:00:08. > :00:20.Tonight from Syria, the exclusive testimony from one British Jihadi
:00:21. > :00:25.who knew the Brighton fighter, Ibrahim Kamara from Brighton killed
:00:26. > :00:29.earlier this Queening. He was an ordinary Muslim lad, he knew about
:00:30. > :00:34.people being oppressed and attacked because they are Muslims and he saw
:00:35. > :00:39.the solution was Jihad, and Jihad would protect them. These bombers in
:00:40. > :00:42.the skies above Iraq could be joined by British planes as early as
:00:43. > :00:46.tomorrow night if MPs approve it. On the eve of the vote we will ask is
:00:47. > :00:51.the gaping hole in the plan actually the lack of a strategy for what to
:00:52. > :00:56.do on the ground. The stories of the women who suffered at the hands of
:00:57. > :01:01.nuns in Irish convants are still being revealed. And only now are
:01:02. > :01:07.some mothers being reunited with the babies they were forced to give
:01:08. > :01:19.away. Carmel you don't blame me for anything, I couldn't, it wasn't my
:01:20. > :01:23.fault. It is an exhibition about slavery
:01:24. > :01:34.from a renowned South African artist, why has the Barbican bowed
:01:35. > :01:38.to activists and shut it down. An activist versus a leader of the
:01:39. > :01:43.campaign. Good evening, we begin tonight with
:01:44. > :01:48.an exclusive interview with a British Jihadi who knew Ibrahim
:01:49. > :01:55.Kamara, the 19-year-old from Brighton believed to be killed in an
:01:56. > :02:02.air strike outside Aleppo earlier in the week. As far as we know that
:02:03. > :02:07.Kamara, fighting for an affiliate group of Al-Qaeda was killed with a
:02:08. > :02:15.group of three other nationals. He flew out to Syria and joined a group
:02:16. > :02:18.of friends in Syria. Brighton, home to Ibrahim Kamara and
:02:19. > :02:28.three of his friends who also travelled to Syria. He was part of
:02:29. > :02:35.the Group A l-Nursra, and killed in an air strike. It is an affiliate of
:02:36. > :02:39.Al-Qaeda but less extreme than Islamic State, and has in places
:02:40. > :02:43.fought against them. I spoke to his friend also from Brighton, he and
:02:44. > :02:48.his younger brother are also fighting in Syria with the group. It
:02:49. > :02:52.is the main base my brother, he came to visit my area, and he stayed for
:02:53. > :02:56.a few days. Me and him were supposed to go back there to visit the
:02:57. > :03:04.brothers out there. This happened overnight. The group he was part of
:03:05. > :03:13.has been accused by human rights groups of acrossties. But Amit said
:03:14. > :03:17.Ibrahim wanted to help people. He was a funny guy, and wanted to help
:03:18. > :03:23.people and joked around. I have known him for six years. We used to
:03:24. > :03:31.go to the gym together. We used to go to the mosque. He was just a
:03:32. > :03:37.normal Muslim lad. He learned about his duty towards the people that are
:03:38. > :03:40.being oppressed, and being attacked because they are Muslims, and he saw
:03:41. > :03:45.the solution was Jihad thank would protect him. Can you understand why
:03:46. > :03:54.his mother would be so upset, she says he became radicalised? They are
:03:55. > :03:59.upset for the honour that he has been granted by Allah. Ibrahim has
:04:00. > :04:04.always asked for martyrdom. He used to say he really wanted it really
:04:05. > :04:08.bad. But if his family doesn't understand it is because maybe due
:04:09. > :04:13.to they don't have the knowledge of the virtues of Jihad and the virtues
:04:14. > :04:17.of martyrdom and sacrifice on the part of Allah. I understand at least
:04:18. > :04:24.three other men of British origin were also killed? I was close with
:04:25. > :04:29.them also, but I can't reveal their identity because you know when such
:04:30. > :04:34.people are known to be in Syria their families get harassed, even
:04:35. > :04:43.after they are killed. America says that unlike other air strikes these
:04:44. > :04:46.attacks weren't targeting IS, but a group linked to Jabatha, who they
:04:47. > :04:52.accuse of plotting attacks against the west? Have you heard of the
:04:53. > :04:57.group? I only heard it in the media, they had to come up with the group,
:04:58. > :05:06.and they were quoting America. What they need to understand is that it
:05:07. > :05:12.is not seen as something beneficial to hit the west from Syria. Because
:05:13. > :05:18.what that would do is it would close Syria, it would close on the people
:05:19. > :05:25.inside it and it will close any support that comes outside. The
:05:26. > :05:32.place where the British brothers were, they were at a recruitment
:05:33. > :05:36.base where wherever there was a balancele or fight they were drawn
:05:37. > :05:40.to it. Some people would say they are part of Al-Qaeda, terrorists? I
:05:41. > :05:45.would say if that is what you think what else can I do for you, you
:05:46. > :05:50.think that way. The majority of air strikes have targeted IS, who even
:05:51. > :05:56.other groups have accused of being too extreme. The air strikes against
:05:57. > :05:58.them could push them together. They are not considered people who have
:05:59. > :06:04.left Islam, they have left the right way of Islam and the way of the
:06:05. > :06:10.prophet in terms of extremism, but still they are Muslims. And if the
:06:11. > :06:16.American allies and America come on ground to fight IS then they should
:06:17. > :06:21.expect that all the other Muslims will work with IS against the
:06:22. > :06:25.enemies of Islam. America says it believes all the strikes it has
:06:26. > :06:28.carried out are important in combatting threats coming from
:06:29. > :06:34.Syria. And it is working alongside Arab Muslim countries. Ibrahim
:06:35. > :06:40.Kamara is unlikely to be the only British Jihadist to die, as the
:06:41. > :06:47.strikes continue. The mother of Ibrahim Kamara has
:06:48. > :06:52.said she was stunned at how quickly her son was radicalised. That
:06:53. > :06:58.appears to be a pattern among young Muslim men and women who travel to
:06:59. > :07:02.Jihad. Nine men including the radical preacher, Anjem Choudary,
:07:03. > :07:08.were arrested as being part of a banned organisation. Anjem Choudary
:07:09. > :07:16.once spearheaded a group, Al-Mahujiroun, a group disbanded in
:07:17. > :07:19.2010. Rachel You have been following Anjem Choudary for many years. What
:07:20. > :07:25.do you know about the Al-Mahujiroun network? He was one of the founding
:07:26. > :07:30.members. The nine arrests, including Anjem Choudary as you made clear. A
:07:31. > :07:35.very controversial figure, but security forces have told me he has
:07:36. > :07:41.always trodden finely on the right side of the law. Another source told
:07:42. > :07:44.me, Jihadis told me, amongst serious Jihadi circles he's considered
:07:45. > :07:49.something of a "fool", he doesn't have a strong reputation in Syria's
:07:50. > :07:54.Jihadi circles. Finally security forces told me today that the
:07:55. > :07:57.current arrests in London are not connected with the on going hostage
:07:58. > :08:04.crisis in Syria. So why arrest them now? Well that is a very good
:08:05. > :08:07.question. Of course the why now question is absolutely fascinating.
