| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Donaldson indicated assent.
Mr. Ingram: I see the hon. Gentleman nodding, which is good, as such action will help the inquiry team in its investigation. His sources should give the same evidence and views to Her Majesty's chief inspector during his investigation. It is clearly in the public interest and certainly in the interests of the Prison Service that all relevant information is made available to the inquiry team and to the inspector.
I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's views on the matter of attributing responsibility and accountability for the serious security lapses. I am aware that, in response to public concern, there have been calls for the resignation of Ministers and officials. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already made it clear that resignations or dismissals are not an issue. The causes of the problem to which the hon. Gentleman refers will be clearer when we have the inquiry team's report and the report of Her Majesty's inspector of prisons. It would be wrong to prejudge or to speculate about what will emerge from that inquiry and that inspection; but, I repeat, those reports will be published and I have no doubt the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members will return to the subject at that time.
Let me make it clear that the Government inherited the regime at the Maze. The hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) should reflect on what the Governments he supported did during their 18 years of administration of that prison and on what they bequeathed to the present Government. Before issuing demands for full and independent public inquiries, he should remember that the decision not to publish the Steele report was made by a Conservative Government.
Since May, we have put in place a range of improved security measures. The most recent events have all too graphically highlighted that complacency is not an option and that security needs to be reassessed constantly and changes made where appropriate. The independent inquiry and the inspection to be carried out by Her Majesty's--
Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead):
I thank Madam Speaker for granting me this important Adjournment debate.
It looks like we are building up to another military conflict in the Gulf. It has even been suggested that it will be in a couple of weeks' time, when Ramadan is over, in order to assuage Arab sensitivities.
I am opposed to any renewed war. Can the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett), tell me what the war aim would be this time? Would it be compliance with the United Nations resolutions? While Saddam Hussein stays in power, that compliance would not be worth the paper an agreement was written on. He has little incentive to comply because the United States has publicly stated that sanctions will remain in place--and largely unaltered--while he remains in power. Perhaps the war aim would be to remove Saddam Hussein from power, or even to kill him. How many Iraqis would it be acceptable to kill this time around? President Bush ended the previous war because more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in a turkey shoot, yet the allied armies were nowhere near Baghdad. How many British and US troops could be killed in such an operation? Saddam Hussein might escape anyway.
Perhaps the war aim would be to bomb Baghdad or even to raze it to the ground. As the New York Times has said, the targets would be difficult to choose without assuming enormous civilian casualties. Would it be our intention to occupy Iraq and install a puppet Government? The activities of the IRA would be like a tea party compared with the terrorism that our occupying forces would face in such circumstances. If the Government are travelling along with the Americans towards another war that could kill thousands of Iraqis and some of our people, they should spell out the war aim without blandness or obfuscation.
Richard Butler, the chief UN arms inspector, visited Iraq earlier this week, and said:
Let us consider the composition of the UN inspection teams. One consists of 16 members--nine from the US, five from Britain, one from Russia and one from Australia. Scott Ritter's team, which provoked the current dispute, consists of six Americans and three Britons. On Saturday 17 January, The Guardian reported:
We should remember that those inspections are being carried out in the name of the UN, but I remind the Minister that the US has still not paid its $800 million dues to that organisation. Sanctions are a form of economic warfare which, for ordinary people, can be almost as devastating as the military version. In 1919, US President Woodrow Wilson described sanctions as
On 26 November 1997, UNICEF issued a press release on Iraq, which stated:
1.30 pm
"It is about disarmament. Iraq must comply with the UN."
That is not so. As I have pointed out, the US has issued clear and categorical statements that it will never agree to lifting sanctions while Saddam Hussein is in power. There is, therefore, no incentive for Iraq to comply because the sanctions will not be lifted anyway. It is all about pretexts for further conflict and not about compliance.
"China and France have put forward lists of their own experts to take the place of US and British inspectors."
Can my hon. Friend tell me why that offer has been rejected? The paper also went on to report:
"The Russian defence minister, Igor Sergeyev, offered his country's surveillance aircraft to take the place of American U2 spy-planes, but the offer was turned down yesterday by his US counterpart, William Cohen."
I do not believe that Iraq can insist on a deadline for the completion of weapons inspections, but it is legitimate for it to ask when those teams will complete their work.
Surely the American answer to that is that that work will never be completed while Saddam Hussein is in power. Whether Iraq complies or not makes a marginal difference to the western approach to it. The US will veto or undermine any attempt to ease the sanctions against Iraq.
"a quiet but most lethal weapon that exerts a pressure no nation can withstand."
The sanctions were imposed on Iraq following a devastating war and they are the most draconian and lethal form of economic warfare in modern history. More than a million people have died as a result of sanctions-related problems. Many of those victims have been children and those deaths still occur.
"The most alarming results are those on malnutrition, with 32 per cent. of children under the age of five, some 960,000 children, chronically malnourished--a rise of 72 per cent. since 1991."
Philippe Heffinck, UNICEF's representative in Baghdad, states in that press release:
"What we are seeing is a dramatic deterioration in the nutritional well-being of Iraqi children since 1991. And what concerns us now is that there is no sign of any improvement . . . It is clear that children are bearing the brunt of the current economic hardship. They must be protected from the impact of sanctions. Otherwise, they will continue to suffer, and that we cannot accept."
On 28 November, UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, produced a detailed report on the impact of sanctions. He, too, quoted nutritional surveys that confirmed the high level of malnutrition among children and adults in Iraq. He said that the general level of malnutrition among infants had not improved. He also reported:
"The current food ration . . . and, in particular, its composition fall far short of meeting the nutritional needs of the Iraqi population. This is particularly valid since nutritional security is contingent upon a host of interrelated factors, such as safe water and available medicine, which are grossly inadequate at the moment. The current ration, even if it is distributed completely and in a timely manner, cannot address the chronic malnutrition and energy deficiency in adults. In order to improve the current serious situation, an enhanced ration is required.
The Secretary-General also reports that the supply of drugs is inadequate and says:
In the health sector, United Nations observers regularly report an exceptionally serious deterioration in the health infrastructure: a high infant mortality rate and high rates of morbidity and mortality in general . . . Inputs under the resolution in the health sector will remain of limited impact if other related areas, such as proper treatment of water supply and sewage, electricity, improved quality of food rations and critical environmental problems, are not adequately addressed."
"As for supplies to treat acute respiratory disease and diarrhoea, associated with 50 per cent. of mortality among children under five, deliveries have been grossly insufficient."
He concludes:
"The population of Iraq continues to face a serious nutritional and health situation and there is an urgent need to contain the risk of a further deterioration . . . The slow and erratic pace at which humanitarian inputs arrive in Iraq has been very unsatisfactory."
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley):
My hon. Friend knows that I disagree with him on this issue, although I agree
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |