17 Mar 2003 : Column 726Personal Statement
9.44 pm
Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston): This is the first
time for 20 years that I have addressed the House from the Back Benches. I must confess
that I had forgotten how much better the view is from here. None of those 20 years were
more enjoyable or more rewarding than the past two, in which I have had the immense
privilege of serving this House as Leader of the House, which were made all the more
enjoyable, Mr. Speaker, by the opportunity of working closely with you.
It was frequently the necessity for me as Leader of the
House to talk my way out of accusations that a statement had been preceded by a press
interview. On this occasion I can say with complete confidence that no press interview has
been given before this statement. I have chosen to address the House first on why I cannot
support a war without international agreement or domestic support.
The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader
of the Labour party in my lifetime. I hope that he will continue to be the leader of our
party, and I hope that he will continue to be successful. I have no sympathy with, and I
will give no comfort to, those who want to use this crisis to displace him.
I applaud the heroic efforts that the Prime Minister has
made in trying to secure a second resolution. I do not think that anybody could have done
better than the Foreign Secretary in working to get support for a second resolution within
the Security Council. But the very intensity of those attempts underlines how important it
was to succeed. Now that those attempts have failed, we cannot pretend that getting a
second resolution was of no importance.
France has been at the receiving end of bucketloads of
commentary in recent days. It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections.
Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed,
at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution. We
delude ourselves if we think that the degree of international hostility is all the result
of President Chirac. The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without
agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner—not
NATO, not the European Union and, now, not the Security Council.
To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious
reverse. Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against
terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible.
History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the
disintegration of that powerful coalition. The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain
is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by
multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet tonight the international
partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the
Security Council is in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has
yet to be fired.
I have heard some parallels between military action in
these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt
about the multilateral
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support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo. It was supported by NATO; it
was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven
neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies. It is precisely
because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to
get agreement in the Security Council as the last hope of demonstrating international
agreement.
The legal basis for our action in Kosovo was the need to
respond to an urgent and compelling humanitarian crisis. Our difficulty in getting support
this time is that neither the international community nor the British public is persuaded
that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this military action in Iraq.
The threshold for war should always be high. None of us
can predict the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq, but the
US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe" makes it likely that
casualties will be numbered at least in the thousands. I am confident that British
servicemen and women will acquit themselves with professionalism and with courage. I hope
that they all come back. I hope that Saddam, even now, will quit Baghdad and avert war,
but it is false to argue that only those who support war support our troops. It is
entirely legitimate to support our troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict
that will put those troops at risk.
Nor is it fair to accuse those of us who want longer for
inspections of not having an alternative strategy. For four years as Foreign Secretary I
was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that
strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons
programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes. Iraq's military
strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war.
Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak
that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's
forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a
few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and
at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.
Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the
commonly understood sense of the term—namely a credible device capable of being
delivered against a strategic city target. It probably still has biological toxins and
battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold
Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions
factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a
military capacity that has been there for 20
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years, and which we helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week,
while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN
inspectors?
Only a couple of weeks ago, Hans Blix told the Security
Council that the key remaining disarmament tasks could be completed within months. I have
heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to complete disarmament,
and that our patience is exhausted. Yet it is more than 30 years since resolution 242
called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. We do not express the same
impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply. I welcome the strong personal
commitment that the Prime Minister has given to middle east peace, but Britain's positive
role in the middle east does not redress the strong sense of injustice throughout the
Muslim world at what it sees as one rule for the allies of the US and another rule for the
rest.
Nor is our credibility helped by the appearance that our
partners in Washington are less interested in disarmament than they are in regime change
in Iraq. That explains why any evidence that inspections may be showing progress is
greeted in Washington not with satisfaction but with consternation: it reduces the case
for war.
What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the
suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been
elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops.
The longer that I have served in this place, the greater
the respect I have for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people. On
Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is sound. They do not doubt
that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded that he is a clear and
present danger to Britain. They want inspections to be given a chance, and they suspect
that they are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with an agenda
of its own. Above all, they are uneasy at Britain going out on a limb on a military
adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of
our traditional allies.
From the start of the present crisis, I have insisted, as
Leader of the House, on the right of this place to vote on whether Britain should go to
war. It has been a favourite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a
central role in British politics. Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong
than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither
international agreement nor domestic support. I intend to join those tomorrow night who
will vote against military action now. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone,
and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the Government. [Applause.] |