but there are problems as well with women. But, despite that, you | :13:14. | :13:18. | |
actually have women mobilising. I think it is important to be nuanced. | :13:18. | :13:21. | |
In a sense they feel they have to come through this. You have talked | :13:21. | :13:27. | |
a lot about the feminineisation of poverty, they are the ones that get | :13:27. | :13:31. | |
hit worse? We have a large percentage of female-headed | :13:31. | :13:35. | |
household, widows, divorcees, they are really struggling. Emma | :13:35. | :13:37. | |
Nicholson, you were very much for the invasion, you work with Iraqi | :13:37. | :13:41. | |
business, you must be very disheartened when you hear about | :13:41. | :13:45. | |
this. Apart from anything else, talking about increase in rape and | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
forced marriage, this is not what you fought for? I have just spent | :13:48. | :13:51. | |
two weeks going from the top to the bottom of Iraq, I will be back | :13:51. | :13:54. | |
there in another fortnight. Iraq is transformed country. Yes there is a | :13:55. | :13:59. | |
lot to be done, there are a million widows, it is not easy looking at | :13:59. | :14:04. | |
them all on the register. Just under half a million already | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
receiving widows stipends, but today Iraq is a different country. | :14:08. | :14:11. | |
Wage, jobs, future, all there for the asking. And the most essential | :14:11. | :14:17. | |
thing of all is freedom. That's the precious thing. You have writ an | :14:17. | :14:23. | |
new book about the new authoritarianism, is it there for | :14:23. | :14:27. | |
the asking? When we look at Iraq today we see a grossly imbalanced | :14:27. | :14:33. | |
state, a million men are armed, 12% of the population, yet they can't | :14:33. | :14:36. | |
deliver more than seven-and-a-half hours of electricity a day. The | :14:36. | :14:42. | |
legacy of the invasion is the hugely mill tar raised society, | :14:42. | :14:45. | |
pumping millions -- militarised society, pumping millions into the | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
armed services. The interior services are double the size of the | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
army, specifically designed to repress the population. We need to | :14:52. | :14:55. | |
have an independent report. The Human Rights Watch report, latest | :14:55. | :15:02. | |
report, it talks about the failure of the judicial system and the | :15:02. | :15:05. | |
failure of the ruem rights abuses by the Iraqi Security Service -- | :15:05. | :15:09. | |
human rights abuses by the Iraqi Security Services. We need an | :15:09. | :15:12. | |
independent report, not from an interest group. This is the problem. | :15:12. | :15:16. | |
We have an Iraqi MP here? A British MP of Iraqi origin. I think Kirsty | :15:16. | :15:22. | |
is what you meant to say. Before I became an MP, I ran YouGov, they | :15:22. | :15:25. | |
did extensive research in Iraq. The big challenge when you ask the | :15:25. | :15:30. | |
people of Iraq, they are looking for a strong decisive be nef lant | :15:30. | :15:36. | |
leader, rather than -- benevolent leader, rather than the democracy | :15:36. | :15:41. | |
that they interpret as sectarian. Strong leaders. You couldn't make | :15:41. | :15:49. | |
it as a strong leader, Dr Law, though you did have a -- Mr Allawi, | :15:49. | :15:59. | |
now you see a Government divided along sectarian lines? Now we are | :15:59. | :16:04. | |
getting down to a sectarian, unfortunately conflict again. This | :16:05. | :16:12. | |
is all because of the stability of the country is in question. The | :16:12. | :16:18. | |
political process has not been inclusive. It has been based on | :16:18. | :16:24. | |
sectarianism. Disenfranchising larger groups of people. Important | :16:24. | :16:31. | |
sections of the Iraqi operation too, and there was no effort to create a | :16:31. | :16:40. | |
reconciliation in the country. million people under arms, Dr | :16:40. | :16:45. | |
Allawi, that is a pretty bad state of affairs in 2013? A million, | :16:45. | :16:51. | |
probably even over a million if you incorporate the militias that exist | :16:51. | :16:57. | |
in Iraq. It will be over a million. Do you agree with the guest in the | :16:57. | :17:02. | |
studio that we might be heading towards Civil War in Iraq? I hope | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
not, but definitely the stability of the country is in question. I | :17:07. | :17:12. | |
think Iraq is at a crossroads now, and God forbid things may be pushed | :17:12. | :17:17. | |
into more violence, more sectarianism, and indeed more | :17:17. | :17:24. | |
instability. The current Government, the current political process is | :17:25. | :17:29. | |
still not an inclusive political process. You heard Toby Dodge | :17:29. | :17:33. | |
saying this idea, that we might be on our way to a new | :17:33. | :17:39. | |
authoritarianism. And that actually, a million people under arms. Do you | :17:39. | :17:44. | |
feel you are heading towards some kind of awful future now? I will | :17:44. | :17:50. | |
disagree about we are heading to a Civil War. What we see in Iraq | :17:50. | :17:54. | |
today is, I think, the main problem is the problem of the politicians | :17:54. | :17:58. | |
in Iraq today. We talk about the Government, who is the Government? | :17:58. | :18:05. | |
The Government is the coalition Government. A representative of Mr | :18:05. | :18:09. | |
Allawi's block, and the Kurdish and the Shi'ite block, they are the | :18:09. | :18:13. | |
problems of Iraq today. They are, I think, the problem, because, to be | :18:13. | :18:20. | |
honest with you, they are the old generation. Dr Latif has been | :18:20. | :18:24. | |
working with young Iraqis, and you culturally work with young Iraqis, | :18:24. | :18:29. | |
is there a cafe society from Baghdad, kids coming from Fallujah | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
and bass ra, do they see a different kind of future? I sent | :18:34. | :18:37. | |
two students from the film institute where I work outside Iraq, | :18:37. | :18:41. | |
I didn't know they are Shi'ite or Sunni. And somebody later on told | :18:41. | :18:49. | |
me about oh they are coming from that sectarian of Iraq. We didn't | :18:49. | :18:52. | |
care, we created a cultural event, we made films and tried to tell the | :18:52. | :18:56. | |
story of Iraqi people. You are defiantly, you never say whether | :18:56. | :19:06. | |
you are Sunni or Shia? No, I am Iraqi human being. | :19:06. | :19:09. | |
APPLAUSE The gentleman there, what is your point? I think it is worth | :19:10. | :19:14. | |
thinking about why is that Kurdistan is in much better shape | :19:14. | :19:19. | |
than main Iraq. The problem I think is the problem of sectarianism. It | :19:19. | :19:23. | |
is a very, very deep problem, it is not just the problem with Iraq, but | :19:23. | :19:26. | |
the Muslim world as a whole. Sectarianism, look at Pakistan, | :19:26. | :19:33. | |
what is going on there. In a sense we need to re-think, not just the | :19:33. | :19:38. | |
society theself, but also to some extent how we view Islam. These are | :19:38. | :19:41. | |
actually problems of Islam more than anything else. Do you think, | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
Nadia, that the solution does lie with the younger generation, that | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
