Results 1-20 of 75 for iraq speaker:Crispin Blunt

Oral Answers to Questions — Children, Schools and Families: Iraq (15 Jun 2009) has video

Crispin Blunt: ...or able to devote to supporting them in the role they were asked to undertake. Sadly, the number of fatalities in Afghanistan looks as though it is about to overtake the number of fatalities in Iraq. There are important lessons here regarding what is happening in Afghanistan. Will the committee have the opportunity to report emerging conclusions on such issues in advance of its final report?

Business of the House: Defence in the World (4 Jun 2009) has video

Crispin Blunt: ...(Mrs. Moon), who is no longer in her place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) attended a presentation by Captain Ferguson, my cousin and godson on his 15 months in Iraq as an infantry platoon commander, commanding a troop of Stryker vehicles and some 40 soldiers—

Business of the House: Defence in the World (4 Jun 2009) has video

Crispin Blunt: ...sitting next to him was badly wounded. My cousin was lucky enough to survive and the vehicle was able to drive away from the ambush. My cousin's presentation was a remarkable story of 15 months in Iraq, in 2007-08, from a platoon commander in the US army. It was particularly instructive to hear how much of the US concept of operations in Iraq had become more like the British one—in...

Employment Retention: Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism (3 Mar 2009) has video

Crispin Blunt: ...that from me, as the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) expressed the sentiment eloquently last week, following the statement on the non-release of Cabinet minutes relating to the decision on the Iraq war. I have to say that I share the hon. Gentleman's sentiments. Coming to the view that we should not obstruct the renewal of the measures today is not about giving this exhausted...

Business of the House: Records of Detention (Review Conclusions) (26 Feb 2009) has video

Crispin Blunt: ...moral obligation exists? Was that not implicit in the memorandum of understanding between the USA, Australia and the UK of March 2003? Why would not that wider obligation also apply between the UK, Iraq and Afghanistan? The statement avoids the principal public issue, which is the charge about complicity by UK forces operating in Iraq outside the Multi-national Division (South-East). That...

Oral Answers to Questions — Health: Iraq (22 Jul 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: I do not think we can escape the fact that our involvement in Iraq over the past five years has come at an appalling political, economic and military cost to the United Kingdom. As the need for Operation Charge of the Knights made clear, there are still many lessons to be learned. When the Prime Minister went to Iraq in October, he did not predict that the Iraqis would have to go in and...

Points of Order: Topical Debate — Middle East (1 May 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: ...why it popped up today. I did not envy the Minister or his brilliant advisers at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office having to produce a 10-minute speech to cover the middle east peace process, Iraq, the importance of the Gulf Co-operation Council, Iran, Syria and Lebanon for the edification of the House. It all makes this debate an exchange of headlines as much as anything else. It gives...

Opposition Day — [8th Allotted Day]: Iraq Inquiry (25 Mar 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: .... The idea that we would give comfort to al-Qaeda by avoiding accountability through an inquiry or through the processes of the House is wrong. Let us consider what is happening in al-Qaeda in Iraq. I have a godson who is commanding an American infantry platoon in Iraq. He is about halfway through a 15-month tour and has very nearly been killed twice in the time that he has been there. I...

Opposition Day — [8th Allotted Day]: Iraq Inquiry (25 Mar 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: .... Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) said that an inquiry now might end as an indictment of the Government's decision in 2003 and that would have consequences for our troops in Iraq. Our troops are now in Iraq on a wholly different legal basis from that in 2003 when they entered the war. They are there now on the basis of a United Nations Security Council resolution, at...

Opposition Day — [8th Allotted Day]: Iraq Inquiry (25 Mar 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: I shall make a little progress, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me. From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) said, in reference to Iraq and Afghanistan, that the situation was different altogether. I could not disagree more strongly. I shall come to the direct parallels that exist—particularly in respect of the overlap between our policies towards the...

Opposition Day — [8th Allotted Day]: Iraq Inquiry (25 Mar 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: ...on. In 1945, one could have said that an inquiry into Dunkirk would be entirely irrelevant and a matter for the historians. However, I am afraid that an inquiry into the events leading up to the Iraq war, and into our policy on the occupation since, is extremely relevant to what we continue to do—not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan and in other conflicts in future. We cannot wait...

Opposition Day — [8th Allotted Day]: Iraq Inquiry (25 Mar 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: ...extra time as I usually would. I know that the Government understand this point; it is a lesson to which they will need to direct significant resources. A proper inquiry into what has gone wrong in Iraq will strengthen the Government's hand in making their case for what we need to do in Afghanistan.

Opposition Day — [8th Allotted Day]: Iraq Inquiry (25 Mar 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: The events in Basra today, where the Iraqi army is trying to address the militias and, to a degree, the police force, which is wholly infested by the militias, are a direct consequence of the failure of British policy. That policy was made evident to the Select Committee on Defence in 2004 when we were shown the Iraqi police being trained by the British. That has a direct read-across to what...

Oral Answers to Questions — Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Iraq (25 Mar 2008) has video

Crispin Blunt: The Minister will know as well as anyone the amount of disappointment felt by Britain's allies in the middle east at our failure to exercise more influence over the course of events in Iraq, in particular on the mistakes in American policy. Could the Minister give his assessment of the damage that has been done to the achievement of British foreign policy goals by the damage to our influence...

Written Answers — Defence: Iraq: Peacekeeping Operations (16 Oct 2007)

Crispin Blunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total annual cost was to the (a) defence budget and (b) reserve of payments made to servicemen arising from service in (i) Iraq and (ii) Afghanistan in the latest period for which figures are available.

Point of Order: Defence Procurement (9 Oct 2007)

Crispin Blunt: ...that have smashed any set of defence assumptions made in 1998. Ten years later, the armed forces are exhausted, and warrant officers do not take up commissions in regiments, because they do not want to go back to Iraq and Afghanistan yet another time. Young NCOs who have got married have been there, got their medal and been through an amount of military contact that puts most second world...

Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister: Iraq and the Middle East (21 Feb 2007)

Crispin Blunt: Is it correct that before the last Iraqi elections the Prime Minister sent officials from his office to assist the Iraqi party of his choice—the party of the then Iraqi Prime Minister? I am pretty confident that that is correct. It would be completely unacceptable if a foreign Government were to offer such assistance to a political party in our country, so why did the Prime Minister...

Written Answers — Prime Minister: Iraq (15 Jan 2007)

Crispin Blunt: To ask the Prime Minister which officials from his Office were seconded to the political party of former Prime Minister Alawi in the period leading up to the most recent elections in Iraq.

Written Answers — Defence: Service Personnel (14 Dec 2006)

Crispin Blunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service people have been injured in operations in (a) Iraq and (b) Afghanistan so as to require second-line medical attention since the commencement of those operations.

Oral Answers to Questions — Communities and Local Government: Iraq (12 Dec 2006)

Crispin Blunt: A principal conclusion of the Iraq Study Group is that "If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security, and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government." What is the British Government's view of that recommendation?