:08:08. > :08:10.The authorities have known about Choudary's network force 15 years, I
:08:11. > :08:16.have been following it for about that time myself. The arrests well
:08:17. > :08:19.really they raided about 19 properties today, they will be
:08:20. > :08:22.looking for new evidence of fundraising, glorification, or even
:08:23. > :08:25.supporting people who want to go and fight. Now if there is no new
:08:26. > :08:28.evidence found WAESHGS just don't know that at the moment. Then a lot
:08:29. > :08:36.of people will link these arrests to the on going, or the forth coming
:08:37. > :08:39.bombing strikes against ISIS. It will take extremists off the British
:08:40. > :08:48.streets, in essence. I think that is a reasonable thing to speculate on.
:08:49. > :08:53.You talked about hostages, th FBI said that they had identified the
:08:54. > :08:56.called "Jihadi John", the man responsible for the deaths of
:08:57. > :09:03.western hostages? Certainly he has appeared in the be heading and
:09:04. > :09:08.propaganda videos, the FBI have said they have identified him, he has a
:09:09. > :09:15.London accent, but they have not revealed his identity yet. Britain
:09:16. > :09:20.is now readying itself for combat in the Iraq calling itself IS. Going
:09:21. > :09:26.back to the war in the Middle East and carrying out air strikes as
:09:27. > :09:30.early as this weekend alongside other countries. When MPs finally
:09:31. > :09:33.vote on the issue, David Cameron will be fairly assured of the
:09:34. > :09:38.backing of the majority. Only because getting involved in Syria is
:09:39. > :09:42.for now off the table. As is the deployment of ground combat troops.
:09:43. > :09:46.Is there a long-term strategy for dealing with IS beyond bombing from
:09:47. > :09:51.the air. This amateur footing appears to show
:09:52. > :09:55.an oil refinery, hit last night. The latest strikes by the coalition
:09:56. > :10:00.against self-styled Islamic State. It is It is far cry from three weeks
:10:01. > :10:07.ago when President Obama seemed at sea. We are putting the cart before
:10:08. > :10:12.the horse, we don't have a strategy yet. But suddenly America does have
:10:13. > :10:19.a plan to curb IS. In Iraq, at least. The approach targets IS on a
:10:20. > :10:23.number of fronts, from the air by American jets, and from tomorrow
:10:24. > :10:29.night possibly British forces too. And there are boots on the ground,
:10:30. > :10:33.not ours, but the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmerga who are getting
:10:34. > :10:38.training and equipment. The idea is to squeeze them from all sides. But
:10:39. > :10:43.in Syria things are very different. Yes, there are air strikes, but who
:10:44. > :10:51.can defeat them on the ground? That appears to be the gaping hole in the
:10:52. > :10:55.strategy. America plans to strengthen the Free Syrian Army,
:10:56. > :11:00.shown here in red, and other moderate rebels to fight IS. But the
:11:01. > :11:05.FSA has enough on its plate, dealing with President Assad's force, which
:11:06. > :11:08.holds the areas in orange. Washington's plan is to train 5,000
:11:09. > :11:15.rebel troops over the border in Jordan. But is that enough? Earlier
:11:16. > :11:20.today I asked the former American ambassador to Iraq whether the west
:11:21. > :11:26.was wrong to rule out boots on the ground? I do believe that and since
:11:27. > :11:32.in testimony before Congress last week and said it publicly. It is not
:11:33. > :11:38.good strategy to tell your enemy up front what you will not do. It is
:11:39. > :11:43.unreasonable to think that regional states will put boots on the ground,
:11:44. > :11:50.if we in the west are not prepared to do so. That's only one problem,
:11:51. > :11:53.the Free Syrian Army is supposed to be in the vanguard against IS, but
:11:54. > :11:59.they are in trouble. I think over the years we have seen dispute overs
:12:00. > :12:04.who is leading the FSA, who the main generals are, they have lost some in
:12:05. > :12:08.battle, others have gone abroad, so this will require restructuring of
:12:09. > :12:11.force, which is not well structured, and also boosting their more rail,
:12:12. > :12:16.where the more rail has been very low. The Free Syrian Army has been
:12:17. > :12:20.pushed back in recent months, in May it finally surrendered in a key
:12:21. > :12:27.strategic city of Homs. Two years of fighting ended with a one-way bus
:12:28. > :12:36.ticket out of the city. All sides are now converging on Aleppo,
:12:37. > :12:39.previously an FSA stronghold. A recent study described the FSA
:12:40. > :12:43.position as dire. A spokesman said they were fighting hard but
:12:44. > :12:47.desperate for western weapons. What we need is a real sophisticated
:12:48. > :12:54.weapons that we can fight and we can face ISIS with. Surface-to-air
:12:55. > :12:57.missiles to avoid the aircrafts and antitank missiles and more weapons
:12:58. > :13:02.to put in the hands of freedom fighters. So your message to
:13:03. > :13:05.President Obama and to Prime Minister Cameron is we need more
:13:06. > :13:13.weapons and we need them now? That's right. And propping up the FSA, can
:13:14. > :13:19.it really defeat a fighting machine as well funded and organised as IS?
