House of Commons Debates - UK

Queen’s Speech – Wednesday 15th November 2006

Mr. Alex Salmond MP (Banff and Buchan) (SNP):

15 Nov 2006 : Column 79
certainly in charge, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman should address his questions to that particular right hon. Member.
Finally, I want to deal with Iraq. Making the Loyal Address on 20 February 1923, a Mr. Lambert, speaking for the Liberal party, which was not the official Opposition at the time, moved an amendment to the effect that

“we humbly suggest there should be an immediate and drastic curtailment of British responsibilities in Mesopotamia.”

He spoke to his amendment, stating:

“In the last Parliament, thanks to the brilliant oratorical imagery of Mr. Winston Churchill, who conjured up visions of a new millennium, the resurrection of Nebuchadnezzar and the rebuilding of Nineveh, the facts were somewhat obscured. To-day I hope we shall come down from the soaring mists of imagination to solid earth. When an advance was made to Basra in 1914, it was a very proper precaution, and I suggest that it would be unwise if we now evacuated that port. But since then our advance into Mesopotamia has been one of long misfortune, mingled with some momentary and futile triumphs. The Mesopotamian policy throughout has been disastrous strategically and profligate financially.”—[ Official Report, 20 February 1923; Vol. 160, c. 865.]

It should be said that it was less bloody than the current policy in Iraq.

On the subject of the lessons of history, it is clear that the Prime Minister does not have much time for the subject. He is always talking about the future, although as I listened to the Labour conference, I understood that he recognises that he is not the future for long. The lessons of history would have been very useful for the Prime Minister over the last few years. He would have benefited from looking at the lessons from our previous policy in Mesopotamia.

I find it extraordinary that the House should tolerate the position in which a Prime Minister considers it proper to give video evidence to a congressional commission in the United States of America, yet does not think it a requirement of a Prime Minister who has led this country into a disastrous conflict over a period of three years to state his strategy to Parliament or the people. That is truly extraordinary, regardless of the politics of whether people are for or against the war and regardless of a variety of notions about how to extract ourselves from the nightmare. It seems to me that those who have led us into this blood-soaked quagmire have something of a responsibility to tell the rest of us how they intend to extricate us from it.

In common with many hon. Members, I have received many representations on the issue. Today I received a phone call and subsequent e-mail from Dr. Kamal Ketuly, who is chairman of the committee for the release of hostages and detainees in Iraq and who has campaigned since 1980. He suffered grievously under the Saddam regime and opposed it as eloquently as he could both internationally and here in this country at a time when British Governments were rather friendly to that regime. Speaking as a Kurd about the present situation, he says that his views have been “sidelined”. He continues by saying that

“serious mistakes have been made in Iraq which has now led to the establishment of the Iraq study group to try to find a solution for the current escalation of violence and the disintegration of the country.”

Website: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm061115/debindx/61115-x.htm