Results 1-20 of 30 for iraq speaker:Michael Meacher

Opposition Day — [3rd Allotted Day]: Parliamentary Standards (Constitutional Reform) (2 Feb 2009) has video

Michael Meacher: .... It is, to say the very least, striking that the two most important issues in the past five years have not been the subject of debate with a vote at the end—I refer to the lessons of the Iraq war and the current economic meltdown—despite the fact that the latter is arguably the most traumatic international episode since the last war 65 years ago. I come to my third proposal....

Written Answers — Defence: Afghanistan: Peacekeeping Operations (19 Nov 2007)

Michael Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the level of pay is of the five lowest-paid ranks of troops now serving in (a) Afghanistan and (b) Iraq; and what percentage each is of the UK national average wage.

Opposition Day — [14th Allotted Day]: Iraq Inquiry (11 Jun 2007)

Michael Meacher: I voted for the Iraq war, which I now bitterly regret. I therefore make these remarks much more in a spirit of contrition than of rebuke. I strongly believe that this issue will not go away. It continues to damage public opinion, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) has just so rightly said, and, like all painful traumas, it can be exorcised only by facing up to...

Opposition Day — [14th Allotted Day]: Iraq Inquiry (11 Jun 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...can be strengthened. I very much welcome the Chancellor's commitment to a parliamentary debate and vote before Britain is taken to war in future, which is absolutely right. The implication of the Iraq saga in that context is clear: the evidence to justify a decision to go to war must be made available to Parliament in detail, involving, where time allows, rapid and rigorous scrutiny by a...

Opposition Day — [11th Allotted Day]: Armed Conflict (Parliamentary Approval) (15 May 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...Attlee Government over the Korean war and the Major Government over the 1991 Gulf war, and where the vote is taken shortly before the start of war, as was the case with the Blair Government over Iraq.

Opposition Day — [11th Allotted Day]: Armed Conflict (Parliamentary Approval) (15 May 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...mistake of my life. However, my defence is that I believed what I was being told. I have no regrets about that explanation because it is true. We should not get locked into a discussion about Iraq. The debate is not an argument about the rights and wrongs of going to war over Iraq in the sense that we should introduce a decision-making procedure that would prevent such a result in future....

Written Answers — Prime Minister: Iraq: Casualties (22 Mar 2007)

Michael Meacher: To ask the Prime Minister if he will meet representatives of servicemen and women from Iraq and Afghanistan and the families of the bereaved to discuss their treatment under the military covenant.

Point of Order: Trident (14 Mar 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...the US provides this kit to us not because they believe that we are necessary to the defence of the west, but because it makes us subservient to US foreign policy. We have already seen that with Iraq and Lebanon, and could well see it again over Iran. I, for one, believe that that is a political price far too high to pay for the next 30 or 40 years. The enormous cost, of a distinctly vague...

Points of Order: Defence in the World (1 Feb 2007)

Michael Meacher: In a wide-ranging debate, the Front-Bench spokesmen concentrated, quite naturally and properly, on the issues that face us in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to those continuing hostilities, two issues of overriding importance affect our stance on security. First, there is the question of our response to the growing evidence that the United States or its proxy, Israel, may unleash a...

Points of Order: Defence in the World (1 Feb 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...because they depend on us for the defence of the west, but—this is why they are so happy to do it—because it makes us subservient to US foreign policy, as we have seen, tragically, over Iraq, where we apparently felt obliged to follow them, over Lebanon; and perhaps in future over Iran. To continue with that subservience for the next 30 or 40 years, which may well be the...

Points of Order: Defence in the World (1 Feb 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...was not deterred from seizing the Falklands even though we had a nuclear bomb and he did not. The US had nuclear weapons, but that did not prevent it from being defeated in Vietnam or now in Iraq. The French had nuclear weapons, but it did not save them in either Indochina or Algeria. Israel had nuclear weapons, but it was still chased out of the Lebanon by Hezbollah in 2000 and again last...

Point of Order: Iraq and the wider Middle East (24 Jan 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...Adjournment debate, but that the issue will be treated with the utter seriousness that it deserves. There has been a good deal of comment on the most recent twist in US policy, but the tragedy for Iraq in respect of the latest US troop surge is that extra troops are no answer to a crisis whose solution is political but for which there is currently no political solution in sight. That...

Point of Order: Iraq and the wider Middle East (24 Jan 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...short-sighted, because it is diametrically opposed to the policy into which the whole world will ineluctably be forced by the accelerating onset of climate change. It is not only in respect of Iraq that the United States is raising the stakes. In his speech in Dubai just before Christmas, the Prime Minister again denounced Iran. Anyone who read that speech will know that he took a far more...

Point of Order: Iraq and the wider Middle East (24 Jan 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...decides that? What right does the US have to decide who should or should not have nuclear weapons? Iran is surrounded, to the west, north and east, by countries with nuclear weapons—the US in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in the Indian ocean, and Israel, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and now even Korea. It is hardly surprising that Iran wants similar protection.

Point of Order: Iraq and the wider Middle East (24 Jan 2007)

Michael Meacher: ...no reason to suppose that that would be any different in this case. Even if all the military targets could be put out of action, which is highly unlikely, Iran has millions of Shi'a supporters in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is likely that they would rise in revolt. It must be very doubtful whether US forces in the region could contain such a heightened and widespread insurgency. I recall...

Orders of the Day: Home Affairs and Transport (23 Nov 2006)

Michael Meacher: ...themselves from normal social contacts and create autonomous cells that generate intense fanaticism and dedication. It is among such groups that the rage prompted by the horrendous daily carnage in Iraq, the refusal to condemn the indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon and the widespread perception among Muslims of a grossly imbalanced US-UK policy in favour of Israel to the neglect of the...

Orders of the Day — Terrorism Bill (26 Oct 2005)

Michael Meacher: ...and untenable political situation in the middle east. That recruiting ground for terrorism and al-Qaeda will be removed only when we have a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq, the creation of a viable Palestinian state and a reorienting of the fundamental—

Written Answers — Defence: Troop Redeployment (19 Jul 2005)

Michael Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what consideration he has given to the redeployment of UK troops from (a) Iraq, (b) Afghanistan and (c) the UK or elsewhere to Iran; and under what circumstances he might consider such action in future.

Written Answers — Defence: Iraq/Afghanistan (27 Jun 2005)

Michael Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many (a) US soldiers and (b) UK soldiers have been killed in (i) Iraq and (ii) Afghanistan in each month since the end of the wars in those countries.

Home Affairs and Communities (23 May 2005)

Michael Meacher: ...torture. In the case of the much-trumpeted ricin plot of January 2003, it now emerges that there was no ricin and no plot, only a convenient pretext to bang the anti-terrorist drum just before the Iraq war, and perhaps even to claim the need for ID cards. Above all, however, in the case of control orders, which the Government are obliged to reconsider, there is a much better way of...