parliament | ukwatch.net

The Day I Bombed the House of Commons

Ellie Keen — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:26:45 +0000

The security of the House of Commons in London was breached again on Wednesday in a spectacular manner by the environmental protest group Plane Stupid, who scaled the roof of the parliament building and unfurled banners proclaiming "NO THIRD RUNWAY’. They were protesting about plans to build a third runway and sixth terminal at London’s Heathrow Airport, already the world’s busiest international airport. Earlier in the week a team of Greenpeace activists penetrated the security of the airport itself and draped a banner around the tail fin of an aircraft.

Of the Parliament roof protest, a spokesman for Plane Stupid said: "This is all about no third runway. The direct action movement knows we have got to take these protests to another level to get the government to listen."

Good luck to them, and it’s interesting to see that despite all the intense tightening of security in Britain today that it is still possible to pull off such a spectacular non-violent stunt.

It reminded me of a day back in the early 1980’s when I went to bomb the House of Commons.

Chaining my bicycle to the railings of Saint Mary’s Church, I crossed the road to join the queue waiting to gain admittance to the Houses of Parliament. It was long. I cursed myself for not getting there earlier. Perhaps the gallery would be too packed.

I might have known that the debate in progress would have attracted a big crowd.

It was an important sitting – a discussion on the American bombing of Libya, which would result in either the support or condemnation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for allowing US bombers to take off from American bases in Britain to carry out a raid on Libya.

I joined the end of the line and began to wait as patiently as possible, erasing thoughts of what I was about to do as they came into my head. It was no good thinking about it—or what they would do with me afterwards. I must just do it. A totally premeditated act – and I was the agent to carry it out.

Besides, if I worried too much about it I might get nervous and arouse suspicion by my expression. There were plenty of police around, shepherding groups in through the portals and patrolling the queue with watchful eyes.

Assuming the innocent mien of a mere tourist eager to see a sitting of Parliament in progress, I began a vacuous chat with a young English couple ahead of me. They’d been promising themselves a visit to the Houses of Parliament for a long time, they said, but found it unfortunate that they’d chosen this particular day for it.

The brown suit and tie I wore added to the innocuous image I had assumed. The bombs were in a cigarette packet in my inner breast pocket.

To strengthen my resolve to commit the deed—just in case I should chicken out at the last moment – I began to think of the events that had brought me there, standing in line, waiting to bomb the House of Commons.

A few days earlier I had woken up, turned on my bedside radio, and been angered by the news I heard.

While I was sleeping, American planes had taken off from bases in England, flown half-way across the world, and bombed the city of Tripoli, with the full knowledge and permission of the British Prime Minister.

Civilian areas had been hit, including a hospital, and many people had been killed and injured – Colonel Gadaffi’s adopted daughter among the casualties.

As I listened to the new all morning torpor had vanished in a flash, and I lay there burning with anger at the outrage and hypocrisy – a blatant terrorist act against innocent civilians – sanctioned by a government which loudly decried the terrorism of others.

Jumping out of bed, I pulled on my clothes and cycled across town to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

The police had already erected barricades along the pavement, and I took my place with a small handful of people who had already arrived. The crowd grew throughout the day and there were chants and shouts, but it wasn’t enough to cause more than an inconvenience to the staff and visitors who entered and left the embassy building.

One pretty young secretary, who flaunted out on her lunch break, disdainfully ignoring the demonstrators, had her blonde hair parted in the middle, one side falling down in a curvy wave over one eye.

"Oh look! It’s Veronica Lake!" I shouted. She suddenly stopped, turned and smiled—her secret identity recognized, but then frowned and flounced off away from these agitating enemies of America.

It didn’t seem enough to stand bawling insults from behind the barriers at embassy clerks, none of whom had had any say in the atrocity. There had to be a more explicit, more dramatic gesture of protest.

A couple of days later, when it was announced that Parliament was to hold a special debate on the bombing, the idea came to me.

I passed through the newly erected metal detector at the entrance to the House of Commons quite easily. The body-search by the copper revealed just a half empty packet of cigarettes. (Although he looked in the packet, he didn’t see the bombs, which were small and hidden underneath.)

Going upstairs to the Visitors Gallery, the young couple I’d befriended "oohed and ahhed" at the statues and murals that decorate the interior of the building.

Ushered into our seats along with the other visitors in the packed gallery, we gazed down at the chamber below where the politicians who ruled our country and made the decisions for us were (mostly) congratulating themselves and justifying the strike by the American warplanes. Mrs. Thatcher had vindicated herself and left a little earlier, unfortunately. I would have particularly liked her to have been there to witness my own particular revenge attack.

One old right-wing fart was on his feet waffling on about how the British Army should have stepped in to restore the King of Libya when he was deposed in the 1969 coup. I decided to waste no time. Reaching into my pocket I took out the cigarette packet, extracted the three bombs and threw them with all my might over balustrade into the chamber of politicians below, then sat back as if nothing at happened.