actually the older generation is a kind of busted flush? I wouldn't | :19:49. | :19:54. | |
put it this way, but I certainly agree that the problem is with the | :19:54. | :19:58. | |
political elite, that has spent 20, 30 years outside, and is | :19:58. | :20:02. | |
discredited inside Iraq. Lots of people inside Iraq, in the past | :20:02. | :20:12. | |
:20:12. | :20:12. | ||
there were lots of what I called "sushi" marriages, between Shi'ite | :20:12. | :20:18. | |
and Sunni, and I don't recognise the narrative that Mr Simpson | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
portrays, that this sectarianism was stopped by Saddam. I don't see | :20:22. | :20:29. | |
Iraq this way. It seems to me that what is happening in Iraq is that | :20:29. | :20:34. | |
all the negative elements are right in our faces. You can see all the | :20:34. | :20:38. | |
bad things that might lead the country to a disastrous second | :20:39. | :20:44. | |
Civil War. There is no doubt about it that many of those possiblities, | :20:44. | :20:49. | |
at any rate, exist. But you see I think there is another Iraq, I | :20:49. | :20:55. | |
think it is a stronger Iraq, which has managed to stick together since | :20:55. | :21:00. | |
the end of the First World War. These divisions are not something | :21:00. | :21:07. | |
invented. Whatever one says about whether Saddam had a role in that, | :21:07. | :21:15. | |
that is to be honest not a very valuable question to raise. Because | :21:15. | :21:19. | |
the divisions have always been there, it is a question of how | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
intense they are. Actually, my personal feel something that Iraq | :21:24. | :21:29. | |
is strong enough to be able to withstand a second Civil War, as | :21:29. | :21:33. | |
with stood a first Civil War. the Kurds' point of view, you are | :21:33. | :21:36. | |
federated in Iraq, it may not always be the case, you think the | :21:36. | :21:42. | |
best bet for you at the moment is to stay within the broader country? | :21:42. | :21:47. | |
Absolutely. In 2003 we made a decision that we would voluntarily | :21:47. | :21:51. | |
remain part of Iraq. It is the first time that we voluntarily have | :21:51. | :21:56. | |
made such a decision. But so long as Iraq is federal and democratic. | :21:56. | :22:00. | |
Of course, there are enormous challenges, there have been | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
enormous taisics. I think the gains -- mistakes. I think the gains that | :22:04. | :22:09. | |
Iraq has made reversible, they are not set in stone. We are where we | :22:09. | :22:12. | |
are because of the blood that has been shed. It is very important, | :22:12. | :22:16. | |
listening to Mohammed and others in the audience that we don't let go | :22:16. | :22:20. | |
of that sacrifice. Both of British lives, American lives and Kurdish | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
and Arab lives in Iraq. Let's not waste that sacrifice that has been | :22:25. | :22:34. | |
made. What Toby Dodge would say is malcan I is the new dictator, -- | :22:34. | :22:38. | |
Malaki is the new dictator, but you plug away at this, and think this | :22:38. | :22:44. | |
is the best way to do it from within? Iraq was in a dictatorship | :22:44. | :22:52. | |
for a minimum of 40 years, we are not going to get rid of the taste | :22:52. | :22:55. | |
for authoritarian central control overnight. That will take a long | :22:55. | :22:58. | |
time. While we have parliament and take constitutional decisions, this | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
is the Iraq we will stick with. Give me your point, the gentleman | :23:02. | :23:10. | |
in the back. A window into the future of Iraq are the children of | :23:10. | :23:20. | |
Iraq. There are about 4.5 million orphans, 6,500 are street orphans. | :23:20. | :23:25. | |
The gentleman with the red tie, yes? We seem to blame Iraqis in | :23:25. | :23:31. | |
terms of the whole war, but we seem to shed the blame from the west. | :23:31. | :23:35. | |
Every time we go into a Civil War in these countries, or invade these | :23:35. | :23:40. | |
countries, we seem to support the rebels, and we actually arm them. | :23:40. | :23:47. | |
Then we actually turn around and ask where the million people who | :23:47. | :23:52. | |
are armed are from? We armed them, how do we disarm them? Good point. | :23:52. | :23:58. | |
APPLAUSE Someone who was persecuted under | :23:58. | :24:01. | |
Saddam, left the country, returned after the invasion and helped to | :24:01. | :24:05. | |
set up the free he had if raifgs trade unions in Iraq was | :24:05. | :24:12. | |
assassinated in 2005, Hadi Salal, I'm wondering how trade unions in | :24:12. | :24:16. | |
Iraq are functioning now, having a free trade union movement is the | :24:16. | :24:24. | |
hallmark of a civil society. will talk about that. | :24:25. | :24:30. | |
I was going to saying, as has been noted, there is a vast problem with | :24:30. | :24:34. | |
sectarianism, more should be done with involving community leaders, | :24:34. | :24:37. | |
family leaders in teaching and ensuring there shouldn't be that | :24:37. | :24:42. | |
difference between Sunni and Shi'ites. As the leader mentioned | :24:42. | :24:47. | |
early on, there were "shoe shi" marriages, Sunni and Shi'ite | :24:47. | :24:51. | |
marriages. More should be done, if nothing tangible can be seen from | :24:51. | :24:53. | |
the Government's point of view, a lot can be done with community | :24:53. | :25:01. | |
leaders, with the head of families, in working out as one. | :25:01. | :25:04. | |
Mohammed mentioned that the youth of today is the future for Iraq. | :25:04. | :25:09. | |
But what about the youth of tomorrow. The orphans, the people | :25:09. | :25:13. | |
left behind were is the reconciliation process to make sure | :25:13. | :25:17. | |
that those who have lost family, won't militarise themselves for | :25:17. | :25:22. | |
vengence later. There seem to be big care issues, we are talking | :25:22. | :25:28. | |
about so many orphans and people without working rights, is civil | :25:28. | :25:33. | |
society strong enough to deal with these things Dr Allawi? No, neither | :25:33. | :25:37. | |
civil society is strong enough, nor do we have a functioning state. In | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
fact, what the people, your audience is mentioning are all | :25:41. | :25:47. | |
correct. I agree with them. Unfortunately we in Iraq we should | :25:47. | :25:54. | |
not look only at the angle of Shia versus Sunnis, Arabs versus Kurds. | :25:54. | :25:57. | |
It is the state that has not been developed, it is the institutions | :25:57. | :26:02. | |
that are not functioning, and we don't have a full-blown civil | :26:02. | :26:11. | |
society yet. And all this is because of the political process | :26:11. | :26:15. | |
which has been an uninclusive political process. Without | :26:15. | :26:20. | |
including every Iraqi into the political process, and without | :26:20. | :26:27. | |
moving this society into becoming a civil society and having full-blown | :26:27. | :26:30. | |
institutions of the state, it is very difficult to rectify the issue | :26:30. | :26:35. | |
of stability in the country. Thank you very much indeed for your | :26:35. | :26:40. | |
contribution. We move on now, in Britain ten years ago we were told | :26:40. | :26:42. | |
that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, which could be | :26:42. | :26:46. | |