:13:20. > :13:29.This is as grave a situation as I have seen in my entire career. The
:13:30. > :13:38.emergence of the Islamic State, its ability to take and hold ground is
:13:39. > :13:43.something we have never seen before. So Britain is about to enter the
:13:44. > :13:52.fray, but just in Iraq, and that is barely half the problem.
:13:53. > :13:56.General Sir Richard Sheriff has served as commander of British
:13:57. > :13:59.forces in Iraq 2006, joins us now from a dinner engagment. Thank you
:14:00. > :14:04.very much for joining us tonight. It is very likely that parliament will
:14:05. > :14:08.pass this motion tomorrow, and therefore, British warplanes will
:14:09. > :14:12.fly alongside others in the coalition and the so called
:14:13. > :14:18.coalition of the willing. Will air strikes defeat IS? Not on their own,
:14:19. > :14:23.no. They will cause serious damage to IS, but the only way that you are
:14:24. > :14:31.going to defeat IS long-term is through a strategy and I absolutely
:14:32. > :14:35.take the ambassador's point about not ruling out anything. You don't
:14:36. > :14:39.broadcast to your enemy what you are going to do. You have to be clear
:14:40. > :14:45.about what your end state is. You have to be clear about what the
:14:46. > :14:50.enemy's centre of gravity is, what is his source of strength. Then you
:14:51. > :14:52.design a strategy that targets that source of strength through multiple
:14:53. > :14:56.means. Air strikes are certainly part of it. But I would say that
:14:57. > :15:00.equally important, if not more important, is the ability to get on
:15:01. > :15:04.the ground with regional powers and train them to enable them to do the
:15:05. > :15:08.work. And part of that is certainly going to be done. When you look at
:15:09. > :15:12.what is up tomorrow, ruling out, going over the Iraqi border, ruling
:15:13. > :15:16.out any combat troops on the ground. Ruling out as it were a ground
:15:17. > :15:20.strategy. Why do you think there is this reluctance? I think you have to
:15:21. > :15:24.ask Mr Cameron that. But it is certainly from a military
:15:25. > :15:29.perspective, I think we have seen a collective, in a sense a collective
:15:30. > :15:33.loss of nerve, frankly. A real reluctance to get involved, and it
:15:34. > :15:39.has not just been in this particular case, but I think perhaps the
:15:40. > :15:43.impact, the concern, the impact of Iraq, Afghanistan, has come
:15:44. > :15:46.together, and I think the current Chief of Defence Staff put it quite
:15:47. > :15:51.well in a speech before Christmas where he talked about in a sense the
:15:52. > :15:57.concern that character of courage is being lost. I think we are looking
:15:58. > :16:02.pretty much like Johnny come latelies in the game. If we look
:16:03. > :16:04.like that, is it partly because after Iraq and Afghanistan that
:16:05. > :16:08.actually the mood of the British people is not to get involved in the
:16:09. > :16:13.long haul and not to seek British casualties? I don't know about the
:16:14. > :16:17.mood of the British people, I think that mood is we probably need to do
:16:18. > :16:21.what needs to be done. It is certainly the mood of British
:16:22. > :16:25.politicians though. You were a senior commander in southern Iraq,
:16:26. > :16:29.as you say, the experience of Iraq particularly was not a happy one in
:16:30. > :16:34.terms of that intervention. If we need to train and so forth, how do
:16:35. > :16:39.we need to approach this as a bigger problem in order to solve the
:16:40. > :16:42.problem of IS? Who needs to be involved? You have to have a
:16:43. > :16:46.regional strategy, that is clearly coming into place. You need
:16:47. > :16:52.international legality, and that equally is now pretty much in place.
:16:53. > :16:56.But you have got to give the, and I accept the notion of a sort of
:16:57. > :17:01.industrial scale deployment of troops as we saw for Iraq and
:17:02. > :17:07.Afghanistan is probably not what is required. But what is required and
:17:08. > :17:10.what mustn't be ruled out is close up proper training and capacity
:17:11. > :17:16.building. You are talking about the Iraqi army, we saw what happened
:17:17. > :17:20.with the Iraqi army and Mosul, who literally ran away in the face of
:17:21. > :17:23.IS. If you are talking about shoring up the Iraqi army, that won't happen
:17:24. > :17:27.in three months? It is not, and it won't happen. Can it be done, you
:17:28. > :17:34.were there? And what we must avoid is the mistake that was made last
:17:35. > :17:40.time round when Whitehall, the British chiefs of staff decided that
:17:41. > :17:44.to adapt a hands-off approach to training. There is no other nation,
:17:45. > :17:49.arguably, or very few other nations with the history of training
:17:50. > :17:52.indigenous forces, it requires the building of trust and confidence,
:17:53. > :17:56.you have to live and train together. If necessary you have to fight
:17:57. > :17:57.together. That is the key thing, you cannot rule out British forces
:17:58. > :18:01.fighting? And a good model, I would fighting? And a good model, I would
:18:02. > :18:07.suggest is what has happened in Afghanistan.
