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6.16 pm
Mr. Michael Colvin (Romsey): I do not wish to repeat what has already been said but, as we are returning to a matter of the utmost seriousness so that we may update ourselves on current events and look towards the future, I should recap on recent events.
The western powers, particularly the United States of America, seriously believed that they could undertake this war without anyone but the enemy getting hurt. That idea has shown through press reports of United States policy, and we cannot agree with it.
It is all very well standing up in the House of Commons to sound off about a war; it is another matter to go to see what is happening. I thank the Minister for the Armed Forces for taking me to Macedonia last week to see what was happening on the ground. It changed my attitude to the war.
We visited our air, sea and land forces, and refugees. For the air forces, we began at Vicenza--COMAIR South--and heard from the American air force general in charge about the air strikes. The general has overall control of implementation of NATO decisions. I was surprised and shocked to hear that it takes 72 hours to achieve agreement within NATO on what strikes are to take place. The main problem lies in the White House. Suggestions from the military go there for approval, and it takes a long time to persuade the American President to agree to what is to be struck. Once decisions are made by the White House, matters move more swiftly; but 72 hours is too long a wait in this sort of war.
The American general made a further point that all of us would support with the benefit of hindsight. Having decided to launch air strikes against Serbia, we should have hit Belgrade far harder earlier in the campaign. The piecemeal air strikes that have taken place, dotted around the country, have not been effective. Had we been far more aggressive and concentrated more on Belgrade at an earlier stage of the war, it would have had a more profound effect, not only on Milosevic but on the civil population.
Another matter that has remained clear is that, although we have air supremacy in this war, the danger of surface-to-air missiles means that many of our aircraft have to fly at high altitudes--flying at 15,000 ft is not what Harrier pilots are trained for or would want to do. The Harrier is a ground-strike bomber and it is preferable to operate it at lower altitudes.
Even though we may have air supremacy, the point is that we have lost the initiative in the war. I say that we have lost it, but I do not think that we ever had it. From day 1 until now, the initiative has been in the hands of Mr. Milosevic. Only by re-establishing the initiative will we have any chance of success.
We then moved to Ancona and talked to our Harrier pilots. Morale is good, notwithstanding some of the difficulties with the airborne warning and communication system at the moment. We ended up at Isole del Colle in the south, where we talked to some of the American pilots and the people responsible for reporting on the weather. In general, morale within our air forces is very good indeed. They believe that they are doing a good and effective job.
As for sea forces, we visited HMS Invincible and HMS Newcastle. I was surprised to find that 10 per cent. of the crew of Invincible is now female. As the then Minister of State for the Armed Forces, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Sir A. Hamilton), said when announcing that women would serve at sea,
the senior service really has risen to the occasion. The crews were performing magnificently and there is no doubt that women make a very effective contribution to crews in the Royal Navy at sea.
Both HMS Invincible and HMS Newcastle were happy ships, although the crews are getting slightly bored with steaming in circles. They know precisely what they are there to do and they are doing it effectively.
Mr. Blunt:
Will my hon. Friend explain exactly what the Invincible is doing in the Adriatic? Surely, more effective air bases are to be found in Italy. Why have a small aircraft carrier that is carrying aircraft that are not as capable as those based in Italy?
Mr. Colvin:
It is true to say that Italy is an unsinkable aircraft carrier, while Invincible is most definitely sinkable. None the less, Invincible is mobile and it is there to provide support. The Harrier aircraft on board are in a position to give ground support to our troops when ground troops are deployed in this operation.
We then visited our land forces in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, where about 4,000 British troops are deployed. We spoke to the commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, General Sir Michael Jackson. We heard today that 2,300 more troops are on standby to join them. That is still nothing like enough to fulfil the role that they will be required to perform if they have to enforce or implement a peace agreement.
Interestingly, the briefing that we received frequently used the words "enforcement" and "implementation". We did not hear them used much earlier. Let us suppose that Milosevic ran up the white flag and said, "Yes. Fine. I'll agree to everything that has been suggested. The Rambouillet proposal is OK. In you come." About 45,000 troops would be required on the ground, which is almost double what is there. Therefore, we must be in a position to deploy troops rapidly to make up the number of forces that would be required for that purposes.
That raises a serious question, which no one has answered, although we have heard a number of suggestions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley) said that the end game will be the partition of Serbia and an independent Kosovo because that is what people have been fighting for. My visit to Macedonia confirmed to me that that is not the end game. That would be an absolute disaster. The point is that 90 per cent. of Kosovo is Albanian. If we partitioned Serbia and gave Kosovo its independence, it would merely lead to moves by Albania to create a greater Albania. The Albanians would immediately look towards Montenegro and say that part of that country is Albanian so they should have that too. In turn, they would say that 25 per cent. of Macedonia is Albanian and that that should come into a greater Albania.
I do not think that we quite realise what hostile people the Albanians can be. They have nothing to lose by going on the offensive if we partition Serbia. That would also leave the problem of the Serbian holy places in Kosovo. I am afraid that this wretched Battlefield of the Blackbirds, or whatever it is called, is a problem with which we must be prepared to live.
As far as I can see, a partition of Serbia is out, which means that it will have to be a protectorate. Therein lies a serious difficulty. If our troops go in to implement a
peace agreement, the protection force will have to be strong. The force will not be fighting Serb soldiers, although they are dug in across the only route in from Macedonia at present. We will be fighting the KLA. Instead of shooting at the Serbs as the KLA is at present, it will be shooting at British and NATO soldiers who are there to deny it the independence for which it has been fighting for so long. I am afraid that the western powers must sort that problem out. The Government's view of the final solution for Kosovo is not yet clear to me.
In our discussions with the Macedonian Defence Minister, he simply said, "This is not Macedonia's war." Macedonia is terrified that it will be drawn into the war. At the moment, its economy is in turmoil and it has lost all its markets, which are to the north in Serbia. That has a knock-on effect on the Greeks, who cannot sell their goods and produce into Europe--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman's time is up. I call the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone).
Mr. Ken Livingstone (Brent, East):
My apologies for missing the opening speeches, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I was on a train that was delayed for more than an hour outside Brighton.
In the past few weeks, the emphasis has been on accidents. I have listened to the accounts and shared the horror that we all feel when a bomb hits the wrong target. However, I think that the British people have a more realistic assessment of the nature of war than many of the critics of those actions in the United States of America, who sometimes seem to think that one can have a war in which there are no casualties, in particular no American casualties.
I was born in 1945 and I grew up listening to the stories of my parents and my friends' parents. They had all been through the war and experienced accidents. The accidents that are happening now are not new or unique. Everyone who went through world war two had horror stories to tell of mistakes and so forth, which often, tragically, cost lives. Nothing is new.
One hears the constant refrain that the bombing will not work. I remind the House that many hon. Members, including me, took the view that bombing would not be decisive in Iraq. We were wildly wrong. The bombing broke the will of the Iraqi republican guard. All the talk of the mother of all battles and of hundreds of thousands of allied forces dead turned out to be completely untrue.
6.27 pm
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