deployed in 45 minutes. There have now been six inquiries related to | :26:46. | :26:51. | |
the war in Iraq, and the Chilcot Inquiry is due to report later this | :26:51. | :26:55. | |
year on the reasons we went to war. I spoke to former Prime Minister, | :26:55. | :26:59. | |
Tony Blair, about his reflections ten years after the start of the | :26:59. | :27:08. | |
invasion. Is daily life in Iraq today what | :27:08. | :27:13. | |
you hoped it would be ten years ago? No. Because for some people, | :27:13. | :27:17. | |
at least in Iraq, it is immensely difficult. Particularly if you are | :27:17. | :27:21. | |
living in Baghdad and around the centre of the country. There are | :27:21. | :27:24. | |
still terrorist activities that are killing people, killing innocent | :27:24. | :27:28. | |
people for no good run. The country as a whole, its economy is growing | :27:28. | :27:32. | |
very strongly, it has huge amounts of oil revenue, but there are still | :27:32. | :27:37. | |
big problems. At a Conservative estimate, since 2003, 100,000 | :27:37. | :27:41. | |
civilians have been killed. 179 British soldiers died. Don't you | :27:41. | :27:45. | |
think that was too high a price? course the price is very, very high. | :27:45. | :27:51. | |
Was it too high? Think of the price that people paid before Saddam was | :27:51. | :27:57. | |
removed. Think of the Iran-Iraq War in which there were a million | :27:57. | :28:00. | |
casualties, hundreds of thousands of conscripts Iranians killed, many | :28:00. | :28:04. | |
by the use of chemical weapons. Chemical weapons attacks on his own | :28:04. | :28:09. | |
people, the Kurds. People oppressed, deprived of their right, tortured | :28:09. | :28:13. | |
and killed on a daily basis, year on year. There are sectarian | :28:14. | :28:17. | |
killings now? Yes, but what is the answer. The answer is not to say to | :28:17. | :28:21. | |
people, I'm afraid we should have left Saddam in charge, otherwise | :28:21. | :28:25. | |
these sectarians will come in and try to destablise the country. The | :28:25. | :28:29. | |
answer is get rid of the oppressive dictatorship and then you have a | :28:29. | :28:34. | |
long, hard struggle to push the sectarian elements out too. Getting | :28:34. | :28:37. | |
rid of the oppressive dictatorship is not why you went in. You only | :28:37. | :28:42. | |
went in for one single reason? course, the reason that we regarded | :28:43. | :28:49. | |
Saddam as a threat has been set out for many, many reports, and many, | :28:49. | :28:53. | |
many times, and we have gone out a huge amount. If you are asking me, | :28:53. | :28:55. | |
which you were, about the state of Iraq today, there are significant | :28:55. | :28:58. | |
improvements in many parts of the country for the people. But I agree | :28:58. | :29:02. | |
with you, it is not nearly what it should be, and the reason for that | :29:02. | :29:07. | |
is not because the will of the Iraqis isn't that they have that | :29:07. | :29:11. | |
prosperity and democracy. The reason is, because people have | :29:11. | :29:14. | |
deliberately tried to destablise the country. This is the problem | :29:14. | :29:18. | |
you have got all over the region. You wrote in your memoirs that you | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
think of those who died in Iraq every day of your life. What do you | :29:22. | :29:25. | |
think about? Of course you think about them and the loss of life and | :29:25. | :29:28. | |
the terrible consequences for the families. But in the end you are | :29:28. | :29:32. | |
elected as a Prime Minister to take these decisions. And the question | :29:32. | :29:36. | |
is, supposing I take the opposite decision. Sometimes what happens in | :29:36. | :29:41. | |
politics, and unfortunately these things get mixed up with | :29:41. | :29:46. | |
allegations of deceit and lying and so on. But in the end, sometimes | :29:46. | :29:49. | |
you come to a decision where whichever choice you take, the | :29:49. | :29:54. | |
consequences are difficult and the choices are ugly. This was one such | :29:54. | :29:58. | |
case. If we hadn't removed Saddam from power. Just think for example | :29:58. | :30:02. | |
what would be happening with these Arab revolutions, if they were | :30:02. | :30:08. | |
continuing now, and Saddam, probably 20-times as bad as Assad | :30:08. | :30:12. | |
in Syria, was trying to suppress an uprising in Iraq. Think of the | :30:12. | :30:15. | |
consequences of leaving that regime in power. When you say do you think | :30:15. | :30:21. | |
of the loss of life and the trouble that has been since 2003, of course | :30:21. | :30:25. | |
I do, you have to be inhumane if not to. Think of what would have | :30:25. | :30:28. | |
happened if he was left there. years on, some people call you a | :30:28. | :30:32. | |
liar, some people call you a war criminal, protestors follow you, it | :30:32. | :30:36. | |
is difficult for you to walk down the streets, of a country where you | :30:36. | :30:41. | |
once had a landslide victory. Do you think Iraq has taken its toll | :30:41. | :30:45. | |
on you? It doesn't matter if it has taken its toll on me. The fact is, | :30:45. | :30:49. | |
yes, there are people who will be very abusive, by the way I do walk | :30:49. | :30:54. | |
down the street. By the way, I won an election in 2005 after Iraq. | :30:54. | :30:59. | |
However, yes it remains extremely devisive, and very difficult. My | :30:59. | :31:02. | |
point to people is this. I have long since given up in trying to | :31:02. | :31:05. | |
persuade people it was the right decision. In a sense what I have | :31:05. | :31:10. | |
tried to persuade people of now is understand how complex and | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
difficult a decision it was. Because I think if we don't | :31:15. | :31:20. | |
understand that we won't take the right decision about what I think | :31:20. | :31:23. | |
will be a series of these types of problems that will arise now over | :31:24. | :31:27. | |
the next few years. You have got one in Syria right now, you have | :31:27. | :31:31. | |
got one in Iran to come. The issue is how do you make the world a | :31:31. | :31:39. | |
safer place. Would you say it was today rather than 2003, would you | :31:39. | :31:42. | |
really say that, nobody would say that? I wouldn't say, that but what | :31:42. | :31:46. | |
I would say is it is safer as a result of having, in my view, as a | :31:46. | :31:53. | |
result of having got rid of Saddam. In other words I think we are in | :31:53. | :31:57. | |
the middle of the struggle, it will take a generation, it will be | :31:57. | :32:01. | |
arduous and difficult, but I think we are making a mistake. I think a | :32:01. | :32:04. | |
profound error if we think we can stay out of the struggle. We are | :32:04. | :32:07. | |
going to be affected by it whether we like it or not. | :32:07. | :32:10. | |
We are going to also be talking during the programme about staying | :32:10. | :32:13. | |
out or going in other countries. You can hear the full interview | :32:13. | :32:20. | |
with Tony Blair on Newsnight tomorrow. I'm joined by Ed Husain, | :32:20. | :32:26. | |
at author of The Islamist, by Michael Morpurgo, and Charles | :32:26. | :32:30. | |
Kennedy and John Rentoul. Charles Kennedy, you heard Tony Blair say | :32:30. | :32:36. | |
there that Iraq is still divisive, do you think trust in politicians | :32:36. | :32:43. | |
has suffered because of Iraq and continues to suffer? Yes, I think | :32:43. | :32:46. | |
