Report of the Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2016-07-13
Topic: Defense
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): I remember the events that we are discussing very well. They took place during my second Parliament as an MP, and they were not really the sort of stuff that I thought I had come here for. I remember how seriously people in and around the House discussed the issues in the run-up to the vote. I recall intense debates with colleagues and friends both inside and outside Parliament and, of course, I recall friends coming to different conclusions. According to my recollection, no one treated the issue lightly, and I do not think there is anyone who does not regret the loss of life. However, as one of those who were here at the time, and as someone who voted for the war, I take the view that we must all take some of the responsibility. We must bear some collective responsibility The only Cabinet resignation that I recall was that of the late Robin Cook. All the others stood firm and stayed on board, so they had a collective responsibility as well. While I understand that some folk are desperate to pin all this on one man, it is hard to see how that stands up in those circumstances. Of course there are legitimate criticisms and lessons to be learned, and I certainly accept the point about "sofa" versus Cabinet government, but Lord Turnbull actually said that he was talking about a style of government, and he also said in evidence that it was a "professional forum" and he was not talking about a bunch of advisers and cronies getting together. He was very clear about that, but it was not the impression that was given earlier Obviously one of the big lessons is about intelligence. I acknowledge that the Government have taken a significant step forward in that regard, but it is appalling to think that M16 knew that one of its principal sources of intelligence was a fraud, and chose not to share that with the Government before the vote. We should never let that sort of thing happen again. As for war planning and post-invasion planning, and what we have just heard about equipment, there are clear lessons to be learned, but they are not just lessons for politicians. They are lessons for intelligence officers, for the Ministry of Defence, and for senior military figures Part of the purpose of the Chilcot report is to enable us all to learn lessons. The tragedy is that if it is reduced simply to an attempt to pin it all on one man, we will not learn many lessons. If, after 13 years, the best outcome is a contempt motion, where will we end up? Will we end up back here saying, "What about the late Baroness Thatcher? We have found out some more details about the Belgrano"—or the Gibraltar assassinations—"so let us table a motion on that"? Will we end up saying that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) should be hauled back because of some new revelation, or apparent revelation, about Libya? I do not think that that is what we should be trying to do I recognise that Tony Blair is a Marmite figure, but we did have a parliamentary vote to go to war. It was not all down to him. Nowhere in the report does Chilcot accuse him of misleading Parliament, and I really do not think that we should use this House to try to settle old scores or enmities. We should be better than that. We need to recognise the risk that will be posed in the future, when there are difficult choices to be made, if we get this wrong. Real political leadership is not about settling scores, scoring points or addressing rallies; it is about taking really tough and difficult decisions. We should be very careful in our response to Chilcot, because if we get this wrong, we could put ourselves in a situation where the new Prime Minister, and any future Prime Minister, will be frightened to make a brave decision It is possible to make a brave choice and make the wrong choice, and we all know with the benefit of hindsight that there are elements of the Iraq situation that we would deal with differently, but if we turn this into a simple exercise of trying to pin the blame on one man in order to settle longstanding scores, we will do nothing to advance our ability to deal with difficult conflict situations in the future. This House needs to be bigger than that.