Almost immediately an usher strode down the aisle to our row; and mistaking the young couple for the perpetrators, gestured at them to follow him. Shocked and dumbstruck, they pointed at me, and the usher ordered me to come out.

I stalled, saying I was listening to the proceedings, but a threatening policeman appeared by the usher’s side, and I decided to go without more ado. I had done what I came for.

All heads in the packed gallery turned and stared as I was led away. Just as we exited, I had the pleasure of smelling a very nasty aroma wafting up from the floor of the Speaker’s Chamber.

"Why did you do it?", the copper asked. "I suppose you just wanted to cause a stink, right?" He escorted me to a room full of officers who wanted to know if I was a terrorist, but they soon realized I wasn’t dangerous.

I was informed that due to the recently laid carpet on the chamber floor, only one of my bombs had exploded, but that if any of the politicians had been hit by a missile, or their suits stained by the liquid, I should be prepared to face charges.

I was taken away and had the privilege of being held in the only tiny cell in the House of Commons for several hours while they decided what to do with me. A previous occupant, obviously another protester with a cause, had secretly stuck a ‘SUPPORT THE MINERS STRIKE!’ sticker on the inner doorframe, so undetected by the cops.

I was bored, but not particularly worried; because I was sure no charges would be brought against me. The embarrassment of the government at the defence of my action in court would have been too great—my own little stink-bombs an answer to their real ones, a protest at their unprovoked murder of innocent civilians in a foreign country.

I was released after midnight, when the sitting had finished and the politicians gone home, and officially informed by an officer that I was henceforth banned from visiting the House of Commons.

"So you won’t be back for a while?" enquired the copper who escorted me out of the building.

"Not until I return as President." I replied.

"D’you mean it?" he asked gravely.

I walked across the road, unchained my bike from the railings, and cycled away in the dark.

When I got home my flat mates asked why I was so late, and I told them.

"Whaat? Was that you?"

My bombing mission had been briefly mentioned on the ten o’clock TV news.

And this appeared in one of the national papers next day –

Police detained a man after two stink bombs were thrown from the public gallery of the Commons on to the floor of the chamber during the debate, despite tightened security at Westminster.

Michael Dickinson, whose artwork graces the covers of Dime’s Worth of Difference, Serpents in the Garden and Grand Theft Pentagon, lives in Istanbul. He can be contacted via his website http://yabanji.tripod.com/ or at: michaelyabanji@gmail.com

Plane Stupid Protest

The Staff — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:02:51 +0000

Richard George, co-founder of Plane Stupid, dictated the following statement from the roof of the Houses of Parliament

“We’ve come to this symbolic home of democracy to make clear that the consultation process of the third runway at Heathrow has, from the beginning, been a sham. We’re making paper airplanes out of documents that Greenpeace obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Department for Transport, which proved that the British Airports Authority wrote sections of the consultation and that there has been a BAA official within the consultation committee pushing their forward their agenda – at the expense of the 70% of Londoners who don’t want the runway.

We’re taking direct action as a last resort because we don’t believe that the consultation has been a democratic process. This is the beginning of a campaign of direct action that will not cease until we feel we’re being listened to and until we’re satisfied that it’s Londoners’ views, rather than BAA’s, that the government paying attention to.”

Democracy Now: Our Prerogative

Ellie Keen — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:28:49 +0000

New Labour governments long ago abandoned the early promise of an ‘ethical’ foreign policy, but it is not forgotten by the public. An ICM opinion poll a year ago found that they believe overwhelmingly in the elements of an ‘ethical’ foreign policy, and that they want it to be democratic.

People were adamant that parliament as a whole – not the prime minister, his ministers and cronies – should decide international policies. There was a huge majority against arms sales to countries that violate human rights; another wanted the UK to press hard within the EU for trading practices that are fairer to developing countries. Two thirds wanted Britain to be more independent of the US, even if that meant being critical in public.

What’s happened in that year to meet what people want? Not much. Gordon Brown is essentially following the policies of his predecessor. So the UK continues to be actively engaged in the occupation of Iraq, colludes in Bush’s unwavering support for Israel and fails with EU allies to create a new approach to Iran. And while the government refuses to withdraw from Iraq and hold an inquiry, there is no prospect of regaining respect and influence for good in the global South.

It is vital that the royal prerogative, which gives Brown and his ministers the power to act independently of parliament, is reformed so that the people’s representatives in parliament can share fully in making foreign policies on war, treaties, development aid and trade, and so begin the process of making Britain’s role in world affairs subject to popular opinion. But MPs are as much responsible for the undemocratic nature of foreign policy as governments. They are rarely prepared to challenge government, do not demand the resources they would need to do so, and fail even to devote to the task the two under-used resources that they possess – namely, themselves and their time.