that even those at the time who were very sceptical, the number of | :32:46. | :32:50. | |
times I heard people say to me, talking about non-party political | :32:50. | :32:54. | |
people, whatever view they took, well they must know something we | :32:54. | :32:57. | |
don't. There was that element of give Blair, as Prime Minister, the | :32:57. | :33:00. | |
benefit of the doubt. Now, it turned out that what he thought he | :33:00. | :33:04. | |
knew he didn't know, because there weren't weapons of mass destruction. | :33:04. | :33:08. | |
Although I would have to say, going from the highest of high politics, | :33:08. | :33:16. | |
which is war like this, to what was very venal and menial grubby | :33:16. | :33:20. | |
politics, this distorted trust in British politics and institutions, | :33:20. | :33:25. | |
but my God so did the expenses scandal. And taking the two | :33:25. | :33:27. | |
together, that was really toxic for the parliamentary process. John | :33:27. | :33:34. | |
Rentoul, you backed the war in the first place. Do you think Tony | :33:34. | :33:38. | |
Blair says he has long since given up on people actually liking him. | :33:38. | :33:42. | |
But the approbium is on him, it is not generally in politician, it | :33:42. | :33:45. | |
might be about the expenses scandal, but he owned that invasion, didn't | :33:45. | :33:50. | |
he? I think he did. But actually I take a much more optimistic view | :33:50. | :33:54. | |
than Charles does. Actually if you look at opinion polls, people | :33:54. | :33:57. | |
generally didn't trust politicians to tell the truth before the Iraq | :33:57. | :34:02. | |
War, and they were exactly the same after the Iraq War. Charles is | :34:02. | :34:05. | |
absolutely right, the one thing that shifted public opinion in this | :34:05. | :34:09. | |
country of the MPs' expenses business. Iraq, I think was a | :34:09. | :34:12. | |
triumph of British democracy, because parliamentary democracy | :34:12. | :34:15. | |
worked. It wasn't just Tony Blair's decision, it was parliament's | :34:15. | :34:25. | |
:34:25. | :34:27. | ||
decision. A triumph for democracy, or a breach of trust. Siegfrid | :34:27. | :34:31. | |
Sasson called it callous complacency. And what seems to have | :34:31. | :34:36. | |
happened is politicians decided on this war. They should have taken a | :34:36. | :34:43. | |
great deal longer, diplomacy should always be given a chance again and | :34:43. | :34:50. | |
again and again and again, before you commit young men to die, to | :34:50. | :34:54. | |
spend their lives maimed. It has to be thought through, and you have to | :34:54. | :34:58. | |
think through the consequences. I think that's not what happened. | :34:58. | :35:05. | |
APPLAUSE I wouldn't defend everything that | :35:05. | :35:10. | |
has happened. I think it has, it went very badly after the invasion. | :35:10. | :35:14. | |
The occupation was very badly handled. One of the most stupid | :35:14. | :35:16. | |
decisions that the British Government made was to assume that | :35:16. | :35:23. | |
the Americans knew what they were doing. We should have learned from | :35:23. | :35:27. | |
history that wasn't a reliable thing to do. That does Amenas, as | :35:27. | :35:30. | |
Tony Blair said in the clip, that it was an easy decision to take. | :35:30. | :35:34. | |
There were consequences of not going into Iraq as well. Initially | :35:34. | :35:41. | |
you supported the war, didn't you. But did you feel let down, and you | :35:42. | :35:46. | |
supported it and you have to deal with it? I was in neighbouring | :35:46. | :35:49. | |
Syria when American and British troops and others went into Iraq. | :35:49. | :35:53. | |
Looking at Syriaed today, and looking at Iraq then -- Syria today, | :35:53. | :35:57. | |
and looking at Iraq then, living under the harsh circumstances of a | :35:57. | :36:01. | |
dictatorship in Syria, I wasn't alone. Thousands of Syrians felt it | :36:01. | :36:04. | |
was the right thing to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Getting rid of | :36:04. | :36:06. | |
Saddam Hussein doesn't equate to supporting the invasion and the | :36:06. | :36:10. | |
mistakes were made. There is a disconnect there. It is worth | :36:10. | :36:14. | |
highlighting the fact that getting rid of barbarians is the right | :36:14. | :36:20. | |
thing to do, but having the day after plan is where it went wrong. | :36:20. | :36:23. | |
You are here to talk about this as a British Muslim. Did you feel it | :36:24. | :36:27. | |
has had an impact on trust, particularly among British Muslims | :36:27. | :36:30. | |
and the Government? Absolutely, I totally disagree with John, I think | :36:30. | :36:34. | |
we trusted politicians a bit more before the Iraq War. But after the | :36:34. | :36:40. | |
Iraq War, which was based on a mega-lie, and subsequent events, | :36:40. | :36:44. | |
including the MP expenses affair, we trust the politicians less. | :36:44. | :36:49. | |
Interestingly, in the Muslim community itself, we have two | :36:49. | :36:51. | |
simultaneous reaction. There is a large segment of the Muslim | :36:52. | :36:56. | |
community that, although it doesn't trust the politicians, it wants to | :36:56. | :36:59. | |
get actively involved in politics. But at the same time, there is a | :36:59. | :37:04. | |
very small segment that trusts, that distrusts everything and is | :37:04. | :37:09. | |
taking a rather extremist stance. want to take a lot of hands up. You | :37:09. | :37:15. | |
look at this from a different perspective? I agree that | :37:15. | :37:19. | |
definitely the issue of trust has really been a massive sea-change in | :37:19. | :37:23. | |
British politics since the Iraq War. There is now massive distrust with | :37:23. | :37:28. | |
British political institutions. That has been compounded as Charles | :37:28. | :37:31. | |
Kennedy said, by all the subsequent scandals. The fundamental thing | :37:31. | :37:34. | |
missing here is the reality that Intelligence Services did receive | :37:34. | :37:38. | |
evidence that there were no WMDs, that is now becoming a massive | :37:38. | :37:42. | |
issue. It has come out through the Iraq Inquiry and various other | :37:42. | :37:45. | |
things. The question is how we had the political class interfering | :37:45. | :37:50. | |
with the intelligence process, to create this resolve that we didn't | :37:50. | :37:57. | |
like. What affect has that had on the Muslim community? For the vast | :37:58. | :38:01. | |
majority of British Muslims they feel very loyal to Britain and they | :38:01. | :38:04. | |
are engaged. The danger is with the minority. It has definitely | :38:04. | :38:08. | |
increase the vocalism of an irate extremist minority, who are using | :38:08. | :38:12. | |
the issue of Iraq, the issue of Afghanistan and the foreign policy | :38:13. | :38:17. | |
in the Muslim world, to rile up the extremist ideology. That is the | :38:17. | :38:24. | |
danger, that they are creating this very devisive "us" and "them" out | :38:24. | :38:28. | |
of it. That whole issue of trust, you have done both things, Iraq, | :38:28. | :38:31. | |
Afghanistan, politics, trust has gone particularly with some members | :38:31. | :38:34. | |
of the British Muslim community? And the big question for us is what | :38:34. | :38:41. | |
are we going to do about it. How will we reform, we made mistake | :38:41. | :38:45. | |
after mistake, that is parliament and the army, what reforms have we | :38:45. | :38:48. | |
introduced to stop this happening again. How can you trust a Prime | :38:48. | :38:52. | |
