:00:10. > :00:13.Ten years ago nearly 3,000 people were killed in one morning in a
:00:13. > :00:17.terrorist attack in the United States and we're still living with
:00:17. > :00:27.the consequences. Tonight with our audience in this special programme
:00:27. > :00:31.
:00:31. > :00:35.we debate the aftermath of 9/11. With me here at the headquarters of
:00:35. > :00:40.the London Scottish Regiment in London, the Defence Secretary, Liam
:00:40. > :00:43.Fox. Labour's former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. Richard
:00:43. > :00:50.Perle at the heart of defence planning under President Bush, a
:00:50. > :00:54.staunch advocate of ousting Saddam Hussein. Bonnie Greer, playwright,
:00:54. > :01:04.born in Chicago and lives in the United Kingdom and the author and
:01:04. > :01:15.
:01:15. > :01:19.Thank you very much. Well, let's have our first question. It is from
:01:19. > :01:24.Kieran Falconer, please. What should America have done after
:01:24. > :01:32.9/11? What should America have done after 9/11?
:01:32. > :01:35.Liam Fox. It should have really he responded I think in much the same
:01:36. > :01:39.way as the Al-Qaeda threat coming from Afghanistan. It is quite
:01:39. > :01:43.difficult even ten years on to remember the shock that 9/11 caused.
:01:43. > :01:49.I was actually in New York just a few days later and I can remember
:01:49. > :01:52.very vividly how that felt and the shock that Americans felt that an
:01:52. > :01:58.attack happened on their own soil and then of course, there was the
:01:58. > :02:01.issue that the Taliban Government in Kabul would not hand over those
:02:01. > :02:05.that were responsible for the planning and the execution of the
:02:05. > :02:09.9/11 attack and then I think what happened after that was inevitable
:02:09. > :02:15.that the international community as they did would decide to overthrow
:02:15. > :02:18.the Government in Kabul and to ensure that it did not become again
:02:18. > :02:24.a breeding ground for that sort of terrorist attack.
:02:24. > :02:28.And Iraq was inevitable too? think Iraq was different. I think
:02:28. > :02:35.that the arguments about Afghanistan were much more clear
:02:35. > :02:41.cut. I think the reason that you ended up with 49 countries taking
:02:41. > :02:46.part in ISAF which we have in Afghanistan.
:02:46. > :02:52.Bonnie Greer. What should America have done? I made a film for the
:02:52. > :02:58.BBC about two months after 9/11. We went back to my hometown of Chicago
:02:58. > :03:02.and we went to New York City. I live not far from Ground Zero. At
:03:02. > :03:05.that time the people I spoke to were, of course, understandably
:03:05. > :03:10.upset, angry. A lot of people wanted revenge, but the majority of
:03:10. > :03:15.people really wanted to understand what the United States was in the
:03:15. > :03:18.world. They didn't understand what the United States could represent
:03:18. > :03:21.or be to people in the world. That this kind of thing could have
:03:21. > :03:24.happened. So this group of people that I spoke to were people who
:03:24. > :03:28.wanted to ask questions. They weren't thinking about attacks.
:03:28. > :03:31.They weren't thinking about going after anybody. They just wanted to
:03:31. > :03:33.understand. But that is a reaction you got in
:03:34. > :03:38.Chicago. But what do you think the American Government should have
:03:38. > :03:41.done? What it did or something different? The American Government,
:03:41. > :03:48.absolutely the American Government should have actually dealt with
:03:48. > :03:52.this in a way, as a homicide as far as I'm concerned first of all. The
:03:52. > :03:55.problem of New York for instance, New York I don't think even got an
:03:55. > :03:59.investigation about this for a long, long time. There should have been
:03:59. > :04:03.more deliberation than there was and it didn't happen.
:04:03. > :04:07.OK, Richard Perle, was it inevitable American acted as it
:04:07. > :04:13.did? Yes, I think we did pretty much what needed to be done in the
:04:13. > :04:17.aftermath. We asked the Taliban Government to turn Osama Bin Laden
:04:17. > :04:21.over, they refused. We waited a full 30 days before taking any
:04:21. > :04:27.military action. Then we worked with the Northern Alliance, which
:04:27. > :04:34.was the anti-Taliban group and the Taliban were quickly dispatched.
:04:34. > :04:39.The Taliban regime had become a haven for Osama Bin Laden and other
:04:40. > :04:44.terrorists. They had sanctuary, they had shelter, they had
:04:44. > :04:51.facilities with which to organise and to recruit and one result of
:04:51. > :04:56.that was 3,000 people killed in New York, including more Britons than
:04:56. > :05:02.died on 7/7 in the terror attack here so I think what we did was
:05:02. > :05:07.what needed to be done. OK. Tariq Ali. In my opinion and I
:05:07. > :05:12.argued this at the time, what took place was a crime carried out by a
:05:12. > :05:16.group of terrorists and that what the United States should have done
:05:16. > :05:20.was to have searched and found these terrorists and tried them in
:05:20. > :05:24.an open court of law as happens when other terrorists carry out
:05:24. > :05:32.attacks on other country, not forgetting the IRA attacks on
:05:32. > :05:38.Britain. The British Government, not being a large impearl country -
:05:39. > :05:42.- imperial country did not go and bomb places in the the public. I
:05:42. > :05:46.think that way of handling it would have been better. Instead what we
:05:46. > :05:51.have got is a ten year long war and the group of people people you were
:05:51. > :06:01.searching left that country two weeks before American troops
:06:01. > :06:11.
:06:11. > :06:13.arrived in Afghanistan and fled as was expected.
:06:13. > :06:15.APPLAUSE If this was a crime, if this was a
:06:15. > :06:18.homicide, what does going into Iraq have to do with catching the
:06:18. > :06:21.killer? Well, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. I think 9/11 was a
:06:21. > :06:24.day of shock, but also of incredible international unity. I
:06:24. > :06:27.would like to have seen the American Government lead a drive in
:06:27. > :06:31.three areas, first of all, I think there was a possibility to rally a
:06:31. > :06:37.new kind of coalition between the West and the Muslim world. Secondly,
:06:37. > :06:41.I think there needed to be a regional solution in South Asia.
:06:41. > :06:44.Anyone who knows anything about Afghanistan knows its problems can
:06:44. > :06:49.been separated from those of Pakistan. Thirdly, it needed to
:06:49. > :06:54.dedicate itself to use that opportunity to build the kind of
:06:54. > :07:00.rules based international order. One other thing David which is
:07:00. > :07:08.really important. The words, "War on terror" should never have been
:07:08. > :07:12.uttered. That was a terrible statement.
:07:13. > :07:16.APPLAUSE Why? Because they unified a series
:07:16. > :07:21.of desperate grievances and under Osama Bin Laden's banner. It
:07:21. > :07:25.glorified the people who did 9/11 as warriors and it allowed people
:07:25. > :07:35.to argue that it was the West versus the Muslim world and that's
:07:35. > :07:36.
:07:36. > :07:39.why it was very dangerous. APPLAUSE
:07:40. > :07:42.I don't understand how it can be said that the best way to deal with
:07:42. > :07:44.violence is to enforce greater violence. I mean that is not a
:07:44. > :07:50.constructive way to deal with terrorism.
