Iraq Inquiry Report — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Defense
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with every word from the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and I warmly congratulate him on obtaining this debate. This issue disturbs all of us who were in the House at that time more than any other decision taken this generation. Members who were in that debate and who, in their view now and with hindsight, voted the wrong way, deeply regret that, and regard their parliamentary careers as failures because they allowed themselves to be bribed, bullied and bamboozled into believing a fiction that came from the Front Bench. That was not just the Prime Minister; this was the whole establishment, and three parliamentary Select Committees —the Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Intelligence and Security Committees —and the military supported the idea. The Conservative party was more gung-ho than the Labour party, and we must look at this issue because the repercussions of that decision continue today The suffering continues, and the mother of the 200th soldier to die in Afghanistan, Hazel Hunt, has set up a foundation and runs a successful charity. It deals with the suffering of the thousands of soldiers who have been maimed in mind or body as a result of that terrible mistake We also need to get the Iraq inquiry over with so we can have another inquiry. Another terrible mistake was made in 2006. The decision to go into Helmand province was made in the belief that not a shot would be fired. At that time, we had been in Afghanistan for five years and only six of our soldiers had died in that conflict. As a result of the terrible error of invading Helmand in 2006, 450 of our soldiers died The important point is this—and this is not being wise after the event. In March 2003, I sent a letter to Tony Blair saying that going into Iraq in support of Bush’s war would mean that we would drive a wedge between the Christian western world and the Muslim world. There would be a sense of antagonism and injustice from the Muslims in my local mosque to the Muslims in the far corners of the world. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden is right. ISIS is the daughter of our decision to go to Iraq. We must look at that with great seriousness At the time, the Public Administration Committee made a number of strong recommendations. Some were followed, but the main one was that the inquiry should not be held in secret. The Committee made another recommendation that the inquiry should have a large parliamentary element to it. In fact, it recommended that there should be two inquiries: one into the reason for going to war and one into the repercussions. Never in our wildest nightmares did anyone believe that the loved ones of those who had fallen would have to suffer a period of seven years of not knowing whether their loved ones were sent to a battle that was based on the vanity of politicians and not on the real interests of our country. The agony goes on The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that with modern printing and publishing techniques it is possible to write a book, email it to the printers and get it back two or three days later. The process is virtually instantaneous. The old system of setting up things in type was immensely laborious and time-consuming. There is no excuse for delaying this any further—not for a single day. The loved ones deserve closure. They have waited far too long. It is only in the political interests of those responsible—the guilty ones—that it continues.