Minister now who travels around the Middle East with a group of arms | :38:52. | :38:56. | |
dealers on his plane? APPLAUSE | :38:56. | :38:59. | |
I will come back to the panel on that. The woman right in the back | :38:59. | :39:03. | |
with the white T-shirt on? Have we forgotten one of the reasons that | :39:03. | :39:08. | |
we went into Iraq, and that was to bring democracy to the country. I, | :39:08. | :39:12. | |
a daughter of Iraqi parents, was very proud to vote in the 2005 | :39:13. | :39:17. | |
Iraqi elections. APPLAUSE | :39:17. | :39:21. | |
Despite the travails and the problems, you think for every | :39:21. | :39:25. | |
ordinary Iraqi there is more hope? I would hope so. | :39:25. | :39:29. | |
Gentleman down here with the grey hair, we haven't heard from you? | :39:29. | :39:33. | |
mustn't forget when it came to the Iraqi invasion we had a lot of | :39:33. | :39:37. | |
people protesting in this country and European countries, and various | :39:37. | :39:41. | |
European Governments ignored the people's views. And the invasion | :39:41. | :39:46. | |
continued. 54%, three days after the war. 54% said the invasion | :39:46. | :39:48. | |
should continue. Somebody we haven't heard from. Gentleman right | :39:48. | :39:53. | |
in the middle, the white shirt. can't believe I have heard this | :39:53. | :39:58. | |
gentleman say it was a triumph for democracy. It was a triumph for | :39:58. | :40:04. | |
obfuscation and deceit. To take up the last point there. Mob rule. | :40:04. | :40:08. | |
Listen, there were 665 cities throughout the world, there were | :40:08. | :40:11. | |
millions of people demonstrating against that war, and they were | :40:11. | :40:15. | |
ignored. That would be mob rule if you listened to people on the | :40:15. | :40:19. | |
streets. At what level would you say you are allowed to go to war, | :40:19. | :40:27. | |
is it 50,000 or 100,000, or 200,000. Legitimate protest is not mob rule? | :40:27. | :40:30. | |
The people who say we should have decided the policy on Iraq | :40:30. | :40:34. | |
depending on how many people out on the streets are the people | :40:34. | :40:38. | |
advocating mob rule. That point can be extended to this feeling, what | :40:38. | :40:43. | |
is that British Muslims constantly feel and how do we avoid offending | :40:43. | :40:48. | |
them. British Muslims are bishop first and all, their foreign policy | :40:48. | :40:53. | |
is not decided by their Muslimness. The Iraq War and consequences were | :40:53. | :40:56. | |
a disaster, but there is a narrative that grips not just the | :40:56. | :41:01. | |
extreme minority, but the silent kol allless sense of the silent | :41:01. | :41:06. | |
majority that some how the west is at war with Muslims. That is what | :41:06. | :41:10. | |
was said, among some, among a minority of younger Muslims, they | :41:10. | :41:16. | |
feel very, very, shall we say empowered by this in a strange way? | :41:16. | :41:18. | |
Before the Iraq War they felt immediately after and before 9/11. | :41:18. | :41:22. | |
Let's not fool ourselves about the narrative that is out there. | :41:22. | :41:26. | |
A couple of more questions. The gentleman with the green jacket and | :41:26. | :41:34. | |
the blue tie? Ten years ago we went to war, the coalition went to wa, | :41:34. | :41:38. | |
we were an illegal war, no resolution. Completely lost the | :41:38. | :41:43. | |
piece. Blair and Bush should be taken to the Hague and prosecuted | :41:43. | :41:47. | |
for war crimes. What do you say to the woman in the back whose family | :41:47. | :41:52. | |
managed to vote in 2005. She says, from her point of view, as an Iraqi | :41:52. | :41:54. | |
woman, her family feels better about it. You don't think it was | :41:55. | :41:58. | |
our responsibility to do that? was certainly a good idea to get | :41:58. | :42:03. | |
rid of Saddam, he was obviously a bad man and committed bad crimes, | :42:03. | :42:07. | |
but we were taken to war on a lie and that is wrong. You go ahead | :42:07. | :42:11. | |
are focusing on British Muslims, but there are other religions in | :42:11. | :42:17. | |
Iraq that are feeling this. For example Iraqi Christians who are | :42:17. | :42:22. | |
leaving Iraq by the droves, it is not just Muslims, I think. | :42:23. | :42:26. | |
I firstly object to your description of the march being a | :42:26. | :42:29. | |
mob, it was a peaceful demonstration. Millions of us | :42:29. | :42:32. | |
marched. And the arguments being presented in Hyde Park, it wasn't | :42:32. | :42:36. | |
just the one there were many others, we were all on them. That is not | :42:36. | :42:41. | |
what I said. You were decribing it as a mob with conotations of | :42:41. | :42:45. | |
violence. I was saying the people who say you should decide your | :42:45. | :42:48. | |
foreign policy by the number of people on the streets are the | :42:48. | :42:52. | |
people who advocate mob rule. We have a parliamentary democracy in | :42:52. | :42:55. | |
this country. I think you have a parliamentary democracy in this | :42:55. | :43:00. | |
country. But a parliamentary democracy cannot just work | :43:00. | :43:03. | |
effectively or with legitimacy inside the confines of the House of | :43:03. | :43:08. | |
Commons. I was one of the million on that march, it was a very | :43:08. | :43:12. | |
peaceful affair. It was a privilege to address the event on the day | :43:12. | :43:17. | |
itself. I would like to think, it comes back to this issue of trust, | :43:17. | :43:23. | |
one of the things parliament's now put in place, British Governments, | :43:23. | :43:27. | |
God forbid have to commit Armed Forces in the future, have got to | :43:27. | :43:31. | |
get the affirmative vote of parliament. Not the way it happened | :43:31. | :43:35. | |
over Iraq. That was a con, an absolute conat the time. How you do | :43:36. | :43:40. | |
that in practice might be more difficult. But the second point is | :43:40. | :43:44. | |
the argumentation of any Prime Minister in the future, they would | :43:44. | :43:47. | |
not get away with what Tony Blair Z he never answered the question that | :43:47. | :43:50. | |
I raised, for months. Which was, and it comes back to what the | :43:50. | :43:53. | |
gentleman says about the absence of the second resolution. If the | :43:53. | :43:59. | |
Americans went in, without a second resolution, where are the | :43:59. | :44:02. | |
circumstances with which his Government wouldn't go with them. | :44:02. | :44:06. | |
To which answer there came none. I don't think a Prime Minister could | :44:06. | :44:10. | |
or would or should ever get away with that in the future. Let's talk | :44:10. | :44:15. | |
about the whole issue of trust. problem with being ignored, is it | :44:15. | :44:20. | |
seemed to set a precedent that us as a society couldn't have a say on | :44:20. | :44:26. | |
how we were representing ourselves on a world stage. As we become | :44:26. | :44:29. | |
increasingly more world aware and citizens of the world, people want | :44:29. | :44:34. | |
to be able to go and say look we are a country that's putting | :44:34. | :44:37. | |
ourselves out there. You can't ignore so many people saying we | :44:37. | :44:43. | |
want our country to go in this direction. That's not democracy. | :44:43. | :44:47. | |
The gentleman two along from this. I was actually thinking, ten years | :44:47. | :44:53. | |
from now, ten years ten as your topic is, what have we learned? Is | :44:53. | :44:58. | |