:07:50. > :07:56.Could I go back to my homicide point? I am talking about homicide
:07:57. > :08:01.in the early days. My brother, who was in the services at the time, on
:08:01. > :08:06.the day of 9/11, thought that a homicide had been committed
:08:06. > :08:10.actually in revenge for the execution of Tim McVeigh three
:08:10. > :08:16.months before this had happened. People had all kinds of theories
:08:16. > :08:21.and they thought homicide at first. Not war. And that was changed.
:08:21. > :08:25.Richard Perle, David Miliband said Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
:08:25. > :08:29.Is that your view too? Yes. Iraq would have happened without
:08:29. > :08:34.9/11? No, Iraq would not have happened under a variety of
:08:34. > :08:40.circumstances. 9/11 made American officials responsible for the
:08:40. > :08:46.safety of our citizens. Acutely conscious of the danger that
:08:46. > :08:51.another attack with weapons of mass destruction could dwarf 9/11 in
:08:51. > :08:56.terms of the casualties and so emead immediately following 9/11
:08:56. > :08:59.they did what, I think, was a logical thing to do. They made a
:08:59. > :09:04.list of all the places of where weapons of mass destruction might
:09:04. > :09:11.be obtained and Iraq, of course, was on that list. It turns out that
:09:11. > :09:17.the intelligence was wrong. We know that now, but at the time, if you
:09:17. > :09:21.were the President and you asked yourself, "what can I do to prevent
:09:21. > :09:24.an attack with weapons of mass destruction?" You would have gone
:09:24. > :09:30.after the places where weapons of mass destruction could be found and
:09:30. > :09:34.as it happens Saddam Hussein was in violation of so many United Nations
:09:34. > :09:41.resolutions. Someone is talking, well in fact David, you were
:09:41. > :09:46.talking about a rule-based system. How many resolutions did the UN
:09:46. > :09:56.pass condemning Saddam Hussein? So that's your rule-based system. It
:09:56. > :09:58.
:09:58. > :10:00.just didn't work. Well, I think that the...
:10:00. > :10:06.APPLAUSE It is quite staggering that in this
:10:06. > :10:08.day and age someone can still bring up weapons of mass destruction.
:10:08. > :10:13.APPLAUSE He was saying at the the time, not
:10:13. > :10:17.now. But even at the time there were many people within the
:10:17. > :10:21.American intelligence agencies arguing that there were no weapons
:10:21. > :10:25.of mass destruction. In the British intelligence like wise. People were
:10:25. > :10:30.arguing there were no weapons of mass destruction and they were told
:10:30. > :10:34.to find the evidence so that this war could be fought and it was a
:10:34. > :10:39.criminal war, a breach of sovereignty, up to a million people
:10:39. > :10:43.have died. The Iraqi, this Iraqi Government says they have five
:10:43. > :10:53.million orphans and no one cares. We talk about casualties, but we
:10:53. > :10:57.
:10:57. > :10:59.don't care about the number of Iraqis.
:10:59. > :11:03.APPLAUSE A criminal war is what Tariq Ali
:11:03. > :11:06.says. To go back to the point about violence. It would be nice if we
:11:06. > :11:10.could resolve any conflicts in the world by conversation, but I am
:11:10. > :11:13.afraid there are elements of violent fanaticism in the world
:11:13. > :11:17.that we would rather were not there, but they are and they have to be
:11:17. > :11:22.dealt with. That's unfortunate, but it is true. When you opened, David,
:11:22. > :11:26.you mentioned the point, that was the beginning of a ten year process.
:11:26. > :11:29.I think we get to the end of this ten years and at the beginning it
:11:29. > :11:35.was being portrayed in parts of the Muslim world that the legitimate
:11:35. > :11:41.aspirations of many of the world's Muslims would be achieved through
:11:41. > :11:51.violence and Jihad and we've got to the end of the decade and we see
:11:51. > :11:53.
:11:53. > :11:57.the legitimate as per rations are achieved in tie here square.
:11:57. > :12:01.In Afghanistan it was a clear and legal response as to what happened
:12:01. > :12:08.on 9/11 article 5 of NATO was in vote because the United States had
:12:08. > :12:12.been attacked. I think that in Iraq we have to remember that at the
:12:12. > :12:16.time as Tony Blair had said in the House of Commons and I remember
:12:16. > :12:19.watching with great interest in the House that night that it wasn't
:12:19. > :12:26.just that there were accusations of weapons of mass destruction, but
:12:26. > :12:30.Saddam Hussein had refused to allow international inspectors in and had
:12:30. > :12:35.refused to allow that to happen. It turned out not to be correct and a
:12:35. > :12:40.lot of people will feel angry and disappointed about it, but that's
:12:40. > :12:43.how it seemed at the time. Man in the second row.
:12:43. > :12:47.Irregardless of the fact of weapons of mass destruction, Saddam
:12:47. > :12:51.violated 19 different resolutions of the Security Council. How will
:12:51. > :12:57.the United Nations remain relevant if it doesn't stand up to the
:12:58. > :13:01.resolutions? Bonnie Greer. The reason the United
:13:01. > :13:05.Nations exists is because it is a community of people who have
:13:05. > :13:10.decided to come together to hold the peace and to promote that in
:13:11. > :13:15.the world. The United States of America's job was to make sure that
:13:15. > :13:25.coalition of that organisation were able to do that together. The
:13:25. > :13:26.
:13:26. > :13:27.United States didn't do that. It moved and it shouldn't have.
:13:27. > :13:31.APPLAUSE Bonnie, I really think that is
:13:31. > :13:37.unfair. You know the United Nations came together in theory to act
:13:37. > :13:42.against threats to the peace. The Soviet Union was a member of the
:13:42. > :13:48.Security Council and had a veto. The Soviet Union was not interested
:13:48. > :13:52.in stopping some threats to the peace so you could never get
:13:52. > :14:00.unanimity with the one exception on the occasion with which... I didn't
:14:00. > :14:03.say unanimity. The UN system you have tofu namity.
:14:03. > :14:06.Richard Perle, you said that the war was illegal, that it was
:14:06. > :14:15.outside international law, but the action had to be taken, it didn't
:14:15. > :14:19.I know the quotation you're referring to. It's not accurate.
:14:19. > :14:23.What's accurate? The lawyers argued about whether an additional United
:14:23. > :14:28.Nations' resolution was necessary or not. Some believed it was not. I
:14:28. > :14:33.share those - the view that it was not necessary to have yet another
:14:33. > :14:38.resolution, and Tony Blair, who I think led this country
:14:38. > :14:40.magnificently in that period - you should be grateful for his
:14:40. > :14:45.leadership... We're not. BOOING
:14:45. > :14:48.I think Tony Blair wanted another UN resolution. I think that was a
:14:48. > :14:54.terrible tactical mistake because we really didn't need it. You, sir.
