Results 1-20 of 128 for iraq speaker:Julian Lewis

Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister: Armed Forces (15 Jul 2009)

Julian Lewis: I am relieved to hear that. Before Iraq and Afghanistan, we were spending 2.5 per cent. of gross domestic product insuring against potential threats from other industrial countries. As we are still spending 2.5 per cent., despite the additional cost of the counter-insurgency campaign and including the contribution of the Treasury reserve, which of those two major military roles is currently...

Written Answers — Defence: Armed Forces: Deployment (9 Jun 2009)

Julian Lewis: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of UK military equipment formerly deployed to Iraq is intended to be (a) redeployed to Afghanistan and (b) gifted to the Iraqi armed forces; and if he will make a statement.

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

Julian Lewis: ...Practice". I was talking about some of the principles of counter-insurgency, but the person everyone came to listen to was Dr. David Kilcullen, who was talking about his experiences in practice in Iraq. One of the most important points about people such as Dr. Kilcullen—who was, among other things, a special adviser to General Petraeus and subsequently to Condoleezza Rice—is...

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

Julian Lewis: ...point out again this evening, that we are in a strange situation. The defence budget as a proportion of GDP has remained constant both before and after the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which can only mean that we were fighting two counter-insurgency campaigns at one stage, and are fighting one counter-insurgency campaign now, on what is effectively a peacetime defence...

Written Answers — Defence: Afghanistan and Iraq: Peacekeeping Operations (30 Mar 2009)

Julian Lewis: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Royal Navy personnel were engaged on land in (a) Afghanistan and (b) Iraq on the latest date for which figures are available.

Royal Assent: Defence in the UK (26 Mar 2009) has video

Julian Lewis: One is sadly accustomed in these debates to paying tribute to service personnel who have been killed in theatre, previously in Iraq and currently in Afghanistan. One did not expect to have to refer to the murder, for that is what it was, of two young soldiers in Northern Ireland on the eve of their bravely flying out into theatre in Afghanistan, where they would have faced danger from a more...

Royal Assent: Defence in the UK (26 Mar 2009) has video

Julian Lewis: ...hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey). I think that I dealt at the time with his bizarre claim that his party had been vindicated by the fact that a timetable had been set for withdrawal from Iraq, now that the insurgency has been brought so massively under control. The Liberal Democrats were advocating a timetable for withdrawal while the outcome of the conflict was still in doubt. I...

Royal Assent: Defence in the UK (26 Mar 2009) has video

Julian Lewis: ...world, and I would just point out that the Liberal Democrats were proposing a timetable for withdrawal before the surge had happened and succeeded, and at a time when the outcome of the conflict in Iraq was very much in the balance.

Oral Answers to Questions — Defence: Iran (Missile Development) (23 Feb 2009) has video

Julian Lewis: Within the last few days, it has been revealed by the British ambassador to the United Nations that in 2005 the Iranians offered the British a deal whereby they said: "We stop killing you in Iraq...you allow us to carry on with our" missile and "nuclear programme." That deal was rightly rejected. This is, I believe, the first time that a senior British official has spoken about an Iranian...

Sri Lanka: Afghanistan and Pakistan (5 Feb 2009) has video

Julian Lewis: ...throughout the decade that new Labour had been in power, defence spending had remained roughly constant at 2.5 per cent. of GDP, and added the fateful words: "if we add in the extra funding for Iraq and Afghanistan." Whenever we talk about Treasury reserves and so on, when we lump everything together, we find that we have been fighting two conflicts on a peacetime defence budget, and now...

[Mrs. Joan Humble in the Chair] — BBC World Service (16 Dec 2008)

Julian Lewis: ...service and am less of a specialist on these matters than I was during the cold war. However, I have been informed that a former deputy editor of Izvestia, who was a specialist correspondent in Iraq, and that a former senior functionary at Radio Kiev—an English language Soviet propaganda station of the cold war—are deeply involved in advising senior people in the Russian...

Oral Answers to Questions — Defence: Strategic Defence Review (3 Nov 2008) has video

Julian Lewis: What has changed, particularly since the strategic defence review in 1998, is that there has been a massive increase in operational commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given that fact, we are still spending the same percentage of gross domestic product now as we were 10 years ago, even if we include the Treasury reserve commitment to the campaigns. Is it not unavoidable for any Government to...

Business of the House: Defence in the UK (9 Oct 2008) has video

Julian Lewis: ...pressures on their return to the UK. The lance-corporal I referred to has now left the Army, but I know of another who aims to serve his full 22 years. He took part in the initial campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has since done a third tour lasting seven months—not six—in Afghanistan. Now back in the UK, he has spent time in the Browning barracks in Aldershot, where...

Business of the House: Defence in the UK (9 Oct 2008) has video

Julian Lewis: .... He said that defence expenditure had remained roughly constant over that decade, at 2.5 per cent. of gross domestic product, before adding these fateful words: if the costs of Afghanistan and Iraq are included. That means that in that period, in which we embarked on two major counter-insurgency campaigns, we were spending 2.5 per cent. of GDP before we went into Afghanistan and, taking...

Business of the House: Defence in the UK (9 Oct 2008) has video

Julian Lewis: My hon. Friend is exactly right. As has been seen to happen as a result of the successful American grasp of counter-insurgency principles in Iraq, we will end up with a situation in which people who were formerly fighting against us accept that they will eventually get their country back, providing that they break with and eliminate the unacceptable elements. We have seen that at the end of...

Business of the House: Defence in the World (8 May 2008) has video

Julian Lewis: ...and are hopeless, adrift and directionless, but there was a time when they did have a strategy, so that criticism is a little unfair. The strategy was very clear—order the carriers, leave Iraq, call a general election—but unfortunately it was sunk without trace by a well-aimed torpedo from my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. That is partly why the Government...

Oral Answers to Questions — Defence: Afghanistan (28 Apr 2008) has video

Julian Lewis: ...he is painting, the burden on our 7,000 service personnel in Afghanistan is very great? Given that the Prime Minister is no longer able to achieve his ambition of scaling down our 4,000 troops in Iraq, does he have any other ideas about how our 7,000 troops in Afghanistan might be reinforced and the burden on them lessened?

Written Answers — Defence: Iraq: Weapons (4 Mar 2008)

Julian Lewis: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment his Department has made of the accuracy of the defence intelligence staff estimates prior to the Iraq war that claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been exaggerated.

Written Answers — Prime Minister: Iraq: Peacekeeping Operations (29 Oct 2007)

Julian Lewis: To ask the Prime Minister pursuant to the answer of 15 October 2007, Official Report, column 820W, on Iraq: peacekeeping operations, at which of his regular meetings with the Secretary of State for Defence he informed him of his decision to announce troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Written Answers — Prime Minister: Iraq: Peacekeeping Operations (22 Oct 2007)

Julian Lewis: To ask the Prime Minister pursuant to his answer of 15th October 2007, Official Report, column 820W, on Iraq: peacekeeping operations, for what reason he has not identified any of the factors he took into account in deciding when to inform the Secretary of State for Defence of his decision to announce troop withdrawals from Iraq.