:18:08. > :18:12.Well we can go now to our diplomatic editor Mark Urban in the UN in New
:18:13. > :18:14.York. What have you been hearing about plans for the coalition in
:18:15. > :18:21.terms of any kind of ground operation? Well there are plans.
:18:22. > :18:25.Indeed we reported them on Monday, in the sense that there is a clear
:18:26. > :18:28.sense of who will be providing the air support, but also a clear sense
:18:29. > :18:34.of who will be providing the boots on the ground. Now that's American
:18:35. > :18:41.troops and possibly some British in Iraq, in the case of Syria it is
:18:42. > :18:45.countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. That
:18:46. > :18:50.is clear here. The real issues with the strategy is firstly that the
:18:51. > :18:53.Free Syrian Army, called, is so much behind the Peshmerga and other
:18:54. > :18:57.forces in terms of its capacity, it will take a lot longer to get it up
:18:58. > :19:04.to any level in numbers and competence. Then as General Sheriff
:19:05. > :19:06.was saying, what is the end state and what does victory look like with
:19:07. > :19:09.the strategy and what does victory look like with
:19:10. > :19:13.putting forward. That is very hard to define, and must, as the
:19:14. > :19:17.President himself has been saying, not even be judgeable for
:19:18. > :19:24.two-to-three years. In your assessment, where do the Iranians
:19:25. > :19:28.position themselves selves, are they within this coalition or not? That
:19:29. > :19:34.is one of the most fascinating issues. Iran is clearly playing a
:19:35. > :19:37.role in Iraq, it has sent in combat aircraft and handed them over, it
:19:38. > :19:41.has people on the ground trying to stiffen the defences. It is clearly
:19:42. > :19:47.involved, yet today, earlier, we heard a speech by the Iranian
:19:48. > :19:49.President in which he tied any further co-operation or closer
:19:50. > :19:57.co-ordination on this with progress on the nuclear issue. We mustn't
:19:58. > :20:02.forget in all this headline-making about the Islamic State, this huge
:20:03. > :20:07.question about could the US and Iran actually become non-adversarial, and
:20:08. > :20:11.even allies it is all hinged on the resolution of the question of their
:20:12. > :20:14.nuclear programme. That has been the subject of intensive talks this
:20:15. > :20:18.week. So far it doesn't look like there is a resolution. As long as
:20:19. > :20:23.that remains the case, the President will take the line he did earlier
:20:24. > :20:28.today and this arms length relationship will go on. One other
:20:29. > :20:32.factor in that, the Saudis are making very big and significant
:20:33. > :20:35.steps in this. We saw their aircraft in action, bombing targets in Syria.
:20:36. > :20:39.We know their army will be training the FSA. We think their army will go
:20:40. > :20:43.into Syria to do stuff on the ground. They may well be saying we
:20:44. > :20:50.won't be part of an alliance that Iran is. We can explore that
:20:51. > :20:53.further. Because joining us now from Tehran is our guest from the
:20:54. > :20:57.University of Tehran, a strong supporter of the Iranian Government
:20:58. > :21:02.and the Assad regime in Syria. And we have Monzer Akbik, the Special
:21:03. > :21:06.Envoy for the Syrian National Coalition, a coalition of Syrian
:21:07. > :21:14.opposition groups and the Free Syrian Army. Just picking up what
:21:15. > :21:20.was said there. On Newsnight last week we reported a very senior
:21:21. > :21:28.Iranian commander in Iraq helping the Iraqi army. Is Iran likely to
:21:29. > :21:35.be, as it were, even an unofficial member of the coalition fighting IS?
:21:36. > :21:42.First I would like to point out that the description of me is a bit
:21:43. > :21:46.inaccurate. I think I'm just an associate professor at the
:21:47. > :21:53.University of Tehran. I think that the Iranians feel that they have
:21:54. > :22:00.played the most important role in supporting the Iraqi Government and
:22:01. > :22:05.containing ISIL in the region. Also the fact that the Iranians helped
:22:06. > :22:10.keep the Syrian Government from collapsing in the face of extremists
:22:11. > :22:17.and have been supported for four years by a very unholy coalition
:22:18. > :22:23.between the United States, European countries and extremist regimes in
:22:24. > :22:28.the Persian Gulf that have advocated Wahhabism. This alliance has gone on
:22:29. > :22:37.for decades and is basically what has led to the rise of extremism,
:22:38. > :22:41.not only in Syria but also in Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria
:22:42. > :22:52.and so on. The Iranian feels that while the United States and its
:22:53. > :22:55.partners have played an important role the Iranians have played an
:22:56. > :23:01.important role in preventing destruction. Could you see American
:23:02. > :23:08.and Iranians as allies in fighting IS? The problem is the Americans
:23:09. > :23:12.have a very poor track record. In the past the United States has
:23:13. > :23:17.worked with these countries to support extremists in Syria, and
:23:18. > :23:22.again now they have this coalition, a coalition of the guilty, which are
:23:23. > :23:29.the same countries that cause the cat it is catastrophy. These
:23:30. > :23:32.countries will be bombing Syria. In the past the United States and its
:23:33. > :23:39.allies disregarded sovereignty and helped create a Civil War. Now they
:23:40. > :23:46.are also disregarding Syrian sovereignty. Let me ask you, Monzer
:23:47. > :23:53.Akbik, which is your biggest enemy, is it Assad, or is it IS? Both of
:23:54. > :23:58.them. Right now there is no priority for us. About ten months ago there
:23:59. > :24:04.was a war started against ISIS, and we are fighting on go fronts since
:24:05. > :24:09.then. As we heard from Nick Hopkins, the FSA is in disarray, the
:24:10. > :24:12.leadership has been disbanded. You have retreated from Homs, you know
:24:13. > :24:18.in Aleppo you are fighting to the bitter end. You need help and you
:24:19. > :24:24.have got the Iranians calling you part of the terrorist problem. The
:24:25. > :24:29.Iranians are actually helping Assad to slaughter the Syrian people into
:24:30. > :24:34.submission. They are using this narrative that the rebels are
:24:35. > :24:37.terrorists, actually the rebels are the Syrian people, and they are
:24:38. > :24:40.being slaughtered by Assad with the help of the Iranians. They are
:24:41. > :24:47.giving him all the money and the weapons and the fighters to do so.