:14:54. > :14:57.We talk about weapons of mass destruction, but who armed Saddam
:14:57. > :15:03.with the weapons of mass destruction? It was the United
:15:03. > :15:07.States. No, no. OK. And the gentleman up there at the back. I
:15:07. > :15:10.come to you in the middle, yes. think Richard Perle is
:15:11. > :15:15.contradicting himself. On one hand he's talking about a measured
:15:15. > :15:20.approach, the fact that we made this list of countries that had
:15:20. > :15:25.WMDs. Wasn't this about one thing and one thing only - regime change?
:15:25. > :15:31.First of all, it would not be the first time I contradicted myself,
:15:31. > :15:36.but in this case it was not about regime change. I was in favour of
:15:36. > :15:39.changing the regime because Saddam Hussein was a brutal masochistic
:15:40. > :15:44.tyrant who murdered tens of thousands - actually hundreds of
:15:44. > :15:48.thousands of people - who had every intention of handing the regime
:15:48. > :15:55.over to his sons who, arguably, were even worse, but we would not
:15:55. > :15:59.have gone into Iraq if Saddam had presented convincing evidence that
:15:59. > :16:04.he did not possess weapons of mass destruction, and he failed to do
:16:04. > :16:08.that. You would have liked to have had him overthrown regardless - you
:16:08. > :16:13.have been arguing since the late 'niemts. Yes, but what I'd always
:16:13. > :16:19.argued is that we should do it by political means by working with his
:16:19. > :16:23.internal opponents. We can't do that, so we had no option. But Paul
:16:23. > :16:26.Wolfowitz said, who you know well, said when asked about weapons of
:16:26. > :16:30.mass destruction said this was the only thing we could all agree on,
:16:30. > :16:36.so it was convenient as an excuse. The woman in the centre. We go on
:16:36. > :16:42.to another question. Would the panel agree with 9/11 that America
:16:42. > :16:48.used what happened to hype the capabilities and the intelligence
:16:48. > :16:52.of Al-Qaeda, as Tariq mentioned earlier, with the IRA, in
:16:52. > :16:56.comparison, there wasn't this - as much hype and everything with the
:16:56. > :17:01.IRA - sorry. I can't even speak. You mean Al-Qaeda wasn't the kind
:17:01. > :17:06.of threat that it was made out to be? Exactly. Do you agree with
:17:06. > :17:10.that? I think the lady is making an important point. You agree with
:17:10. > :17:14.her? I don't think it was hype, but I think it's important to recognise
:17:14. > :17:19.now that 9/11 looks like the high point of Al-Qaeda. It didn't look
:17:19. > :17:24.like that at the time, though, and remember, 11 airliners could have
:17:24. > :17:28.been blown up over the Atlantic in 2006. They were foiled by very
:17:28. > :17:31.careful intelligence, so even to the present day there are people
:17:31. > :17:35.trying to commit murder and mayhem on our streets and on the streets
:17:35. > :17:39.throughout the Middle East, however - and in parts of Africa as well,
:17:39. > :17:42.so I don't think it was hype. However, in retrospect, I think you
:17:42. > :17:46.can now see - and hindsight is not something you're blessed with in
:17:46. > :17:50.politics - but you can see as a matter of analysis that certainly
:17:50. > :17:53.after the bombing of the Jordan wedding in 2005 when 55 Muslims
:17:53. > :17:57.were killed by Al-Qaeda, but actually even further back than
:17:57. > :18:03.that - the high point was probably 2001. One other point, though, it's
:18:03. > :18:07.not the IRA. This is a bigger and more different threat than the IRA.
:18:07. > :18:14.We had experience of the IRA, but they did not propagate a global
:18:14. > :18:18.vision. They did not have the kind of global reach and the theological
:18:18. > :18:22.basis that Al-Qaeda tried to engage with, and that's one further reason
:18:22. > :18:27.why - be wary of the words like "hype". This was different. It was
:18:27. > :18:31.dangerous. It had shown its potential in the '90s in a series
:18:31. > :18:36.of incidents, so those who were on red alert in those days were
:18:36. > :18:40.absolutely right to be on red alert. APPLAUSE
:18:40. > :18:45.I thought we'd come to it later, perhaps, but it's clearly relevant
:18:45. > :18:51.from what you have said. You talk about the 11 planes whose bombing
:18:51. > :18:55.was prevented by information, which it's generally accepted was
:18:55. > :19:00.obtained by torture. No. Well, by water boarding techniques. No, I'm
:19:00. > :19:04.sorry. That - that is just not right, David. Look, there are a
:19:04. > :19:08.million people watching this programme. Dick Cheney says that in
:19:08. > :19:12.his book which was published today. Look, the British - unusually, the
:19:12. > :19:16.British Government - not when I was in office, but when President Bush
:19:16. > :19:20.said this at a book launch of his in I think Texas - the British
:19:20. > :19:25.Government put out a statement saying that this was not the case,
:19:25. > :19:28.and it is an absolutely fundamental principle... How do you know it
:19:28. > :19:34.wasn't the case? You say the British Government was not involved
:19:34. > :19:40.in torture. Correct. Fair enough, but information reaches you. You
:19:40. > :19:43.don't know how... What I would say to you is this case has been made
:19:43. > :19:48.by the hard right of American politics and the hard right of the
:19:48. > :19:53.administration, and what they have said is you, in Europe, in Britain,
:19:53. > :19:56.you'll never countence in water boarding in Britain. I think it's
:19:56. > :20:03.right that it's abhorrent to legally torture people. They will
:20:03. > :20:10.say, well, we got the information from Sheik Mohammed with regard to
:20:10. > :20:16.the 2006 bombings. Right all sorts of information has come out from
:20:16. > :20:22.all sort of sources, it's not the case that that came out as a result
:20:22. > :20:27.of torture. Where there is reliable evidence bearing on threats, it
:20:27. > :20:31.would not be right to reject it out of hand, however it had been
:20:31. > :20:35.obtained? The classic ticking time bomb issue is, if you find out
:20:35. > :20:40.there is a bomb on the tube, do you act on it or not? It's different as
:20:40. > :20:42.far as I am concerned in national and international law never mind
:20:42. > :20:47.morally reprehensible. One other point because I thought about this
:20:47. > :20:51.at all - John McCain is not on my point of the political spectrum but
:20:51. > :20:55.he said, when you start talking about torturing people, you're
:20:55. > :20:58.actually harming us more than them, and you're putting our values and
:20:58. > :21:04.what we stand for in grave danger, and I agree with him.
:21:04. > :21:07.APPLAUSE We're talking tonight about the
:21:07. > :21:14.consequences of 9/11, and clearly this issue is one of them. I'll go
:21:14. > :21:18.to the man up there, then Dr Liam Fox and Tariq Ali. Yes, you, sir.
:21:19. > :21:22.Yes, we have heard a lot about what Al-Qaeda have done and what the
:21:22. > :21:26.threat is. But what we haven't heard about is why have they done
:21:26. > :21:31.it? What are their grievances? Can we address those grievances?
