Coalition against International Terrorism

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:38 pm on 16 October 2001.

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Photo of Jack Straw Jack Straw Foreign Secretary 3:38, 16 October 2001

We all share my hon. Friend's concern about the need for accuracy in targeting. I can tell her, because I have witnessed the process, that a huge amount of care is being taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, by those who advise him and provide us with legal advice, and by those who do the same in the United States, to ensure that the targeting is on military and terrorist assets and not on civilian targets. I emphasise that, so far as is possible, civilian casualties and deaths are being avoided. We have had to say from the outset—I am afraid to say that this is a dismal truth of war—that one cannot avoid civilian deaths and casualties altogether when military action is being undertaken, but happily the numbers so far have been low.

I, too, have heard the reports that an International Red Cross centre may have been hit. I understand from a further ICRC report that one person has been injured—the only report of injury or death so far—and that no food or medicine was contained in that depot.