Britain was right to support the US over Iraq. Britain and America acted to uphold the authority of UN international security and to confront and defeat a manifest evil.
I wish there had been a way of ensuring peace not war. The UN gave Iraq under Saddam Hussein every opportunity to co-operate fully. The terms of 1441 were quite clear and Iraq was in breach of this mandatory resolution under international law as it was on 17 other resolutions, not least the ceasefire terms in 1991 after the first Gulf War. If force had not been used at the end of this process in the face of non-compliance by a psychotic and ruthless tyrant, how on earth is the world meant to address those rulers who are not prepared to be restrained?
The case for action has been seriously damaged by the manner in which the Prime Minister has chosen to present it. By implication he maintained there was a direct threat to Britain from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The fact that this threat is so remote that it can be discounted does not mean it was wrong to act as we did. Neither does the fact that the US has made serious mistakes in its administration of post-war Iraq, mean that the whole action was wrong.
My view is that the moral case for addressing the Iraq issue was compelling. In the end that meant being prepared to use force if necessary. It is the practical consequences of such a decision where the arguments have proved more balanced, but I am still confident the future for Iraq is now much brighter than the terror and poverty most of them endured for decades.
The Iraqis are a civilized, educated and in my experience charming people. Their country had been the victim of increasingly catastrophic misgovernment since the Ba'ath Party came to power. All the available evidence is that the most accurate parallel to Saddam Hussein was Stalin, even down to the election results. This was a government sustained by terror, where there were no discernable limits to the human suffering it was prepared to cause to further its own objectives. The invasions of Iran and Kuwait and the use of nerve agent on its own people demonstrated this, as has the grisly evidence of the entirely ruthless suppression of internal dissent shown as the mass graves of his victims have been disinterred. It would not have been be right or sensible to allow this man the opportunity to further develop, deploy and use weapons of mass destruction.
The issue cannot be seen in isolation from the Gulf War in 1991. Then the coalition was meticulous in its observance of international law limiting its objectives to the liberation of Kuwait. This was catastrophic for the Marsh Arabs and the Kurds whose rebellions were defeated in circumstances that were a moral disgrace for all the 1991 coalition powers.
The terms of the 1991 ceasefire were designed to ensure that this Iraqi government could not have access to weapons that could threaten her neighbours or the rest of us. The tools to ensure this were unlimited access by UN weapons inspectors. What conclusion was one supposed to draw about the obstruction of their work that led to their withdrawal in 1998?
The inspections were backed up by a policy of isolation, pursued for many years, enforced by no-fly zones, and the USAF and RAF, and by UN economic sanctions, particularly with respect to oil sales. This policy was gradually breaking down, partly because of the length of time it had been pursued and the complicated and distressing humanitarian situation in Iraq.
One of the ways the Iraqis were finding around sanctions was in oil smuggled out to Turkey through Kurdistan, which enjoyed limited autonomy under the protection of western air power. However the local Kurdish administration, which we supported, was obtaining a significant part of its income on the levies they imposed on this illegally traded oil. Yet the income from these non-sanctioned oil sales was also then available to the Iraqi government to spend as they wished on military programmes and sustaining the infrastructure of terror. This was but one of the examples of the complicated choices that faced the international community in confronting Iraq.
There was a progressive loss of international support for sanctions due to the perceived effect of sanctions on the Iraqi population. The way in which the Iraqi government used the death of its own children was evidence of the clear eyed and cold-hearted way Saddam's regime worked. This was against a background where the regime was allowed to sell oil to address the suffering of its population. They did not take up the rights to sell $4 Billion of oil under the oil for food programme.
To western policy makers doing nothing never seemed a wise option. Iraq had a delinquent government, capable of anything. This posed a series of difficult dilemmas, most particularly for the USA which as the world's superpower, and one fully engaged in world affairs, all other countries look to for leadership on global security questions.
The question other countries must answer is, had the USA walked away and had been prepared to have nothing to do with events in Iraq and the region, would the position of the people of all the nations in that region have been improved or imperiled? We should be grateful that the USA placed herself in this position and was prepared to grapple with the wretched policy choices. It is easy to be jealous of her power and the clumsy way it is sometimes exercised. But that is no reason to adopt a knee jerk anti-American approach. All the free world is better off with the USA engaged and the oppressed people of Iraq, both in Iraq and the tens of thousands of exiles who are now able to return over the next year take up the government of their country are evidence of this.
What changed on 11th September 2001 was the ability of the US administration to act in ways which might cost the US lives and very substantial sums abroad in pursuit of security objectives. It is correct to argue that the Iraq issue should have been confronted in 1991 and 1998, but then the US was not prepared to will the means. Now they are, although the actual connection between secular Ba'athist Iraq and fundamentalist Al Quaeda was extremely remote. But a government that will stop at nothing can give any terrorist organization a secure base and support at a time of its choosing. Should Saddam Hussein's government have been provided with this opportunity?
The extended agony of Iraq over 12 years is being brought to an end legally under 1441 and the unanimous new resolution adopted two weeks ago to address the transfer of power to a democratic Iraq run by Iraqis over the next year.
We should remember that when the US was not fully committed Saddam Hussein remained in power, constrained only by how far the US was prepared to act.
The consequences of failure through inaction would have been dreadful. Saddam Hussein's record speaks for itself and if he had successfully faced down the world one can only imagine the consequences for his people and his neighbours.
The military operation to liberate Iraq from its dictatorship was the easier part of Operation Iraq: freedom. Undoubtedly the USA has made mistakes in the subsequent operation. The most glaring were getting the US Defense Department to direct operations post-war, and disbanding the Iraqi Army. The prolonged insurgency is worrying and can only be confronted by gaining the co-operation of the vast majority of the Iraqi population. The groundwork for this is being laid by the combination of a robust security policy reinforced by a plan for a progressive transfer of control to Iraqis through a new constitutional authority. Alongside this the infrastructure is being repaired. This will all take longer than one would like but there is light at the end of a very long tunnel for the Iraqi people.
The Government have not behaved well in spinning the presentation of this most important of all issues. That has undermined the case for action. There are risks associated with the operations being pursued if the Iraqi population became convinced they are not in their interests. These risks should be acknowledged and the potential downside set against the potential benefits of a free, prosperous, stable Iraq.
I believe the prize can be gained and we were right to try and right to keep trying to deliver Iraq for Iraqis free from dictatorship.