:21:31. > :21:36.Wouldn't that be the better way forward? Tariq Ali. The grievances
:21:36. > :21:41.- look, all terrorist groups, whatever their origins, whether
:21:41. > :21:46.they're 19th centuryar anarchists, whether they're 20th century glups
:21:46. > :21:51.Germany and Italy in the '60s have their grievances. That is not a
:21:51. > :21:55.problem, and this group did. Its grievances, if you read Bin Laden's
:21:55. > :21:59.texts are very clear - that my world is occupied by your countries
:21:59. > :22:02.and their troops. The question is many Arab people have these
:22:02. > :22:07.grievances, but this is not the way they go and fight them. There are
:22:07. > :22:11.other ways of doing it. It is a fact the grievences are there. It
:22:11. > :22:14.is not even the case these grievances are recognised because
:22:14. > :22:17.people talk about the United Nations passing resolutions against
:22:17. > :22:24.Saddam Hussein. The United Nations has passed resolutions against
:22:24. > :22:28.other countries as well, including Israel, including the right of the
:22:28. > :22:31.Palestinians to self-determination. They have passed resolutions on
:22:31. > :22:38.India and Kashmir. Which resolutions are taken up is
:22:38. > :22:42.actually determined by the United States, which is why I say that
:22:42. > :22:45.this form of selective vigilantism doesn't work. It ends up badly, as
:22:46. > :22:50.we saw in Iraq, and as we're now watching in Afghanistan and
:22:50. > :22:54.probably Libya too. Can I bring you back to the torture issue, Dr Liam
:22:54. > :23:00.Fox? First of all, I very much agree with David on this question -
:23:00. > :23:05.what we do says who we are, and we have to apply our own ethics and
:23:05. > :23:09.values, but on this question of grievances, let's be very careful
:23:09. > :23:13.about moral equivalents here. What sort of grievance and what sort of
:23:13. > :23:20.response to any grievance is it to fly aeroplanes into heavily
:23:20. > :23:25.populated buildings? Ing I agree. APPLAUSE
:23:25. > :23:29.And as for this idea that the response to what was mass murder
:23:29. > :23:33.was some sort of American hype, this was one area where the United
:23:33. > :23:36.Nations did act together, where the United Nations came together and
:23:36. > :23:42.sanctioned the creation of ISAF, where we have 49 countries still
:23:42. > :23:46.there today, so let's not be misled by the rewriting of that particular
:23:46. > :23:54.history. This was a savage, vicious murder by people who had absolutely
:23:54. > :23:58.no reason to do so. Right. Hold on. What do we do now? It's ten years
:23:58. > :24:02.of the war in Afghanistan as well. This is what we'll move on, to but
:24:02. > :24:12.before I do take another question, just to say, if you're on Twitter
:24:12. > :24:16.
:24:16. > :24:22.I would like to take a question from Rizwana Ahmed, please. I would
:24:23. > :24:28.like to ask, what evidence is there that engaging in costly wars in
:24:28. > :24:33.Iraq and Afghanistan has actually ensured the safety of the average
:24:33. > :24:38.British person? Have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ensured the
:24:38. > :24:43.safety of the ordinary British citizen? Bonnie Greer? Well, that
:24:43. > :24:48.was what we were sold when the Prime Minister of the day, Tony
:24:48. > :24:53.Blair, stood up and said that we were in eminent danger from weapons
:24:53. > :24:58.of mass destruction. I remember that vividly, and one million
:24:58. > :25:02.people came out on the streets of this country and said, "Not in my
:25:02. > :25:04.name", and they were completely ignored by the Government of the
:25:05. > :25:08.day. APPLAUSE
:25:08. > :25:12.So that is a valid question, and the question on the floor tonight
:25:12. > :25:16.is, what is the - what is the aftermath of what happened? And we
:25:16. > :25:20.mustn't get away from that, because what you're asking is a very
:25:20. > :25:26.important question. What does it have to do with me? Does it make my
:25:26. > :25:31.life safer on the street? And I believe that the former head of MI5
:25:31. > :25:35.has said in her lectures that in fact - she said before we went in
:25:35. > :25:39.that we wouldn't actually endanger the homeland - the United Kingdom -
:25:39. > :25:44.if we took this action. She said that, and she's saying it and
:25:44. > :25:54.saying it and saying it. Did you - David Miliband did, you get that
:25:54. > :25:57.
:25:57. > :26:04.information from MI5 which Baroness bullingham Manor has made public?
:26:04. > :26:09.Not in that way. She said the war was likely to increase the domestic
:26:09. > :26:18.threat. No, I was the junior Education Minister at the time, so
:26:18. > :26:22.she certainly didn't say it to me. The golden rule for this is let's
:26:22. > :26:26.not put Iraq and Afghanistan in the same sentence. Tariq is raising a
:26:26. > :26:32.very important point, ten years in Afghanistan. My own view is it was
:26:32. > :26:37.essential to oppose the Taliban from Kabul. I think there was a
:26:37. > :26:41.tragic mistake in late 2002 when in the south-east of Afghanistan those
:26:41. > :26:45.who were many Taliban supporters had a choice - could they come into
:26:45. > :26:49.the political system, or would they be driven out? I am afraid the new
:26:49. > :26:52.constitution Afghanistan adopted led to them being driven out. The
:26:52. > :26:57.peace conference of 2002 was a conference only for the victors.
:26:57. > :27:03.That was a terrible error. They went into Pakistan. They regrouped.
:27:03. > :27:07.In 2005, they were back attacking our troops in Helmand province, so
:27:07. > :27:12.the Afghan story is a story in my view that should have been done by
:27:12. > :27:15.the politics, not the military. In a counter-insurgency it's 20%
:27:15. > :27:19.military, 80% politics. Iraq is a different story. We can come to
:27:20. > :27:24.that and debate it. But there is a pressing issue today which is, how
:27:24. > :27:28.is the Afghan conflict brought too a close? Hang on a second. We must
:27:28. > :27:32.chair this. The question you were actually asked is has what you have
:27:32. > :27:37.done in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past ten years, and I quote, "done
:27:37. > :27:40.anything to ensure the safety of the ordinary British citizen?"
:27:40. > :27:48.There is no question Al-Qaeda central, as it's called, is much
:27:48. > :27:53.weaker than ten years ago. That is a fact. Al-Qaeda's core ability to
:27:53. > :27:58.project violence around the world is less than it was ten years ago.
:27:58. > :28:07.It is partly because of military operations, but also partly because
:28:07. > :28:12.millions of Muslims around the world have embraced global reform
:28:12. > :28:15.not Jihad as a way to express their interests. As a people I think
:28:15. > :28:20.we're safe only at the cost of our soldiers that have been sent in to
:28:21. > :28:25.do the job. I think the fact they have done a magnificent job doesn't
:28:25. > :28:29.hide the fact they were sent in underequipped. We have to thank
:28:29. > :28:34.them for the job the politicians talk about. I thank the soldiers
:28:34. > :28:40.for doing it. We're safe because of them. Dr Liam Fox - the point that
:28:40. > :28:41.they were sent in underequipped, and then do you believe that...
:28:41. > :28:46.Body armours - PROBLEM WITH SOUND
:28:46. > :28:50.And was what has happened - what they have done - made this place
:28:50. > :28:55.safe? Has it made - not just us, but the world, safer? Yes, it has.
