I want to write to Lord Ramsbotham
Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, does the Minister agree that we have forfeited any right to have our word taken as our bond, through our shameful treatment of those whom we employed as interpreters in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Lord Ramsbotham: ...International Institute for Strategic Studies, because the starting point of my contribution is the conclusion reached in the most recent publication in its Adelphi series, entitled Harsh Lessons: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Changing Charter of War, in which, as a former soldier, I found it sad to read: “In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States and its allies came extremely close to...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...-averse by something that is not in their control. My noble and gallant friend Lord Boyce recognised this at the start of the second Gulf War when he sought a decision on whether the invasion of Iraq was legal and therefore whether those taking part were likely to be arraigned as war criminals. I ask the Minister to note the importance of any Government who are committing UK armed services...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...our pipes and plumbing are buried into Europe in a multiplicity of subjects. Last week came Chilcot, with its devastating exposure of the deliberate disregard of the norms of governance during the Iraq war. Now, the other place is expected to make a decision that will affect the nation’s military capabilities, both conventional and nuclear, without the benefit of any known assessment of...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...the Minister’s comments. The first concerns the Armed Forces covenant, which was made statutory in the 2011 Act. History suggests that now that our Armed Forces are no longer on active service in Iraq and Afghanistan, they will fade from the public eye, which will result in the plight of veterans, particularly gravely injured veterans, becoming less and less a matter of immediate public...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...to the appeal for help from Belgium did so quite rightly but embarked this country on a future with unknown global consequences. I feel that today, in quite rightly responding to the request from Iraq, the Government are again launching the country towards more or less unknown global consequences. But we can do something to condition those. I am very glad that the phrase “keeping your...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...However, it is absolutely certain that if any member of the Armed Forces does breach the law, they risk undermining the reputation of the United Kingdom. That happened in the disgraceful affair in Iraq, which has been discoloured by the finding that so many of the witnesses were corrupted, as it were, into giving evidence and demanding compensation, and, of course, in the recent sentencing...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...for the first time in their lives, a rejuvenated battalion was able to deploy straight to South Armagh. The Army has had far worse than that, having been involved in continuous operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for more than 10 years, with the result that national defence skills, including essentials such as all-arms training, are almost non-existent. The Army badly needs a...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...in the Army, every time we went off to do something somewhere we felt that we had the country behind us and, in particular, that we had cross-party support behind us. That was broken, of course, in Iraq in 2003 and has been a matter of great concern ever since. On this issue, it has always seemed to me that cross-party agreement is essential, because the inevitable result of cross-party...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...rapidly out of control, revved up by unsubstantiated assertions such as Mr Hague’s public statement that President Assad was responsible. All this reminded me of my thoughts about the invasion of Iraq. In December 2002, I wrote to Mr Blair on behalf of a group that had met at the Royal United Services Institute to discuss non-military alternatives—those intermediate steps mentioned by...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...the revolution. As we know, CENTO, too, did not survive that event, but I often wonder what would have happened had it still been the NATO of the Middle East. Secondly, six months before the second Iraq war, to which I have always been strongly opposed, a number of us wrote to the Prime Minister. I was in Oman when a senior Omani army officer reminded me that it was our oldest ally in that...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...these comments is a mild understatement. It is quite staggering. What this Government fails to understand is that the military has been running very, very hot fighting the politicians' campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. If there was no breakdown in trust before, there is now". He was referring to the Secretary of State's earlier failure to overturn the disgraceful traduction of...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...another example-not from the criminal justice system-where this coming together of donors is achieving results. Many noble Lords will be aware of the large numbers of casualties coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and of all the veterans from the Armed Forces facing other problems. There is the beginning now of a number of personnel recovery centres being established around the country...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...displayed on an Army notice board, "A breach of common sense is a breach of the rules", this is it. Like other noble Lords who have had the privilege of visiting our Armed Forces in operations in Iraq or Afghanistan, I came back exhilarated and humbled by that experience. The Armed Forces demonstrate very clearly how today's young people respond to challenge and risk. What do those...
Lord Ramsbotham: ..., as always, will be to do as much as they can with what they have been given, despite those regrets. Like me, I am sure that those who have had the privilege of visiting those on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are always humbled by what they see and come back full of admiration, as well as a certain shame that those troops have not been given what they require to do the job. Like...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...reviews were conducted in the shadow of the Cold War and the equipment that was ordered during the Cold War period. Our national outlook now, since 9/11 and with the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, is very different from what it was in 1998 when the last review was conducted. This suggests that a major review is both timely and essential and that no sacred cow should be excluded from...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...France and Germany, ban only some sentenced prisoners. Only Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Russia, like us, continue to ban. It is of note that even China and Iraq, whose human rights records the Government have often condemned, allow their prisoners to vote. That is the logic and the core of my case. Unfortunately, there is a subplot to the delay to...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...disenfranchise all sentenced prisoners, including Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia and Romania. However, it is interesting that two countries with far worse human rights records than those—China and Iraq—both allow prisoners to vote. One thing that has held up the Government from taking the sensible line—this was also reinforced by the European court when the Government appealed against...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...the Cold War had been fought and for which many organisations, including the British Armed Forces, had equipped themselves—while a perfectly satisfactory model for carrying out the invasion of Iraq and the destruction of the Iraqi army, was wholly and utterly unsuitable for the operations that followed. The preface to the manual starts: "When an insurgency began in Iraq in the late...
Lord Ramsbotham: ...is concerned, did not come from this country. It was produced in America and is called Counterinsurgency Operations. It resulted from a direct and in-depth inquiry into what had happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how well the military was prepared for the sort of operations that both entailed. The interesting thing about the composition of that inquiry is that although it was militarily...