Results 1-20 of 46 for iraq speaker:Sir Peter Tapsell

Bills Presented: Afghanistan and Pakistan (16 Jul 2009) has video

Sir Peter Tapsell: I quite understood the point that the Prime Minister put to us yesterday: it takes time to convert helicopters that have been operating in Iraq to deal with the conditions in Afghanistan. However, what baffles me about the present situation is that it must surely have been obvious to the chiefs of staff and Defence Ministers some years ago, when we went into Afghanistan, that there would be a...

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

Sir Peter Tapsell: As a declared sceptic as early as November 1992 of the existence of the weapons of mass destruction, and as a subsequent opponent of the invasion of Iraq, may I put it to the Prime Minister that the disastrous effect of the war has been to make Iran the dominant power in the whole of the middle east? What the British people well understand is that after the capture of Baghdad, the political...

Opposition Day — [9th Allotted Day]: Iraq War Inquiry (25 Mar 2009) has video

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...of the country will be in the run-up to the war, because it is widely believed that in the summer of 2002 the then Prime Minister, Mr. Blair, and President Bush entered into a conspiracy to invade Iraq and spent the succeeding months until March 2003 manipulating public opinion, falsifying the intelligence information and deceiving the leaders of the Conservative party? That is one of the...

Oral Answers to Questions — Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Freedom of Information Act 2000 (24 Feb 2009) has video

Sir Peter Tapsell: I was one who opposed the invasion of Iraq and I put it to the right hon. Gentleman, who was Foreign Secretary before the invasion, that it would be illegal under international law to invade without a second resolution from the United Nations. But I have never been an enthusiast for the Freedom of Information Act, largely for reasons of the working of Cabinet government and collective...

Debate on the Address: Economy, Pensions and Welfare (15 Dec 2008) has video

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...did not succeed in convincing those on my Front Bench not to join the exchange rate mechanism; I failed to persuade them not to introduce the poll tax; and I failed to persuade them not to support the invasion of Iraq. So I shall try again and suggest that we should not rule out the possibility of fiscal stimulus at a time when we face the prospect of the biggest deflationary slump that...

Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister: Engagements (2 Jul 2008) has video

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...an unwinnable and deeply unpopular war when it is widely understood that the Taliban are not international terrorists and that the international terrorists are now mostly trained in Pakistan, Iraq and Britain?

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

Sir Peter Tapsell: I voted against the invasion of Iraq. As we have all heard, we have already had four inquiries and one might ask why we need a fifth. There are just two arguments in favour of that—one is on account of the scale of the disaster that has flowed from the invasion; the other is the need to know how it came about that we invaded Iraq in the first place. I thought that the right hon. and...

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

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...they think are foreign policy aims which it is desirable to pursue. I am not just being wise after the event, as it is so easy to be, because I never believed in any of this at the time. I had known Iraq, although not as well as the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). I had been there first when I was 19, and a number of times since then. For many years I had been an adviser...

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

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...American people were so shocked by the attack that President Bush felt that he had to find an enemy to attack. All his speeches thereafter mixed together that wicked attack on the twin towers with Iraq, which had nothing whatever to do with it.

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

Sir Peter Tapsell: No, I must conclude. The extraordinary thing about Iraq was that it was the one country in the middle east where al-Qaeda could not go. Their respective leaders were bitter enemies. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein detested each other; they represented opposite ends of the theological spectrum in the Muslim world. The American Administration led by President Bush wanted an opportunity to...

Oral Answers to Questions — Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Turkey (9 Oct 2007)

Sir Peter Tapsell: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that one of the many reasons for not invading southern Iraq was that it was likely to precipitate a Turkish invasion of the Kurdish north? As that may be imminent, are we strongly advising Turkey not to do it?

Oral Answers to Questions — Leader of the House: Iraq (8 Oct 2007)

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind): why did the Prime Minister not support Robin Cook from the start, when he opposed the atrociously foolish policy of invading and occupying Iraq, from which the Prime Minister is now struggling to extricate us, almost certainly leaving chaos behind?

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department: G8 Summit (11 Jun 2007)

Sir Peter Tapsell: Did the Prime Minister explain to the leaders at the G8 summit why the policies he has supported in the middle east have plunged Iraq into chaos, established Iran as the dominant influence in the region, engaged British troops in an unachievable mission in southern Afghanistan and are now destabilising both Turkey and Pakistan?

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

Sir Peter Tapsell: By absenting himself from this debate, the Prime Minister, one of the architects of the Iraq catastrophe, has indicated yet again his lack of respect for the House of Commons and his own Back Benchers. The consequences of the invasion of Iraq were predictable and predicted, but I am not one of those people who believe that, having got into this appalling situation, we can just cut and run, as...

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

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...as to when we can get out. It would be unwise, for reasons that have been stated earlier by my colleagues, to give a specific date, because we cannot know how the situation is going to develop in Iraq or in surrounding countries. I have often intervened about Iraq, and I do not want to bore the House by repeating things that I have repeatedly said, so on this occasion I will talk about...

Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister: Engagements (13 Dec 2006)

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...to foreigners for the conduct of our long-dead ancestors, will he now, particularly in view of the "accumulated turbulence", apologise to the British people for his own folly in leading us into the Iraq disaster?

Opposition Day: [Un-allotted Half-Day] — Iraq (31 Oct 2006)

Sir Peter Tapsell: The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was, in my view, a strategic, political and humanitarian blunder of historic magnitude. It was a strategic blunder because the traditional aim of British foreign policy over the centuries, the maintenance of a balance of power in each region where we have a national interest, has been destroyed in the middle east. It rested on the balancing of...

Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister: Engagements (8 Mar 2006)

Sir Peter Tapsell: Now that the Prime Minister has used up all mortal excuses for his folly in invading Iraq and is relying on divine guidance, a factor which was oddly omitted from the dodgy dossier, will he tell us which archangel is now beckoning him towards southern Afghanistan?

Afghanistan (26 Jan 2006)

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...intervention and that we had no intention of occupying the country. The situation in Afghanistan, and in the middle east as a whole, is now very different. Now, al-Qaeda is able to train all over Iraq, which was formerly closed to it, as well as over large areas of the Islamic world. The Secretary of State says that we have been invited into Afghanistan by a democratic Government, but the...

Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister: Engagements (14 Dec 2005)

Sir Peter Tapsell: ...in Washington to collect the gold medal that he was awarded more than two years ago for his great help in persuading public opinion in the United States and Britain to support the invasion of Iraq?