:28:56. > :28:59.I believe point was made at the outset 2001 was in fact the high
:28:59. > :29:04.point of Al-Qaeda. There is a reason why. That was the action we
:29:04. > :29:08.took as a consequence. It wasn't just what happened in Manhattan on
:29:08. > :29:11.9/11. Remember the Madrid train bombings. Remember what happened to
:29:11. > :29:15.the USS Cole and the bombings in Kenya? All of these were a pattern.
:29:15. > :29:19.Al-Qaeda was going to launch more attacks on the West. More innocent
:29:19. > :29:22.people were going to die. More 9/11s were going to happen. It was
:29:22. > :29:25.the duty of the Government at the time - it was the duty of the
:29:25. > :29:28.United Nations to act to protect the people from what was the wider
:29:28. > :29:32.threat. In terms of what happened in Afghanistan, you could have a
:29:32. > :29:38.very long debate about it, but I think that you've - roughly, it
:29:38. > :29:43.falls into three parts - 2001-2006, what happened between 2006 and 2009
:29:43. > :29:46.and what happened after that, and I think for a long period of that we
:29:46. > :29:51.were underequipped. There was an insufficient troop density on the
:29:51. > :29:55.ground, and we miscalculated as a Western community through ISAF I
:29:55. > :29:59.think exactly how creative and how resilient some of the elements of
:29:59. > :30:05.the Taliban could be, and I think that we paid a price in the later
:30:05. > :30:10.years for the military You, sir.
:30:10. > :30:17.Three things. One is about the UN resolutions. Is it on record to be
:30:17. > :30:24.the worst, the worst country to defy UN resolutions. If there is
:30:24. > :30:31.any record to disprove that, please let me know. Secondly, the issue
:30:31. > :30:41.was about Afghanistan, but the international community ended up
:30:41. > :30:42.
:30:42. > :30:47.going down to Iraq first before going to Afghanistan. We remember
:30:47. > :30:50.the Tora Bora issue involving Osama Bin Laden, if they placed more
:30:50. > :30:55.boots on the ground in Afghanistan, by now we would not be talking
:30:55. > :31:00.about the the Taliban at all. We would have got rid of them and
:31:00. > :31:06.everything, but we forgot about them and went to Iraq. Why? Because
:31:06. > :31:10.there was something personal about Iraq and the Republicans.
:31:10. > :31:14.Can we come back to the question about safety? Do you think this
:31:14. > :31:19.country is safer? Absolutely, not. We are not safer because of what
:31:19. > :31:25.we've done and I would say that - Muslims are not safe because of
:31:25. > :31:30.what has happened. To be an ordinary person, to be an ordinary
:31:30. > :31:37.Muslim in this country and the United States is not a safe thing.
:31:37. > :31:42.The question is who are we and we are not all safe. No, we are not.
:31:42. > :31:45.In what way is it not a safe thing to be a Muslim in this country?
:31:45. > :31:48.is almost a dirty word in the United States right now. One of the
:31:48. > :31:54.problems that Barack Obama had at the beginning is that people
:31:54. > :32:03.thought that he was a Muslim. Nobody questioned the fact that you
:32:03. > :32:08.are using the word Muslim as a pejorative. Muslim equates violence.
:32:08. > :32:12.The holy religion of Islam is seen as something that has some kind of
:32:12. > :32:16.inhereant core of violence within it. That's the legacy of what has
:32:16. > :32:24.happened. You can't be a Muslim. It is very, very difficult to be them
:32:24. > :32:30.and that to me, when we talk about are we safer? I am asking who are
:32:31. > :32:33.we, Muslims are not safe for one thing.
:32:33. > :32:36.APPLAUSE Is it true about America? First on
:32:36. > :32:40.the general question of whether we are safer, it has been said and I
:32:40. > :32:44.think correctly that Al-Qaeda and elements associated with it are
:32:44. > :32:48.weaker now, far weaker than they were ten years ago. We have not had
:32:48. > :32:53.the kind of massive attack that they had in mind for us and they
:32:53. > :32:58.were planning new attacks even as 9/11 took place and they were
:32:58. > :33:02.planning them if I can say it again, if they could obtain them with
:33:02. > :33:08.weapons of mass destruction so the threat was and I'm afraid remains
:33:08. > :33:12.significant. Now every Government I know, every western Government,
:33:12. > :33:18.every democracy has gone to enormous lengths to make it clear
:33:18. > :33:22.that our problem with radical Islamist terrorists does not extend
:33:22. > :33:25.to Muslims in general. Every president has said it again and
:33:25. > :33:30.again. Every Prime Minister has said it again and again and I
:33:30. > :33:35.really think it is unfair... Richard, you are a student of human
:33:35. > :33:40.nature. You understand how human beings work. You can say that with
:33:41. > :33:45.one side of your face and the other side you are sending out all kinds
:33:45. > :33:48.of signals about it that are the opposite. I promise you on the day,
:33:48. > :33:54.because I used to live around the area in which the World Trade
:33:54. > :34:00.Center went down, I know people women who used to wear veils were
:34:00. > :34:03.told to take your scarf off. Don't wear your cap. Are you surprised by
:34:03. > :34:09.this after 3,000 people died in New York as a result of those attacks?
:34:09. > :34:13.Yes, I am. I am. I am surprised that a whole group of people can be
:34:13. > :34:22.sort of picked off and said this person, this person and this person
:34:22. > :34:28.is an enemy. Yes, I am. APPLAUSE
:34:28. > :34:36.Two responses to that, David. One did it make life more difficult for
:34:36. > :34:40.ordinary people in say Britain or the United States? I think it did
:34:40. > :34:46.because there is absolutely no doubt that British foreign policy
:34:46. > :34:49.under Tony Blair in particular was such that it created a lot of anger
:34:49. > :34:55.amongst Muslim communities in the northern part of the country and
:34:55. > :35:00.all the reports, the Royal Institute of International Affairs
:35:00. > :35:05.Report, private intelligence reports which were later leaked,
:35:05. > :35:08.said it was British foreign policy that radicalised these kids, it was
:35:08. > :35:11.not religion. That was very concrete. The second thing that
:35:11. > :35:14.happened and this is also a consequence of 9/11 that despite
:35:14. > :35:21.all the politicians saying, "We are not going to let the terrorists
:35:21. > :35:25.change our way of life." They did. People were arrested without trial.
:35:25. > :35:30.There are people in Britain still locked up for 11 years without
:35:30. > :35:35.being tried. Guantanamo Bay, which Obama said he was going to close
:35:35. > :35:40.dournings he release -- down, he released fewer people than Bush did.
:35:40. > :35:46.We live in almost a post-legal State and the third thing is a big,
:35:46. > :35:49.big increase in what is called Islamophobia, just hostility to
:35:50. > :35:56.Muslims in general which has been stopped, not just by the wars, but
:35:56. > :36:01.which has to a certain extent been halted, not completely, by the huge
:36:01. > :36:05.uprisings in the Arab world for democratic rights, not just against
:36:05. > :36:10.people like Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi. Gaddafi was a close ally
:36:10. > :36:12.of the Blair Government, but in countries like Egypt where
:36:13. > :36:17.dictatorships had been kept going by the United States with their
:36:17. > :36:24.money and countries like Saudi Arabia which are still kept going
:36:24. > :36:30.and I never believed, I never believed, I never believed that a
:36:30. > :36:35.majority of the Muslim population ins all the Muslim world were in
:36:35. > :36:39.anyway sympathetic to terrorism, it is a tiny, tiny minority as
:36:39. > :36:44.terrorists always are and when given the chance they demonstrated.