there a proto-type to a certain extent to say we have learned the | :44:58. | :45:02. | |
way forward? We went into Libya. What have we learned actually? That | :45:02. | :45:08. | |
is a key question I would like to ask? Michael Morpurgo what do you | :45:08. | :45:12. | |
think this has taught us about the kind of society we are? I think it | :45:12. | :45:22. | |
:45:22. | :45:23. | ||
is taught me we are not this kind of a country any more. My feeling | :45:23. | :45:26. | |
about us now is represented, and I know this isn't a picture, by the | :45:26. | :45:32. | |
kind of show we put on just before the Olympics. We are rather than | :45:32. | :45:37. | |
eccentric people, rather odd, quite funny, but we don't do this boots | :45:37. | :45:41. | |
on foreign territory any more. That's what seems to me have rubbed | :45:41. | :45:47. | |
the country and made us feel really uncomfortable. Not just about Iraq, | :45:47. | :45:50. | |
but Afghanistan, is we are not this sort of country any more. Unless I | :45:50. | :45:54. | |
have got it all wrong. We will come on and talk about intervention. | :45:54. | :45:59. | |
Let's stick with you on this. How does that make you feel. Do you | :45:59. | :46:04. | |
want to be one of the world's policemen? No. I feel those days | :46:04. | :46:09. | |
are not for you. We are, yes a significant European power. We work | :46:09. | :46:11. | |
in conjunction with other democratic nations to make this | :46:11. | :46:16. | |
world a better place. But we don't do going off on our own with boots. | :46:16. | :46:20. | |
We can't wash our hands of the rest of the world. You can't. You may | :46:20. | :46:24. | |
not be interested in wa, but war is interested in you. Trotsky said | :46:24. | :46:29. | |
that and it is good reason to think that Britain is not there. You walk | :46:29. | :46:34. | |
the streets of the Arab world today the Bafour declaration comes up | :46:34. | :46:37. | |
again and again. Britain has to correct the mistake of the part, | :46:37. | :46:42. | |
and we can't do that without American support. And answering the | :46:42. | :46:44. | |
question that Charles Kennedy asked, how tight will the relationship | :46:44. | :46:50. | |
between the UK and the US, who will it be close to, Russia, China. The | :46:50. | :46:54. | |
UK on its own cannot sustain the global responsibilities that we | :46:54. | :46:58. | |
face in an interdependant world. Let's talk about that. The world is | :46:58. | :47:00. | |
a different place now. The Middle East is convulsed by the Arab | :47:01. | :47:05. | |
Spring, Syria has descended into Civil War, and there is the ever- | :47:05. | :47:10. | |
lingering threat of WMD in Iran. Ten years after Iraq, the American | :47:10. | :47:15. | |
public is now, as Ed Husain said, reluctant to intervene beyond its | :47:15. | :47:19. | |
borders, however Britain since Iraq has intervened in Libya, and more | :47:19. | :47:29. | |
:47:29. | :47:34. | ||
recently Mali. In the 1980s Saddam's Iraq went | :47:34. | :47:38. | |
head-to-head with revolutionary Iran, earning the gratitude of | :47:38. | :47:42. | |
western and gulf Arab states alike. They bank rolled his long war with | :47:42. | :47:49. | |
Iran, and an �80 billion shopping spree for weapons. | :47:49. | :47:56. | |
After the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, the US sought to break Iraq's power, | :47:56. | :48:02. | |
culminating in their 2003 invasion. Today Iraq hardly ranks as a | :48:02. | :48:07. | |
regional player. Except in oil production. Iran has gained by | :48:07. | :48:13. | |
default, but it can't control what Iraq does. Instead, that country | :48:13. | :48:18. | |
has become a buffer state, weakened, sandwiched between the forces now | :48:18. | :48:25. | |
defining the Middle East. For a time the US extoled Iraq as a model | :48:25. | :48:33. | |
democracy, an example for the region. When US pressure brought | :48:33. | :48:40. | |
elections, they carried Hamas to power in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, | :48:40. | :48:43. | |
and religious-based parties in Iraq itself. Far from stablising the | :48:43. | :48:47. | |
Middle East, the invasion may have removed popular fear of tyrants, | :48:47. | :48:54. | |
and empowered intolerance. As Iraq's insurgency progressed, it | :48:54. | :48:59. | |
mutated from an anti-American movement noing Sunni Arabs, into an | :48:59. | :49:04. | |
orgy of anti-Shia violence. Symbolic acts against religious | :49:04. | :49:08. | |
prosessions, pilgrims and mosques, goaded the majority Shia into | :49:09. | :49:14. | |
reaction. America tried to dissuade Iraq's | :49:14. | :49:18. | |
neighbours, particularly Sunni Saudi Arabia, and Shia Iran, from | :49:18. | :49:26. | |
turning Iraq into a proxy religious war. But since US combat troops | :49:26. | :49:30. | |
have left, surrounding countries have intensified their struggle for | :49:30. | :49:37. | |
influence. Recently Syria has seen an inflation of Iraqi-Sunni | :49:37. | :49:42. | |
extremists, skilled in insurgency, taking their fight to the Assad | :49:42. | :49:45. | |
regime. Having triggered the insurgency, America regarded it as | :49:45. | :49:50. | |
a point of honour to overwhelm it. And by 2008 they had brought about | :49:50. | :49:56. | |
a dramatic downturn in violence. But the cost of wielding this | :49:56. | :50:02. | |
sledgehammer was so great, that now further US intervention on this | :50:02. | :50:06. | |
scale seems barely conceivable. Far from cementing the special | :50:06. | :50:12. | |
relationship, as Tony Blair had hoped, what happened in Basra left | :50:12. | :50:16. | |
many Americans critical of British military performian. And back in | :50:16. | :50:19. | |
Westminster, there was a groundswell that in future the UK | :50:19. | :50:25. | |
should be a little more awkward in the dealings with the US. | :50:25. | :50:32. | |
The world ten years on looks quite different. Unitary secular Iraq, | :50:32. | :50:38. | |
Saddam's Iraq crushed. In its place, a caldron of Sunni-Shia rivalry, it | :50:38. | :50:41. | |
is not pretty and it might have happened eventually without outside | :50:41. | :50:44. | |
intervention. But the fores unleashed by the invasion of ten | :50:44. | :50:49. | |
years ago was so ugly, that the US and Britain can barely look them in | :50:49. | :50:56. | |
the face any more. I'm joined by Tim Collins, who led | :50:56. | :51:03. | |
the 1st Battalion The royal Irish Guards in the invasion. Sir | :51:03. | :51:07. | |
Christopher Meyer, UK ambassador to America in the run-up to the war. | :51:07. | :51:11. | |
And Mark Urban, the Newsnight diplomatic editor is here, and we | :51:11. | :51:16. | |
are joined by Hans Blix from Stockholm, the UN weapons inspector | :51:16. | :51:21. | |
in Iraq just before the invasion. Tim Collins, from your experience | :51:21. | :51:28. | |
of Iraq, what can we learn about future adventures? Was the Royal | :51:28. | :51:32. | |
Royal Irish scam regiment, by the way. We can learn in a strange way | :51:32. | :51:37. | |
that our forefathers learned after the Boer war is that our military | :51:37. | :51:42. | |
needs to be fit for purpose. I think that the leadership and the | :51:42. | :51:46. | |
quiping of the British army was woeful -- equipping of the British | :51:46. | :51:52. | |
army was woeful at the time of intervention when we led the | :51:52. | :51:55. | |
invasion. By and large we have learned that getting involved in | :51:55. | :51:59. | |