:24:48. > :24:52.But you are now going to get half a billion dollars from the Americans,
:24:53. > :24:55.for arms to train you and so forth? The situation of the Syrian army is
:24:56. > :25:01.not that dire, but it is very difficult, why? Because we are
:25:02. > :25:04.fighting on two fronts at the same time, and we are underresourced with
:25:05. > :25:07.the hardware. It would be fair to say at the moment you are not up to
:25:08. > :25:13.the job, and yet what the coalition is really doing is putting its faith
:25:14. > :25:17.in you to take on IS in Syria, is that realist snick We are up to the
:25:18. > :25:23.job, we have done a very successful job in the past ten months without
:25:24. > :25:27.the help of anybody. ISIS was kicked out from three or four provinces
:25:28. > :25:33.before they seized those weapons from Iraq and came back on to the
:25:34. > :25:36.offensive. We are fighting two months statement and we are
:25:37. > :25:40.ininflicting a good result with our fight. At the same time, in order to
:25:41. > :25:45.achieve a strategic advance, there should be changes in the way that we
:25:46. > :25:50.are armed and the way that we are provided with the ambition and we
:25:51. > :25:55.need sophisticated weaponry in order to achieve those advances. Now there
:25:56. > :25:57.is a reason for us to be cautiously optimistic, because we have cover
:25:58. > :26:02.from the air, from the international coalition, and we have the training
:26:03. > :26:06.and equipping programme, so now I think the situation will even become
:26:07. > :26:13.better. Very quickly, can I just ask you whether you think that
:26:14. > :26:20.supporting the FSA will be an aid to defeating IS in Syria? No, there is
:26:21. > :26:32.no such thing as the FSA, there are different groups, many of them are
:26:33. > :26:34.very extreme, they have worked in co-ordination with JabthaAl-Nursra
:26:35. > :26:39.and other groups on different occasions. The so called Free Syrian
:26:40. > :26:43.Army is not a united or unified force. If the United States really
:26:44. > :26:46.had so called moderates f they really wanted to find moderates in
:26:47. > :26:51.the past four years they would have found them by now. But unfortunately
:26:52. > :26:55.the United States is... Thank you very much I have to stop you there.
:26:56. > :26:58.the United States is... Thank you We have Alistair Burt with us, the
:26:59. > :27:05.former Foreign Office minister. Alistair Burt, I take it you are
:27:06. > :27:14.behind the motion tomorrow? Indeed. It is ill lodge
:27:15. > :27:19.It is illogical to join in air strikes with other members of the
:27:20. > :27:26.coalition and limit them to the Iraqi border and no troops on the
:27:27. > :27:30.ground isn't a strategy. ? Tomorrow is not covering the whole conflict
:27:31. > :27:33.with ISIL, it is an opportunity for the United Kingdom to take part in
:27:34. > :27:36.the first part of the containment strategy that the Prime Minister has
:27:37. > :27:41.been talking about with others. If we were to have a motion with others
:27:42. > :27:43.trying to encompass everything I would imagine the conversation would
:27:44. > :27:47.be different. What the Prime Minister is doing is being able to
:27:48. > :27:51.get support for attacking so called IS forces in Iraq with the support
:27:52. > :27:55.of parliament, but that is only one part of what we have been hearing
:27:56. > :27:58.about which is taking on a struggle about a complex enemy, that is
:27:59. > :28:01.threatening the region and us in a variety of different ways. It is
:28:02. > :28:05.extraordinary exactly how much change there has been in a year.
:28:06. > :28:07.extraordinary exactly how much were disappointed because you
:28:08. > :28:12.couldn't get support, very disappointed, because you couldn't
:28:13. > :28:15.get support to hit President Assad last year. Now Britain seems to be
:28:16. > :28:19.suggesting that you can't actually have air strikes over Syria because
:28:20. > :28:23.President Assad hasn't asked you in. But the Americans don't have any
:28:24. > :28:28.qualms about that, so why on earth should Britain? The problem last
:28:29. > :28:35.year is we had an opportunity to have a response to someone who used
:28:36. > :28:41.chemical weapons on his own people. The terrorist is Assad, he has
:28:42. > :28:46.killed 200,000 of his own people. Last year would have been an
:28:47. > :28:49.opportunity to put something in the balance against Assad and tilt the
:28:50. > :28:54.negotiations for peace in Syria. A year has gone by. What we have seen
:28:55. > :28:57.as a consequence of that, the extremists have got stronger,
:28:58. > :29:02.because they FWHOSHG league with Assad against the Syrian people.
:29:03. > :29:06.What tomorrow provides is an opportunity for us along with others
:29:07. > :29:10.to challenge that in Syria and in the rest of the region. What was
:29:11. > :29:15.also said is the best way to sort this out in Iraq is to work again
:29:16. > :29:20.with the Iraqi army, shore them up, give them the capability. Meaning
:29:21. > :29:23.British forces training them and perhaps fighting alongside with
:29:24. > :29:26.them. Will the Government wear that, will the British public wear that?