:36:44. > :36:47.Tariq, if you keep on talking about the the Arab Spring as you have,
:36:47. > :36:52.you will be be be labelled a neoconservative.
:36:52. > :37:01.David Miliband. Let me tell you the word that is use add lot when I
:37:01. > :37:05.talk to Muslim constituents. The word they throw at mo is thip -- me
:37:05. > :37:09.is hip pobg ras ci -- hypocrisy. They say you talk about Human
:37:09. > :37:14.Rights, but what about Guantanamo Bay, they say that. They also say
:37:14. > :37:18.you talk about UN resolutions, but what about Israel/Palestine. People
:37:18. > :37:25.in my position have to accept that those things are said and that's
:37:25. > :37:28.why I think it is right to be as clear as we can about the
:37:28. > :37:34.centrality of the Human Rights challenge that we now face in the
:37:34. > :37:42.wake of 9/11, but secondly, Israel/Palestine did not cause 9/11.
:37:42. > :37:47.That is a really wrong thing to say, but if they are interested in
:37:47. > :37:54.puncturing this allegation, we have to accept that the greatest
:37:55. > :37:59.diplomatic failure in 40 years is the failure to resolve
:37:59. > :38:04.Israel/Palestine. If we want to show our seriousness we have to
:38:04. > :38:10.tackle the Israel/Palestine issue and make sure there is a State they
:38:10. > :38:13.can call home. APPLAUSE
:38:13. > :38:20.One of our audience has a question. It is Chad Davis.
:38:20. > :38:23.My question for the panel. Is the root cause of terrorism the
:38:23. > :38:27.Israeli/Palestine problem? If so, would Osama Bin Laden have
:38:27. > :38:33.cancelled his 9/11 plans if plinth had been -- President Clinton had
:38:33. > :38:36.been able to broker peace in the Middle East? No, I don't think so.
:38:37. > :38:41.We have to be careful about playing into the Osama Bin Laden argument
:38:41. > :38:48.that this was about religion. That this was anything to do with Islam
:38:48. > :38:52.or the liberation or the people of the Islamic world. Osama Bin Laden
:38:52. > :38:57.was about a violent anti-western political philosophy. It had
:38:57. > :39:03.nothing at all to do with religion. Religion is seldom the problem. It
:39:03. > :39:07.is when religion is used as the excuse for violence or the
:39:07. > :39:13.oppression of people is used for political motives in the name of
:39:13. > :39:18.religion. Henley jit mat expression is used using religion as the tool.
:39:18. > :39:25.That is where the problem lies. It does not lie with religion itself.
:39:25. > :39:28.Can you answer the question? don't think it would be. There is a
:39:28. > :39:32.terribly simplistic view if you solve that one problem, everything
:39:32. > :39:37.else will fall domino like into place. Yes, of course, it is a
:39:37. > :39:42.problem that is used by countries in the region, most notably I would
:39:42. > :39:46.say at the moment Iran to continue to whip up what it wants in terms
:39:46. > :39:53.of its own foreign policy support. There is no doubt if we got a
:39:53. > :39:56.solution to the Israeli/Palestine problem it would take away a great
:39:56. > :40:00.propaganda tool, as well as being a major improvement. I don't think we
:40:00. > :40:04.should be naive to believe if you take away that one problem people
:40:04. > :40:08.like Osama Bin Laden who hate us because of who we are would
:40:08. > :40:12.actually go away. APPLAUSE
:40:12. > :40:19.Richard Perle. The dispute between Israelis and Palestinians is only
:40:19. > :40:23.going to be solved when Israelis and Palestinians find a solution.
:40:23. > :40:31.We can't do it. The United Kingdom can't do it. It has got to be done
:40:31. > :40:37.by them and that's what the UN has mandated going back to the to the
:40:37. > :40:47.aftermath of the 1967 war. I heard a couple of references to Israel
:40:47. > :40:47.
:40:47. > :43:09.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 141 seconds
:43:09. > :43:16.Jeev got a question from Iain Church, who happens to be a bomb
:43:16. > :43:21.disposal officer. The war on terror is unwinnable. Our negotiations
:43:21. > :43:25.with Al-Qaeda, inevitable to ensure a satisfactory end to the war on
:43:25. > :43:29.terrorism? Dr Liam Fox? Not Al- Qaeda, but I think it's reasonable
:43:29. > :43:34.to make the assumption that you'll not solve the problem in
:43:34. > :43:38.Afghanistan today by military means alone. I know very few people who
:43:38. > :43:43.believe that to be true. The question is who do you talk to and
:43:43. > :43:49.about what? I think you therefore have to look for the people who are
:43:49. > :43:54.reconcilable to the idea in the Afghan constitution in the way the
:43:54. > :43:58.country is moving and how it relates to the countries in the
:43:58. > :44:02.region and the wider world. Hopefully, events are moving in
:44:02. > :44:05.that direction. In Helmand, just to take a tiny example where our
:44:05. > :44:11.forces are, we have seen a big reduction in violence levels
:44:11. > :44:14.throughout this year. We have seen a 25% reduction. It does tend to
:44:15. > :44:19.suggest the counter-insurgency rather than a purely
:44:19. > :44:22.counterterrorist strategy is beginning to reap some rewards.
