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Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 8:20 pm on 3 December 2003.

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Photo of Lord Campbell-Savours Lord Campbell-Savours Labour 8:20, 3 December 2003

My Lords, I shall confine my remarks to the narrow issue of internal security arrangements in Iraq. Perhaps I may remind the House that I supported military intervention in Iraq for reasons that I set out in my contribution on 18th March. My only reservation has been about the decision to justify war on weapons of mass destruction grounds, which is a view that I repeatedly expressed prior to the conflict and at a memorable Labour Peers' meeting earlier in the year. For me, the issue is simple; that is, human rights abuses in Iraq.

However, despite my support, I have some concerns at the strategy, primarily in the areas of internal security. The problem is that the delay by the United States administration in recognising the need to transfer internal security back to the Iraqis has been very costly in terms of coalition credibility, despite the IGC-CPA Washington-approved agreement, which is too slow.

Long before the military intervention started, I repeatedly argued in this House that a viable alternative Iraqi military leadership should have been established immediately following the occupation. That would have enabled the early re-establishment of the Iraqi army under a cleansed leadership. That failure, based on a lack of trust and a misreading of the internal security position by the US military, has created major problems.

In a very frank admission on 26th November reported on AFP News Services, the former US administrator for Iraq, retired US General Jay Garner, stated:

"We shouldn't have disbanded the army. We should have brought them back in as rapidly as we could".

The result has been that the military are now perceived as brutal. Yet, as we all know, the credibility of occupation forces inevitably rests on the sensitivity of the squaddy on the street. In the case of Iraq, the occasional indiscriminate shootings in conditions of post-ambush panic, the provocative searching of women and the use of dogs in house searches have all provoked an anti-US military backlash. Yet it is those very military personnel who are coalition ambassadors for the policy of military intervention. We must get them off the streets as soon as possible.

As Gary Samore of the International Institute of Strategic Studies put it, it must be for the Americans to be replaced by the Iraqis, for the Americans to withdraw into fortified bases and for them to run specific targeted raids. His case was reinforced by Ahmad Chalabi who, at a dinner in the Lords Dining Room only a month ago, told us that responsibility for security should be transferred to the Iraqis and that the Americans should be withdrawn to garrisons to be used in targeted operations.

Only last week, Rend Rahim Francke—newly appointed Iraqi representative in Washington and a friend of the United States—criticised what she described as the,

"wholesale disbanding of the Iraqi army due to US reluctance to take the Iraqis from the first day of liberation as full partners in the political process".

In a report in Baghdad in Al Dustur newspaper on 4th November, IGC member Mamoud Othman is reported as saying that the reason behind the increase in terrorist acts is the lack of an organised security plan and because the Iraqi authorities and police have not been given control over security. On 3rd November, the same newspaper reported an official of the Badr organisation calling for security in the city of Basra to be transferred to the Badr organisation, the Basra tribes union and the local police, which he said would,

"undertake the responsibility of safeguarding security and stability in the governate".

On Al Jazeera television on 21st October, there was an interesting report on the comments of Jalal Talabani, who is, in my view, Iraq's most impressive elder statesman. He called for the reinstatement of the former Iraqi army officers, arguing that the army included thousands of people who had been opposed to the rule of Saddam Hussein. In a recent speech, Sheikh Ali Mohammed al-Abbassy, who leads the Beni Hassan faction, was reported as saying that he and other leaders could improve order if given the authority:

"We are just waiting for the word".

My most serious concerns lie in the narrower area of the handling of intelligence. I have very little confidence in the mechanisms for using internally generated intelligence in Iraq. A huge number of intelligence opportunities have been lost. Why is that? It is because the Americans are simply unable to respond speedily to incoming intelligence leads. The only people who can deal effectively with matters of intelligence and internal security are the Iraqis themselves. They know who is who, where they live and who are their contacts. They know the streets, the networks, and they know the gangs. Mahmoud Othman, a prominent IGC member, put it this way:

"The coalition should leave these things to the Iraqis. We could do a much better job. If we don't act soon, more and more American soldiers will be hit".

On 13th November, Naseir al-Chadirchi, another IGC member, pleaded on Al-Jazeera, saying:

"We have repeatedly asked them to hand over the security files as it is the Iraqis who know best about security. The Iraqis need all this so that they can start assuming responsibility for the security file in a real and effective manner".

On 11th November, Hoshiyar Zibari, the Foreign Minister, was reported as saying on the BBC World Service that:

"Security responsibilities should be handed over to a new force made up from the Saddam Hussein opposition".

Finally, we have Adnan Pachachi, another IGC member, who on 8th November in the Baghdad newspaper, Al Nahdah, called for the setting up of an intelligence service and the proper arming of the Iraqi police.

What has been the response of the Americans? Yes, we have the CPA/IGC Washington-approved agreement, but as the Russians and the French have rightly twigged, the agreement is still loose on security matters. How will the Americans respond to the request of former party Staff Major-General Mahan Hafiz al-Faithd, number two in the civilians officers movement, who on 11th November told Al Hayad that his movement had submitted a plan to Bremer for the handing over to senior officers from the former armed forces responsibility for security in Baghdad?

There was a very interesting article in the Voice of the Mujahadin on 24th November which alleged that Bremer had suggested that a military leader should head up a transitional government—I presume up until July of next year—until the new Iraqi arrangement is established. I wonder about that, although I have not been able to confirm the story. Anyhow, I think that it may now be too late for a military leadership. And what is going to be the response to the IGC's proposals for a new intelligence service?

I am afraid that, despite the CPA/IGC agreement, I foresee foot-dragging by the Americans. I suspect that it will all end in a set-to argument between the IGC, the CPA and the administration over the transfer of sovereignty, and in particular security. It is one thing to train up a new Iraqi army with sufficient security intelligence and equipment support—that is going forward—but it is another thing to hand over the responsibility for deciding what it does, and that is where I foresee problems. I hope that, if we are called on to support members of the IGC in their inevitable arguments with Washington over these matters, the British Government will be supportive of their position.

I have a number of other issues that I want to raise, but I have gone over my time. However, I should like to make one final comment. I would ask Ministers to thank the BBC Monitoring Service for the very excellent service it provides to Parliament, both the Commons and the Lords. The material that it provides is very useful for those of us who follow daily events in Iraq. I have spent many hours a week reading its reports on Iraq and other areas of the world. I hope that my noble friend will thank the service, on behalf of us all.