:29:27. > :29:31.We will have to see, we are a long way from that. What will happen
:29:32. > :29:36.first is the Iraqi Government gains the support of the Sunni community
:29:37. > :29:41.in Iraq. The Iraqi army have to be strengthened. The people fighting at
:29:42. > :29:44.the moment are the Peshmerga, and if the United States can provide half a
:29:45. > :29:47.million dollars support for them, why can't we. That is the ground
:29:48. > :29:51.support that can then accompany the air strikes and begin the
:29:52. > :29:55.containment strategy before other actions are needed fully to degrade
:29:56. > :30:05.what IS is doing throughout the region and us? The film Philomena,
:30:06. > :30:10.starring Judy Dench, showed one woman's experience of the horror
:30:11. > :30:14.kind convent calls. It seems the revelations never end. The Irish
:30:15. > :30:18.Government has announced another inquiry, the sixth into what went on
:30:19. > :30:25.in the institutions run by nuns for most of the 20th century. The home
:30:26. > :30:49.for single mothers, the orphanages and the infamous Magdelene L
:30:50. > :30:55.Laundaries. The discovery that some 800 babies had died at the home and
:30:56. > :30:58.their bodies put in unmarked and horribly inappropriate graves
:30:59. > :31:05.shocked the world. It is a sewage tank, why are there children buried
:31:06. > :31:09.in a sewage area. The subsequent outrage emboldened survivors of the
:31:10. > :31:16.homes, run by nuns all over Ireland to speak out. There were thousands
:31:17. > :31:20.of babies born here, there were hundreds of babies died, and I
:31:21. > :31:24.remember the nuns carrying down the brown shoe boxes to bury the
:31:25. > :31:27.children. There have been five KWIERNies into Ireland's religious
:31:28. > :31:30.institutions so far. Now there is another. Into the mother and baby
:31:31. > :31:35.homes. The survivors say they won't be fobbed off. We have found our
:31:36. > :31:42.voice and we're not going to be silent any more. They are determined
:31:43. > :31:55.not least because earlier reports, like that into the Madelene
:31:56. > :31:58.Laundaries failed to tell the truth. Laundaries where those deemed to
:31:59. > :32:04.have fallen short of the Catholic Church's strict code were forced to
:32:05. > :32:09.work, unpaid. At the birth of the Irish state in 1922, a cash-strapped
:32:10. > :32:14.Government was happy to delegate most welfare duties to the religious
:32:15. > :32:19.orders. It meant a girl born in a mother and baby home might go on to
:32:20. > :32:34.an orphanage, aptly called "industrial schools" at the time,
:32:35. > :32:38.and then on to a Magdelen home, so living her whole life in the
:32:39. > :32:45.institutions. Questions about the homes were asked when in the early
:32:46. > :32:49.1990s, the nuns who owned the convent in Dublin wanted to sell the
:32:50. > :32:54.land, where now there is a car park. The problem was that the plot they
:32:55. > :32:59.wanted to sell, which back in 1993 looked like an empty green field,
:33:00. > :33:07.was in fact filled with the bodies of former workers. I tracked down
:33:08. > :33:13.the gravedigger employed by the nuns to dig them up, and he agreed to
:33:14. > :33:17.give his first television interview. The nuns were trying to sell the
:33:18. > :33:21.place, and it was big money, so they didn't want anyone to know what was
:33:22. > :33:28.going on. It was all hush, hush. We were supposed to tell no-one about
:33:29. > :33:32.it. The nuns told him there were 133 women's bodies buried in the plot.
:33:33. > :33:37.So we kept bigging and bigging until we dug out the whole lot, we ended
:33:38. > :33:42.up with 22 more that we didn't even know were there. So 22 bodies that
:33:43. > :33:47.the nuns didn't know were there. And he found something else inside the
:33:48. > :33:53.grave. A lot of plaster of Paris, which was on their wrists, their
:33:54. > :33:58.arms, their legs, their feet, their ankles, there were broken arms and
:33:59. > :34:07.broken legs, it seemed to me like. The women were too small, they were
:34:08. > :34:11.too frail for that kind of work. People were shocked by the tale of
:34:12. > :34:17.unrecorded burials and broken limbs and began to ask what had been going
:34:18. > :34:23.on in the homes and why were so many sent there. Like Mary, born in a
:34:24. > :34:27.mother and baby home and sent to an orphanage, where, one day, she was
:34:28. > :34:35.so hungry she took an apple from an orchard. The nuns sent her to work
:34:36. > :34:40.in a laundry in Dublin. They took me to Hyde Park Convent, and they left
:34:41. > :34:45.me there and said now you stay there until you learn to stop stealing.
:34:46. > :34:48.How long did that take? I was 14 years there. Did you ever ask why
:34:49. > :34:53.you were there for 14 years for stealing an apple? I did ask them,
:34:54. > :34:58.and I asked was I ever going to get out of here, and am I going to die
:34:59. > :35:05.here. One of my jobs was to help to lay out the women when they died. I
:35:06. > :35:10.was happy to do it because at least the women were getting out and their
:35:11. > :35:14.suffering was over. When women like Mary told their stories, people
:35:15. > :35:24.asked how arbitary detention and slave labour were allowed to happen?