other people's affairs isn't as simple as we thought. I think it is | :51:59. | :52:02. | |
a reluctance to get involved in Syria as a result. And certainly | :52:02. | :52:06. | |
our intervention in Libya of very measured as a result. | :52:06. | :52:09. | |
Christopher Meyer, you heard Tony Blair saying there, this is a | :52:09. | :52:12. | |
generation of struggle and he made it clear that he thinks that we | :52:12. | :52:18. | |
have a role in Syria and maybe in Iran, maybe not boots on the ground | :52:18. | :52:21. | |
or whatever. But do you think that is our place now. Do you think that | :52:22. | :52:27. | |
we were damaged by the Iraq business to the extent that can we | :52:27. | :52:30. | |
even do it? Morally and physically, do we have the capability to go in? | :52:30. | :52:35. | |
Of course we are damaged by the Iraq intervention. Not least | :52:35. | :52:40. | |
because we left Iraq in rather humiliating circumstances, when we | :52:40. | :52:44. | |
withdrew from Basra. That is not a God precedent. Having said that, we | :52:44. | :52:49. | |
are still, like it or not, a permanent member of the UN Security | :52:49. | :52:53. | |
Council. With that comes certain responsibilities. And the challenge | :52:53. | :52:58. | |
of the age is when to intervene, and when to stay out. I have to say, | :52:58. | :53:06. | |
if I may, that Iraq and Afghanistan, and Sierra Leone, and others, don't | :53:06. | :53:10. | |
give us a universal template to tell us what to do. No, and the | :53:10. | :53:14. | |
other thaiing that doesn't give us a universal template is the idea of | :53:14. | :53:18. | |
UN resolution, we have been there without UN resolutions, we have we | :53:18. | :53:23. | |
were m in Kosovo, for example. Is - - we were in Kosovo, for example. | :53:23. | :53:29. | |
Is this through the UN council, we will never get agreement on Syria? | :53:29. | :53:33. | |
Even if we did get agreement, I'm not sure that is the place to take | :53:33. | :53:37. | |
boots on the ground. Because you will then get caught in the middle | :53:37. | :53:42. | |
of another bloody Civil War, where is exactly we don't belong. Hans | :53:42. | :53:45. | |
Blix, joining us from Stockholm. You were the senior weapons | :53:45. | :53:50. | |
inspector, you were tasked with looking for and finding WMD. We are | :53:50. | :53:54. | |
in a position now where Iran may well be on its way to having WMD, | :53:54. | :53:59. | |
but you know, is any country now going to go to war on the basis of | :53:59. | :54:06. | |
intelligence after what happened in Iraq? I hope not. I think that the | :54:06. | :54:11. | |
starting of the Iraq War was a tragic and terrible mistake. I | :54:11. | :54:15. | |
think Mr Blair probably felt that there was a special responsibility | :54:15. | :54:19. | |
of the great powers, members of the Security Council, and he had been | :54:19. | :54:24. | |
encouraged by the successes he saw in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, but he | :54:24. | :54:27. | |
didn't care or feel the need to have an approval of the Security | :54:27. | :54:33. | |
Council. The US was pretty high on its hyperpower that had developed | :54:33. | :54:39. | |
as the lone superpower in the 1990. They wanted to take further revenge | :54:39. | :54:46. | |
on the 9/11 in Afghanistan. They maintained then that they would | :54:46. | :54:50. | |
weed out the weapons of mass destruction and that they would | :54:50. | :54:55. | |
also take out Al-Qaeda. These were contention that is didn't really | :54:55. | :55:01. | |
stand up. They were failures. me, sorry to interrupt, do you | :55:01. | :55:07. | |
think the unintended consequence of what has happened in Iraq has been | :55:07. | :55:14. | |
the inexorable rise of Iran? think the lack of Security Council | :55:14. | :55:17. | |
approval of the action in Iraq should have stopped them from doing | :55:17. | :55:22. | |
it. I think that it is perplexing that in the current situation there | :55:22. | :55:26. | |
is much talk about going to war with Iran, when it is perfectly | :55:26. | :55:30. | |
clear that Iran has not committed an aggression and has not a track | :55:30. | :55:33. | |
record of aggression. That certainly Security Council is not | :55:33. | :55:37. | |
going to approve any act against Iraq. | :55:37. | :55:42. | |
Do you think the idea of exporting democracy at the end of a barrel of | :55:42. | :55:46. | |
the gun has gone now for Britain? You can say that it wasn't really | :55:46. | :55:51. | |
there at the start. It was a very small number of people in the US | :55:51. | :55:54. | |
policy system who really thought that putting democracy into Iraq | :55:54. | :56:01. | |
was really a central war aim. 2003/04/05 there was the high | :56:01. | :56:06. | |
summer of that idea. Since then it was thoroughly discredited. Very | :56:06. | :56:09. | |
few people would argue that invading and taking democracy in on | :56:09. | :56:14. | |
a tang is a viable approach. In any situation, from backing peaceful | :56:14. | :56:19. | |
protests in Tahrir Square, to the Libyan scenario and any future | :56:19. | :56:22. | |
scenario, what else do western Governments say they want. They | :56:22. | :56:27. | |
don't have another language except that of democracy. Simon Brown you | :56:28. | :56:31. | |
went into Iraq not once or twice, wounded both times, very seriously. | :56:31. | :56:35. | |
What do you say, you went in as a soldier doing his job. Do you think | :56:35. | :56:39. | |
it is our place to intervene. Do you think we have a moral duty to | :56:39. | :56:44. | |
intervene in the world? Morally we put ourselves in a position where | :56:44. | :56:48. | |
we are going to be involved by being part ofate and the UN. As a | :56:48. | :56:52. | |
soldier, speaking personally as a soldier, I went to Kosovo and | :56:52. | :56:57. | |
cleaned up after going in too late. I personally would like to go in | :56:57. | :57:01. | |
early and prevent death, than going in late and clean up death. | :57:01. | :57:05. | |
think that has to be a big policy decision that, either soft power, | :57:05. | :57:08. | |
not necessarily with boots on the ground, but we have to change a | :57:08. | :57:12. | |
different way? We have to learn the right timing to go in and make the | :57:12. | :57:20. | |
proper decisions. Isn't the problem here, that one of the other | :57:20. | :57:23. | |
unintended consequences is there isn't an American voter now who | :57:23. | :57:28. | |
would vote to go in in to Syria with bombs, boots or to Iran? | :57:28. | :57:32. | |
think that is right. Both in America and Britain, war of all | :57:32. | :57:36. | |
kinds has become very unpopular. We are weaker for it. Because there | :57:36. | :57:40. | |
are case on both humanitarian grounds, and sometimes even | :57:40. | :57:43. | |
democracy grounds, when we might want to. Because these are our | :57:43. | :57:47. | |
values. There was an extraordinary interview you had with Tony Blair, | :57:47. | :57:51. | |
he made marvellously, fluently, the humanitarian case for going in p | :57:51. | :57:56. | |
and even a bit the democratic case, both of them I feel are strong ones, | :57:56. | :57:59. | |
he this just happen not at all to be the arguments he made at the | :57:59. | :58:02. | |
time. APPLAUSE | :58:02. | :58:07. | |
From your point of view, when can intervention work, is it short and | :58:07. | :58:11. | |
sharp, or as Simon is saying, has it got to be ahead of the game? | :58:11. | :58:17. | |
think we the tragedy of Iraq was that it undermined the nation and | :58:17. | :58:21. | |