:44:22. > :44:26.if successive British Governments were willing to talk to the IRA are
:44:26. > :44:30.they not willing to talk to, if they can find Al-Qaeda, whatever it
:44:30. > :44:35.may be, to talk to Al-Qaeda? question is not whether we are. The
:44:35. > :44:38.question is whether the Afghan Government is. It has to be an
:44:38. > :44:43.Afghan-Government-led process. We're there. We have said we'll
:44:43. > :44:46.support them. If they're able to find elements of, let's call them,
:44:46. > :44:49.the former Taliban, who are willing to cooperate with the sort of
:44:49. > :44:54.direction the people of Afghanistan and the Government want to talk,
:44:54. > :44:57.then they should engage with them. There has always to be a political
:44:57. > :45:01.solution to any insurgency and any conflict, but finding the people
:45:02. > :45:07.who are willing to do that is a difficult job, and we have also to
:45:07. > :45:11.I think accept that there will be some people who will always be
:45:11. > :45:14.irreconcilable, and that that will continue to provide a threat to
:45:14. > :45:19.stability... Do you want to come back on that? I think the war on
:45:19. > :45:22.terror is broader than Afghanistan. Richard Perle made the point that
:45:22. > :45:26.Al-Qaeda still pose a significant threat across the world. If that's
:45:26. > :45:30.the case, then surely it's broader than Afghanistan, and therefore,
:45:30. > :45:36.what are we going to do to talk to Al-Qaeda operatives that perhaps
:45:36. > :45:40.aren't operating in the north-west of Pakistan or Afghanistan and
:45:40. > :45:46.maybe somewhere else? Tariq Ali. Look, don't confuse two things -
:45:46. > :45:53.the actual Al-Qaeda grouping itself according to virtually every report
:45:53. > :45:56.- public and official - one hears of is reduced, greatly reduced in
:45:56. > :46:01.size, so don't conflate that with the insurgency in Afghanistan. It's
:46:01. > :46:04.not the same thing. The insurgency in Afghanistan now includes not
:46:04. > :46:09.just some remnants of the old Taliban, but many, many new people,
:46:09. > :46:14.which is why people call it the new Taliban, and, you know, this isn't
:46:14. > :46:17.talked about much in polite society, but over the last six years, the
:46:18. > :46:21.NATO governments, some of them, have been negotiating and
:46:21. > :46:24.discussing with these people and asking them whether they're
:46:24. > :46:29.prepared to join national government, to which they reply,
:46:29. > :46:34."We will, but only after all foreign troops have left," secondly,
:46:34. > :46:38.you cannot have a stable government in Afghanistan, in my opinion,
:46:38. > :46:41.unless some of the neighbouring countries are involved both
:46:41. > :46:45.financially, economically to try to guarantee the stability, and
:46:45. > :46:49.whether you like it or not, this includes Pakistan. This includes
:46:49. > :46:54.Iran. This includes Russia. In includes China. These are countries
:46:54. > :46:57.that have to be involved, and there should be a withdrawal of Western
:46:57. > :47:02.troops. Otherwise, it's a disaster story. You have a corrupt
:47:02. > :47:07.Government which represents nobody. Its people are targeted at will by
:47:07. > :47:11.the insurgents regularly all over the country, and everyone knows
:47:11. > :47:15.that militarily this war cannot be won, so a political solution is
:47:15. > :47:20.necessary, and the political solution which should happen should
:47:20. > :47:27.involve the neighbouring powers to create a national government. This
:47:27. > :47:30.country has been at war now since 1979 - ten years of the Russians,
:47:30. > :47:36.then civil war in Afghanistan between rival factions and now ten
:47:36. > :47:43.years of NATO. Take pity on them. The woman there in the fourth row
:47:43. > :47:47.from the back. What's just been said is basically that there needs
:47:47. > :47:51.to be negotiations. You know, shooting terrorists and looking for
:47:51. > :47:56.the Taliban to destroy them, you know, there's the problem of
:47:56. > :47:59.actually increasing the problem because of the hatred and the
:47:59. > :48:04.revengeful feelings that come from loved ones being killed. You know,
:48:04. > :48:08.we can dismiss what they're saying - I'm not saying I agree with the
:48:08. > :48:11.behaviour at all. I don't, but at the end of the day, this is the way
:48:11. > :48:15.they are, and if we don't try to get past that and actually try to
:48:15. > :48:18.get the people talking that can, like in the Middle East - what do
:48:18. > :48:22.the Middle East want in general? You know, do they want the bringing
:48:23. > :48:26.down of the Taliban? Do they want to come against bad Western
:48:26. > :48:33.feelings? We've got to establish hue the Middle East feel about it
:48:33. > :48:37.and what they feel can be done about it. Can I just first of all
:48:37. > :48:41.thank the gentleman who spoke before you did? I'm from a service
:48:41. > :48:46.family, and I want to thank you for the service you give to this
:48:46. > :48:55.country. APPLAUSE
:48:55. > :48:58.Because this is a voluntary - this is a voluntary military, and you do
:48:58. > :49:04.what our policymakers have created the situation, so I'm very grateful
:49:04. > :49:08.to you. I sit here and listen to all of us. The initial question was,
:49:08. > :49:14.what is the world like after 9/11? What kind of world do we have? This
:49:14. > :49:18.is an example of the kind of world that we have. We have a world in
:49:18. > :49:24.which things have been conflated, convoluted, confused, and agendas
:49:24. > :49:29.have happened, and it's a very simple thing, and I remember
:49:29. > :49:32.something vividly. This goes back to what this lady was saying. I
:49:32. > :49:36.remember President Bush in the early days after 9/11 using words
:49:36. > :49:40.like "crusade", and he was stopped from doing that. I remember people
:49:40. > :49:48.bringing God into this on the Christian side. We've created a
:49:48. > :49:53.world in which it is against or for world. There is no middle ground.
:49:53. > :49:57.We don't - we never, ever hear from the people in Israel who are
:49:57. > :50:01.working for peace. We never hear from the people in Palestine
:50:01. > :50:05.working for peace. It's the other sides who get the publicity, and
:50:05. > :50:15.your question goes back to that. There are people who want to talk,
:50:15. > :50:15.
:50:15. > :50:18.and they don't get the air time. It's as simple as that. Are we
:50:19. > :50:25.realistically able to solve the problems in Afghanistan and the
:50:25. > :50:30.growing problems in Pakistan by 2015? By the date when the troops
:50:30. > :50:34.are withdrawn? Dr Liam Fox? You said originally there shouldn't be
:50:34. > :50:37.any deadline, didn't you Yes, but President Karzai said he wanted to
:50:38. > :50:41.have the security of his own country under his own forces by
:50:41. > :50:44.2015, and if you have a sovereign government in Afghanistan, you have
:50:45. > :50:49.to recognise and accept that they will have to ultimately have
:50:49. > :50:54.control over what they want, and... Does that mean you're very
:50:54. > :50:59.sceptical about the idea of a deadline? No, I think it's very
:50:59. > :51:02.achievable for a number of reasons, and Tariq said that we should give
:51:02. > :51:05.poor Afghanistan a chance. He's quite right. No-one under 30 in
:51:05. > :51:08.Afghanistan can remember anything other than conflict. We have taken
:51:08. > :51:13.a lot of things to Afghanistan, but one of the things - and if you go
:51:13. > :51:16.to talk to people in the markets of Helmand, they'll tell you that the
:51:16. > :51:20.one thing we have actually brought is some hope because they have a
:51:20. > :51:25.chance to choose their own governance for the first time -
:51:25. > :51:29.five times more children are in school than there were four years
:51:29. > :51:33.ago, more people have access to health care. What we're actually
:51:33. > :51:37.doing is very positive, and sometimes we should take a bit more
:51:37. > :51:41.pride in what our country is actually doing and look at the good
:51:41. > :51:43.things we're actually achieving for the people, and -
:51:43. > :51:47.APPLAUSE One of the other great things that
:51:47. > :51:52.our military has been doing is helping to train the Afghan
:51:52. > :51:55.National Police, the Afghan National Army so that they can take
:51:55. > :52:00.control of the security of their own country so that we can leave
:52:00. > :52:03.without leaving behind the sort of security vacuum into which groups
:52:03. > :52:07.like Al-Qaeda would be drawn, so just for once I think we should say
:52:07. > :52:10.thank you to what our aid workers are doing, thank you to what our
:52:10. > :52:15.military are doing because they're actually changing the face of that
:52:15. > :52:19.country and giving people chance that neither their parents nor
:52:19. > :52:23.grandparents ever had. The Russians used to say exactly that, exactly
:52:23. > :52:29.that. The woman in the front. totally agree with what you're
:52:29. > :52:33.saying, but the fact is thousands and millions of people have died.