:35:25. > :35:28.The Government called on a senator, Martin MacAleese to start an
:35:29. > :35:32.inquiry. When he published his report last year, survivors were
:35:33. > :35:39.astounded that he didn't report on the conditions at the laundries,
:35:40. > :35:44.despite the many women who spoke of ill-treatment. Mary told him that
:35:45. > :35:49.she was so desperate that she broke a window and ran into the town and
:35:50. > :35:53.begged a priest for help. He raped her. I had never been out in the
:35:54. > :35:57.world in my life. And I had no idea what was going on, I was crying my
:35:58. > :36:02.eyes out and I said you are hurting me. Then when he was finished he
:36:03. > :36:06.said, now, this is between us, I'm going to give you sixpence, and this
:36:07. > :36:12.is between us he said, don't tell anybody. He said I'm only trying to
:36:13. > :36:16.help you. The police took her back to the laundry. The nuns didn't
:36:17. > :36:21.believe about the rape and put her in the punishment cell for running
:36:22. > :36:29.away. One of the nuns came down and cut my hair to the bone. Then I was
:36:30. > :36:33.taken up and I was made kneel in a room with all the women there, kneel
:36:34. > :36:37.down, kiss the floor and say I was sorry for what I did. By this stage
:36:38. > :36:42.Mary had been there for 12 years. sorry for what I did. By this stage
:36:43. > :36:55.And was afraid that she might never get out. After all, there were women
:36:56. > :37:01.who died there. Sue, that was my friend, Mary. She worked for the
:37:02. > :37:08.laundry for 56 years. And yet, according to the report, the
:37:09. > :37:16.average, or median duation of stay in the laundry was approximately
:37:17. > :37:20.seven months. By comparing head stones with electoral rolls, Claire
:37:21. > :37:24.discovered that for one ten-year period, most women at the Hyde Park
:37:25. > :37:32.laundry were there for a minimum of eight years. We have looked at
:37:33. > :37:39.electoral registers from 1954-1964, looking at Hyde park in particular,
:37:40. > :37:45.he we have been able to show at least 46% of these women from
:37:46. > :37:49.1954-1964, they never got out. I asked the nuns who
:37:50. > :37:53.1954-1964, they never got out. I for an interview, but they reviewed,
:37:54. > :38:02.we called on the headquarters in Dublin. I'm Sue Lloyd Roberts, I'm
:38:03. > :38:06.here from the BBC, this is a former laundry worker. You have already
:38:07. > :38:11.sent in a request and you got your answer to that request. Which is no.
:38:12. > :38:14.We have been refused an interview, but we have important questions to
:38:15. > :38:18.ask. All I wanted was fleeing somebody to give me an apology for
:38:19. > :38:27.what happened to me. That is all I wanted. We were clearly not going to
:38:28. > :38:33.be invited in. Goodbye now. The senator also turned down my request
:38:34. > :38:36.for an interview. But I was invited to meet with Ireland's Deputy Prime
:38:37. > :38:41.Minister. When I speak to these women, what they want is the truth
:38:42. > :38:48.to be told. Well we now have under way the process for preparing a full
:38:49. > :38:58.judicial report by very experienced judge who was involved. You admit
:38:59. > :39:04.the inquiry was less than thorough? The MacAleese inquiry was an inquiry
:39:05. > :39:06.at a point in time. It was recognition for what women had
:39:07. > :39:10.experienced and gone through. The women said it didn't, because for
:39:11. > :39:15.example the glossing over of the abuse, theturation of stay? I do
:39:16. > :39:19.know -- the duation of stay? I do know what is important for a lot of
:39:20. > :39:25.the women is that they would receive a redress payment. Compensation, or
:39:26. > :39:29.redress, as it is called in Ireland, is being paid to former laundry
:39:30. > :39:36.workers. But the Irish taxpayer is footing the bill. The nuns say they
:39:37. > :39:49.can't afford it. The nuns told the inquiry that they didn't make money
:39:50. > :39:53.from the lawned Laundries, but we found ledgers showing very healthy
:39:54. > :39:59.businesses. We have the airport, one of the country's main train
:40:00. > :40:07.stations, airlines, Government departments, like the Department of
:40:08. > :40:17.Fisheries, hotel, private individual, convents and seminaries.
:40:18. > :40:21.No wonder trade unions and commercial owners of a laundry
:40:22. > :40:25.business complained, they were competing with the nun who is had
:40:26. > :40:30.free and forced Labour. After they closed the nuns made more money from
:40:31. > :40:35.property sales. They have asseted estimated at over 1. 5 billion euro,
:40:36. > :40:43.but refuse to give any to survivors. That is you when you were baby. When
:40:44. > :40:48.they took you away from me. After Mary was raped she gave birth to a
:40:49. > :40:52.daughter, Carmel, the baby was taken by the nuns and put up for adoption
:40:53. > :40:58.and Mary was sent back to work in the laundry. For 40 years she only
:40:59. > :41:03.had a photo. You have to keep them forever now. I will. I will treasure
:41:04. > :41:09.them. I will treasure them. They will go into frames. Mary now lives
:41:10. > :41:15.in the UK. A few years ago with the help of British Association workers,
:41:16. > :41:19.Carmel found her. Mary is desperate to assure her daughter that she
:41:20. > :41:26.didn't give her away willingly. You don't blame me for anything? No. God
:41:27. > :41:34.no, don't. I couldn't, it wasn't my fault. We are not ashamed any more,
:41:35. > :41:37.we will speak out and fight back. Survivors argue that all the
:41:38. > :41:46.religious institutions are linked and they should be investigated
:41:47. > :41:51.together. Justice for our mothers and for the babies that's here. But
:41:52. > :41:54.the indications are, that when the Government announces the parameters
:41:55. > :42:02.of the new inquiry, any day now, it will have a narrow remit. They don't
:42:03. > :42:10.want to join the dots, we believe, between the mother and baby homes,
:42:11. > :42:17.and the laundries, they want to do the least amount possible. There
:42:18. > :42:25.were complaints the report wasn't thorough enough. Where. We believe
:42:26. > :42:30.the same will be the case with the next report. The survivors are
:42:31. > :42:34.afraid the story will never be told. I want somebody to apologise, the
:42:35. > :42:41.nuns, the church, the police, somebody to apologise to me, before
:42:42. > :42:45.I die. Are there limits to artistic
:42:46. > :42:49.freedom, this perennial debate has been given sharp focus by the
:42:50. > :42:54.decision of the Barbican in London to pull a major exhibition about
:42:55. > :42:57.slavery after claims by protesters that the exhibition was offensive,
:42:58. > :43:01.despite the fact it was previously shown at 12 cities, including the
:43:02. > :43:07.Edinburgh Festival. Exhibit B, as it is called by the South African
:43:08. > :43:12.artist, Brett Bailey, involves 12 tableaux that represent zoos and
:43:13. > :43:16.ethnic displays of the 19th century, that displayed Africans as objects
:43:17. > :43:36.of scientific curiosity. Here is a clip of it.