discredited the notion of humanitarian intervention, which is | :58:21. | :58:27. | |
about going in to prevent violation of human rights, genocide. It is | :58:27. | :58:33. | |
not about war fighting, it is about protecting people on the ground. At | :58:33. | :58:39. | |
the time of Bosnia there was massive civil society pressure to | :58:39. | :58:42. | |
protect people from "ethnic cleansing". That doesn't exist now | :58:42. | :58:47. | |
today in Syria, and I think it is not because Syria is an Arab | :58:47. | :58:51. | |
country, it is because of the experience of Iraq. Is that your | :58:51. | :59:00. | |
view? I think there is no doubt about it. We saw the Free Libyans | :59:00. | :59:04. | |
pulling out of the discussions in Rome and other place, they were | :59:05. | :59:08. | |
simply being abandoned. You are right, they are gun shy becoming | :59:08. | :59:11. | |
involved where we should be. There has to be balance somewhere along | :59:11. | :59:18. | |
the line. You are the politician, you are going to have to take a | :59:18. | :59:21. | |
decision about backing European intervention, what do you think? | :59:21. | :59:24. | |
There is no template to intervention. Mark asked the right | :59:24. | :59:27. | |
question w what sort of relationship do we want with the | :59:27. | :59:33. | |
countries? The moment you know, the moment you remove a dictator the | :59:33. | :59:39. | |
vacuum is filled with theocracy. It has taken us in the UK 1730 years | :59:39. | :59:44. | |
to go from the Magna Carta to 1928 where our democracy became healthy | :59:44. | :59:47. | |
and women got the vote. We have to take the long view. We have to | :59:47. | :59:51. | |
build relationships and support true democrats in those countries. | :59:51. | :59:55. | |
Is it about soft power, is it about getting in ahead of the game? | :59:55. | :59:58. | |
about soft power as well as hard power. How you use it. One of the | :59:58. | :00:03. | |
things that has gone wrong is that intervention, and humanitarian | :00:03. | :00:07. | |
intervention, has become plulted by the concept of nation build -- | :00:07. | :00:10. | |
polluted by the concept of nation building. Nation build something | :00:10. | :00:16. | |
trying to impose on a foreign culture your own concepts of | :00:16. | :00:19. | |
democracy. We mustn't confuse democracy with Westminster | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
democracy or Washington capital democracy, because it is different | :00:22. | :00:25. | |
in every country. And one of the things that has gone wrong in | :00:25. | :00:29. | |
Afghanistan, for example, is to try to impose on a completely alien | :00:29. | :00:33. | |
culture, our own norms and precepts. APPLAUSE | :00:33. | :00:37. | |
Very briefly Hans Blix, do you think there is a role to intervene | :00:37. | :00:42. | |
in other countries? Not necessarily boots on the ground, but promoting | :00:42. | :00:46. | |
change, promoting democracy? think there is a presumtiousness | :00:47. | :00:50. | |
that the countries like the UK, or the US can take that decision. But | :00:50. | :00:55. | |
the UN actually has adopted something called the right to | :00:55. | :00:59. | |
protect, the R 2. P, which will enable the United Nations to | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
intervene. It presupposes that the Security Council gives its approval. | :01:04. | :01:07. | |
That is what was missing in the case of Iraq. They could not have | :01:07. | :01:10. | |
the approval, and they should not have it. It was to the merit of the | :01:10. | :01:14. | |
Security Council that they didn't give T we need that in the future. | :01:14. | :01:19. | |
It is not interventionists are excluded, but there should be a | :01:19. | :01:22. | |
legitimisation of it by the Security Council. Woman in green at | :01:22. | :01:27. | |
the back, a comment? I would like to ask you how do you build up the | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
trust between intervention of knowing when you should actually go | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
into war and actually build up the trust between the public and the | :01:33. | :01:41. | |
politicians. Just a comment? In 2006 Tony Blair | :01:41. | :01:45. | |
actually admitted that he was asking higher powers for advice, | :01:45. | :01:50. | |
that he was giving prayers for his decisions in this. You would think | :01:50. | :01:55. | |
in the 21st century that we wouldn't rely upon superstition, | :01:55. | :01:59. | |
and there would be a more quantitative and qualitative way in | :01:59. | :02:03. | |
making these decision. A completely unscientific audience, I will ask | :02:03. | :02:07. | |
you now about intervention. Whether you believe that the UK has a role | :02:07. | :02:11. | |
in intervening in other countries, where there are huge problems, in | :02:11. | :02:13. | |
order perhaps to promote democracy, but certainly to promote peace. | :02:13. | :02:18. | |
Those of you who think first of all that Britain still has a role, | :02:18. | :02:26. | |
please raise your hands? Those who don't? I would say that the ayes | :02:26. | :02:33. | |
have it, just, not completely. One abstainer in the middle! Thank you | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
very much, thank you to my audience and panellist to join us for the | :02:38. | :02:42. | |
Newsnight special, until tomorrow night a very good night from us | :02:42. | :02:52. | |
:02:52. | :03:15. | ||
Hello there, it is frosty again in Scotland. Freezing fog patches, | :03:15. | :03:19. | |
especially through the central lowlands, not as cold by the | :03:19. | :03:21. | |
morning in Northern Ireland as the cloud moves in. Across Scotland we | :03:21. | :03:24. | |
will see sunshine, that will develop in northern England as the | :03:24. | :03:29. | |
dryer and brighter weather moves southwards. A much better day to | :03:29. | :03:33. | |
come in northern England. Feeling pleasant in the sunshine. | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
Eventually getting sunshine through much of East Anglia. The southern | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
counties more of a struggle to blow the cloud awa. It will stay cloudy, | :03:41. | :03:46. | |
not as damp and drizzley as it is now. The cloud won't be as either. | :03:46. | :03:49. | |
Wales will be improving in the afternoon, particularly North Wales. | :03:49. | :03:52. | |
Northern Ireland a bit of a change here. We are expecting more cloud | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
than we had today. It will feel quite chilly, I suspect. Scotland, | :03:56. | :04:00. | |
some changes into the west and the North West in particular. It won't | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
be quite as warm as it was today. Away from the North West and | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
Northern Ireland we should get a good deal of sunshine once again. | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
Sunshine in Inverness, but in the change on Thursday as more cloud | :04:12. | :04:15. | |
moves in here. Further south we have the cloud on Wednesday. But | :04:15. | :04:18. | |
the cloud should be thinner on Thursday. So a better chance of | :04:19. | :04:21. | |
seeing some sunshine. A change of fortunes, if you like on Thursday. | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
It will be a colder start for England and Wales, with frost and | :04:26. | :04:30. |