:52:33. > :52:36.It's ridiculous. What is actually being done to prevent people dying?
:52:36. > :52:39.Innocent lives have died through the whole 9/11 procedure. What
:52:39. > :52:43.about the people in Afghanistan, all the countries that we're
:52:43. > :52:48.invading and totally destroying the whole families, lives, and
:52:48. > :52:53.everything has been ruined by that? What is being done to prevent that
:52:53. > :52:56.from happening again? I want to take a slightly different area from
:52:56. > :52:59.Duncan Ayres. We mentioned it briefly. Could the "Arab Spring"
:52:59. > :53:03.have happened... Fire away again. Could the "Arab Spring" have
:53:03. > :53:08.happened without the war in Iraq? Could the "Arab Spring" have
:53:08. > :53:12.happened without the war in Iraq, Richard Perle? I don't think so. I
:53:13. > :53:17.think what the war in Iraq did ultimately was demonstrate that
:53:17. > :53:24.even a figure like Saddam Hussein, who Iraqis thought was there
:53:24. > :53:29.forever, could be removed. Did world saw, including the Arab world
:53:29. > :53:33.- they saw people coming out of the voting booths in Iraq with purple
:53:33. > :53:37.thumbs and in fact in the immediate aftermath of that you had an
:53:38. > :53:41.uprising in Lebanon, which, unfortunately, ran out of steam. I
:53:41. > :53:47.think it was an inspiration. It was a demonstration that just because
:53:47. > :53:52.you live in an Arab country, just because you are ruled by an Arab
:53:52. > :53:55.dictator, you don't have to accept that as your inevitable future.
:53:55. > :54:02.And we now see the Arab world rising up against its dictators.
:54:02. > :54:06.APPLAUSE You sounded a little sceptical
:54:06. > :54:09.about the war in Iraq, David Miliband, in one or two things you
:54:09. > :54:12.have said. Are you sceptical about the effect of that war, and do you
:54:12. > :54:16.agree the "Arab Spring" could have happened without it? It's very
:54:16. > :54:19.tempting for people in my position to say that we'll add to the
:54:19. > :54:24.positive side of the balance sheet that the "Arab Spring" wouldn't
:54:24. > :54:27.have happened without the Iraq war. It's tempting, but in all honesty,
:54:27. > :54:32.I can't say that. APPLAUSE
:54:32. > :54:40.And it - it would make life - it would make life much easier. I
:54:40. > :54:45.voted for the war in Iraq. I read Hans Blix's report documenting the
:54:45. > :54:49.WMD that didn't come. But I have to recognise today that the list of
:54:49. > :54:53.positives, which include Saddam gone, which include the Kurds safe,
:54:53. > :54:57.which include Gaddafi giving up his 3,000 chemical bombs - those
:54:57. > :55:03.positives are outweighed by the longer list of negatives. Now,
:55:03. > :55:07.history is still being made in Iraq, and as I say, it would make life
:55:07. > :55:11.easy for me if I could say yes. But the truth about the "Arab Spring"
:55:11. > :55:17.is that its seeds are deep in Arab society. They're deep among
:55:17. > :55:21.Egyptians, above all, who have seen their nation run in a kleptocaptic
:55:21. > :55:24.and corrupt way and national pride sunk. What should be the leader of
:55:24. > :55:28.the Arab world has been sunk, and that is not aed Saddam Hussein
:55:28. > :55:35.issue. It's about people demanding universal rights. That's what we
:55:35. > :55:40.should be standing up for. Can I ask David a very straight question?
:55:40. > :55:46.David, do you think the 31 million Iraqis who today live in a chaotic
:55:46. > :55:51.democracy would like to go back to where they were? No-one wants to go
:55:51. > :55:56.back to living under Saddam Hussein, but... On a balance? If - someone
:55:56. > :56:00.is going to shout out, "What about those who are dead?" There has been
:56:00. > :56:04.massive loss of life, but even those Iraqis today, they want a
:56:04. > :56:08.different kind of liberation is the truth. I don't resile - I don't
:56:08. > :56:12.rewrite the history of what I voted for and what I said. I try to
:56:12. > :56:14.explain how I came to those judgments. Do you think you made
:56:14. > :56:23.the right decisions? On the evidence that was in front of me at
:56:23. > :56:30.the time, I had to make that decision. Even the Economist, not a
:56:30. > :56:36.very radical mag, suggests that Iraq today - and I use its words -
:56:36. > :56:40.is a vicious political police state. That's accurate. We have seen huge
:56:40. > :56:45.ethnic cleansings taking place. General Petraeus said a few weeks
:56:45. > :56:49.ago the war in Iraq isn't over. It's going to last a long, long
:56:49. > :56:52.time. We can't pretend all is well. For me what the "Arab Spring"
:56:52. > :56:58.revealed is ultimately when a people in a country have had enough
:56:58. > :57:01.of - whether it's a dictator or a semi-democratic leader, and they
:57:01. > :57:06.decide to rise and get rid of him - and that is the important thing,
:57:06. > :57:11.and they got rid of him despite the fact that Mubarak was backed by the
:57:11. > :57:15.West, as we know, and paid by the West, and who can say that the same
:57:15. > :57:19.thing wouldn't have happened in Iraq? Who can say that? The "Arab
:57:19. > :57:20.Spring" proves to me the opposite. If it could have happened in Egypt,
:57:20. > :57:25.it could have happened in Iraq. APPLAUSE
:57:25. > :57:29.All right. We're coming to the end. There are many people with their
:57:29. > :57:36.hands still up. The man in the checked shirt, then briefly, you,
:57:36. > :57:42.sir. I was just going do say that I think the regimes in Libya and -
:57:42. > :57:47.where is the other place - Iraq - I think the dictators were more
:57:47. > :57:50.ruthless than Mubarak personally. I know he was backed by the West. He
:57:50. > :57:56.didn't try and stop the demonstrations in Egypt, but...
:57:56. > :57:59.brief one from you, sir. I think it's mad to talk about safer Iraq
:57:59. > :58:03.and Afghanistan and say for every British person when we have just
:58:03. > :58:08.screwed up a whole country called Pakistan. This is not Pakistan's
:58:08. > :58:11.war. It's not a failed state. Labelling a country as a failed
:58:11. > :58:14.state is a self-fulfilling prophesy. That's what we have seen. The
:58:14. > :58:17.lesson from the air "Arab Spring" is the people learn no matter how
:58:17. > :58:24.much you protest, your government isn't going to listen to you. If
:58:25. > :58:29.the Arabs listened to that there would be no "Arab Spring". We have
:58:29. > :58:35.to stop there, I am afraid, because our hour is up. Thank you. Apologys
:58:35. > :58:39.to those of you who had your hands up. Next week we're going to be in
:58:39. > :58:44.Northern Ireland from a city whose name is the subject of controversy.
:58:44. > :58:47.You can either call it Londonderry or Derry. The week after that we're
:58:47. > :58:57.going to be in Birmingham. It's the Liberal Democrat conference. If you
:58:57. > :59:02.