:43:37. > :43:45.Joining me now are the actress in the exhibition and the woman who led
:43:46. > :43:52.the boycott. First of all, what was the value to you of this exhibition?
:43:53. > :43:59.RMT The value of the exhibition was it was a piece about dehumanisation
:44:00. > :44:07.and humans created the base of art. A lot of words were thrown about
:44:08. > :44:17.chains and slaves, we looked Atajic toweds today in terms of immigrant
:44:18. > :44:22.-- we looked ed at attitudes today. Looking at the very near under
:44:23. > :44:25.colonialisation about how attitudes of supremacy lead people to believe
:44:26. > :44:29.colonialisation about how attitudes they are better and above and can do
:44:30. > :44:33.whatever they want. Why did you want an exhibition like this shut down? I
:44:34. > :44:38.didn't want it shut down, I wanted it withdrawn, I wanted the Barbican
:44:39. > :44:41.to understand it was offensive to the memory of our ancestors and
:44:42. > :44:45.offensive to the black community, the larger black community that
:44:46. > :44:47.spoke out. This isn't about individualism, it is about a
:44:48. > :44:52.collective of people saying actually this has gone too far, we have not
:44:53. > :44:57.received an apology for what happened, we haven't received
:44:58. > :45:00.holistic reparations which isn't about money, but holistic
:45:01. > :45:05.reparations. It was in very, very bad taste to our community. I would
:45:06. > :45:11.obviously completely disagree with that. I mean I am of Caribbean
:45:12. > :45:16.descent, I'm a direct descentant of slavery and I didn't feel the piece
:45:17. > :45:19.was offensive in any way. I thought it was thought provoking and
:45:20. > :45:24.educational for people. I didn't hear about human zoos until I came
:45:25. > :45:34.across it, they didn't tell us about that at school. There
:45:35. > :45:37.the Bronx Zoo up until the 1970s. Across the board anyone objectified
:45:38. > :45:41.I thought this was a relevant piece for that. Do you think there should
:45:42. > :45:47.be limits of artistic freedom, isn't it up to artists in way to break
:45:48. > :45:54.taboos? I think artists are free to create whatever they want. I'm not
:45:55. > :45:59.the cultural art Pleurx police, I think in this case there were so
:46:00. > :46:02.many underlying questions. This discussion we are having now, this
:46:03. > :46:08.should have happened before. It should have happened before. But if
:46:09. > :46:12.it happened before, presumably you would have felt you wanted to alter
:46:13. > :46:16.the artist's vision in some way? Not necessarily. You might have been
:46:17. > :46:19.happy to see the exhibition stand as it is? With the right consultation.
:46:20. > :46:26.What happened is there is no whiteness in that exhibition, all
:46:27. > :46:32.there is is black people standing in various cages with chains, they are
:46:33. > :46:40.very evidently there. Let's take one example that a French colonial
:46:41. > :46:44.military man used to tie up African women and rape them, and that way
:46:45. > :46:48.they would get money to feed their children. The dilemma was the
:46:49. > :46:52.children starving and did they put up with it. Are you saying what you
:46:53. > :46:55.wanted to do in that example was to have a white representation there? I
:46:56. > :47:01.think that needed to be there and balanced. Would that be too literal
:47:02. > :47:06.or not? This is history, these things actually happened, the artist
:47:07. > :47:10.didn't inthe treatment that happened, whether 200 or 400 years
:47:11. > :47:13.ago, if black people were used in the exhibitions the first thing that
:47:14. > :47:20.would have said is this did not happen to white people, why are they
:47:21. > :47:26.in the exhibition. They did it. Who did it? White people are responsible
:47:27. > :47:31.for the enslavement and colonialism. You are saying to use them in a
:47:32. > :47:35.tableaux based on a historical fact. It is the artistic eggs
:47:36. > :47:40.presidential. It is un-- expression. It is unbald. It is not, it is true.
:47:41. > :47:45.Do you think there is any relevance in your critque of this that the
:47:46. > :47:50.artist is white a privileged South African? He is privileged and a
:47:51. > :47:54.white South African. Does that make a difference to you? It needs to be
:47:55. > :47:59.questioned what his motives were. If a black person had done this crassly
:48:00. > :48:03.I would have still gone with the petition. Because it is about
:48:04. > :48:07.dignity, the dignity of our ancestors it is about their memory.
:48:08. > :48:13.Do you accept that for some people it might be offensive for this
:48:14. > :48:17.portrayal? Sorry, it is not a portrayal, this actually happened.
:48:18. > :48:35.Thank you very much. I am afraid that is all we have time for
:48:36. > :48:38.tonight. Good night. A windy night across Scotland, rain that should
:48:39. > :48:42.get blown out of the way. A lot more cloud in southern areas, misty first
:48:43. > :48:45.thing, but milder to start. That wind though making it feel chilly, I
:48:46. > :48:50.think, across parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland, compared with
:48:51. > :48:55.today. So 15-16 as opposed to the high teens, in fact across parts of
:48:56. > :48:57.eastern Scotland we had temperatures up to 21 today which is