Ming Campbell recently wrote to party supporters as follows:
Of all the problems that face our country today, the situation in Iraq is the most tragic; not only because of the scale of the catastrophe in that country – food shortages, electricity and oil supplies still below their pre-war levels, and the rise of sectarian violence with 3000 deaths per month – but because this terrible situation could and should have been avoided.
Liberal Democrats opposed the 2003 invasion on principle. It was an illegal war, fought without a proper plan for postwar reconstruction. We also now know that it was launched on a flawed prospectus. Weapons of Mass Destruction – ready to fire within forty minutes of a command – simply did not exist.
Last month Liberal Democrats joined with others to vote in the House of Commons for a motion that would have initiated an investigation into the war in Iraq and its aftermath. Unfortunately the government narrowly defeated that motion.
Three and a half years after the occupation, Iraq is on the verge of civil war, and its population is united only in its hostility to the presence of coalition troops (a Ministry of Defence survey found that eight out of ten strongly opposed their presence). Last month, Sir Richard Dannatt, our most senior soldier said that the presence of British soldiers is making the security situation worse. The difficulties that they are experiencing, and Sir Richard’s comments, are a reminder that in addition to our responsibilities to the Iraqi people, we have an obligation to our armed forces to provide them with a clear strategy and a credible mission.
Our government should heed those words and change its strategy now. I have made this point to Tony Blair in the House of Commons. He has refused to change his position. America is openly debating its strategy, and our Prime Minister is awaiting decisions from Washington. Britain’s foreign policy is once again reliant on America’s, just as it was in Lebanon.
There is another way. We need a phased withdrawal from Iraq – and sooner rather than later. That means taking a number of steps in the immediate future: establishing a UN-led effort to disarm, reintegrating and rebuilding the state, with support from the World bank and international donors; creating a regional contact group to engage Iraq’s neighbours in defusing sectarianism and helping to reconstruct the country; speeding up the training of Iraq’s security forces and depoliticising them; an end to the indefinite detentions by Iraqi and US forces that enrage the population; and full access granted to UN human rights monitors and the Red Cross.
These are the conditions that will allow a phased security transfer and withdrawal of coalition troops in months rather than years – and may be the only hope for securing a peaceful future in Iraq.
Yours sincerely
Ming Campbell
Leader, Liberal Democrats
Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to comment on your statement concerning the ongoing tragedy about the US-UK war for WMD against Iraq. I appreciate your willingness to speak to your constituents and others about your hopes for a withdrawal from the nightmare which is swallowing that country, for the good of the Iraqi people, the region and for our troops who are trapped in that unjust and illegal war.
I am wondering when you will speak as forthrightly about the tragedy of the Palestinian people who endure the 60 yrs of displacement, ethnic cleansing, expulsion, land expropriation, torture, endless detentions for thousands and death for this Occupied people? Do Palestinians not bleed and suffer as Iraqis now suffer?
As an American, Veteran and a Jew I find that political “liberals” who silence/ berate the few who dare to speak out (Jimmy Carter, Chris Davies, Virginia Tilley, Mearsheimer/Walt, etc) delay the inevitable end of that nightmare.
Please do not perpetuate the myths of Israeli “defense” or peace-making whilst condoning vicious ruthlessness against a suffering people who resist that loathesome occupation.
Well said, Miriam.
Message to Miriam: The 3-party system discourages the kind of consensus that Americans so love in their government. That’s why we Brits have a party with the moxy to defy Bush and his war-mongering ilk and Americans do not. The plight of the Palestinians has always figured large in Liberal thinking, at least since I became politically aware in the 60’s.