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