We have been working at Democratic Audit to analyse parliament’s failure to exert oversight or influence. We found that MPs are too ready to accept that they are incapable of influencing policy on major issues or even keeping the broad sweep of policy under scrutiny. We also found that the idea that they are good at the detail of policy and can have influence at this level is illusory. In the last parliamentary session, the military high command and a growing majority of the public wanted the government to withdraw from Iraq, but still some 90 British troops there and in Afghanistan were killed and about 120 injured. The government agreed the new EU reform treaty while contemptuously refusing to engage in any dialogue with parliament about its objectives or negotiating position. The foreign affairs committee failed to get the government to end its silence over the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the light of mounting evidence about the indiscriminate Israeli use of cluster munitions.

We had hoped, however, that we would be able to point to ‘successes’ at a more detailed level. We found just two issues where MPs did make a difference.

First, the foreign affairs committee mounted a tenacious campaign to persuade the government to abandon its use of cluster munitions and to reverse its refusal to back an international ban on their use. The committee’s MPs won a partial success, encouraging the government to back the treaty to outlaw their use and end the use by British forces of ‘dumb’ cluster munitions. However, there are as yet no plans to work to outlaw ‘smart’ cluster munitions: they remain in service with the UK armed forces, and there is plenty of doubt about their ability to disarm themselves.

Second, in the case of Britain’s complicity in the ‘extraordinary rendition’ by the CIA, MPs failed to make the government ‘come clean’ on its collusion in the US’s illegal policies. The most that can be said is that they made government ministers uncomfortably aware that they were at least under scrutiny.

In both these cases, pressure groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch played a significant part in informing MPs and their committees and keeping up the pressure. Here, at least, people who are concerned to ensure that Britain plays an ethical role in foreign affairs, and does not spread death, injury and misery through its own actions can join in exerting pressure on Gordon Brown and his government.

How Britain became party to a crime that may have killed a million people

JamieSW — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 05:20:41 +0000

If you doubt that Britain needs a written constitution, listen to the strangely unbalanced discussion broadcast by the BBC on Friday. The Today programme asked Lord Guthrie, formerly chief of the defence staff, and Sir Kevin Tebbit, until recently the senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, if parliament should decide whether or not this country goes to war. The discussion was a terrifying exposure of the privileges of unaccountable power. It explained as well as anything I have heard how Britain became party to a crime that might have killed a million people.

Lord Guthrie argued that parliamentary approval would mean that intelligence had to be shared with MPs; that the other side could not be taken by surprise (”do you want to warn the enemy you are going to do it?”), and that commanders should have “a choice about when to attack and when not to attack”. Sir Kevin maintained that “no prime minister would be able to deploy forces without being able to command a parliamentary majority. In that sense the executive is already accountable to parliament.” Once the prime minister has his majority, in other words, MPs become redundant.

Let me dwell for a moment on what Lord Guthrie said, for he appears to be advocating that we retain the right to commit war crimes. States in dispute with each other, the UN Charter says, must first seek to solve their differences by “peaceful means”(article 33)(1). If these fail, they should refer the matter to the Security Council (#37), which decides what measures should be taken (#39). Taking the enemy by surprise is a useful tactic in battle, and encounters can be won only if commanders are able to make decisions quickly. But either Lord Guthrie does not understand the difference between a battle and a war – which is unlikely in view of his 44 years of service(2) – or he does not understand the most basic point in international law. Launching a surprise war is forbidden by the charter.

It has become fashionable to scoff at these rules and to dismiss those who support them as pedants and prigs, but they are all that stand between us and the greatest crimes in history. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg ruled that “to initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime”(3). the tribunal’s charter placed “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression”(4) at the top of the list of war crimes.

If Britain’s most prominent retired general does not understand this, it can only be because he has never been forced to understand it. In September 2002, he argued in the House of Lords that “the time is approaching when we may have to join the United States in operations against Iraq. …Strike soon, and the threat will be less and easier to handle. If the United Nations route fails, I support the second option.”(5) No one in the chamber warned him that he was proposing the supreme international crime. In another debate in the Lords, Guthrie argued that it was “unthinkable for British service men and women to be sent to the International Criminal Court”, regardless of what they might have done(6). He demanded a guarantee from the government that this would not be allowed to happen, and proposed that the British armed forces should be allowed to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights. The grey heads murmured their agreement.

Perhaps it is unfair to single out the noble and gallant lord. The exceptionalism of the British establishment is almost universal. According to the government, both the Commons public administration committee and the Lords constitution committee recognise that decision-making should “provide sufficient flexibility for deployments which need to be made without prior parliamentary approval for reasons of urgency or necessary operational secrecy.”(7) You cannot keep an operation secret from parliament unless you are also keeping it secret from the UN.

Sir Kevin appears to have a general aversion to disclosure. In 2003 the Guardian obtained letters showing that he had prevented the fraud squad at the ministry of defence from investigating allegations of corruption against the arms manufacturer BAE, that he tipped off the chairman of BAE about the contents of a confidential letter the Serious Fraud Office had sent him and that he failed to tell his minister about the fraud office’s warnings(8). In October 2003, under intense cross-examination during the Hutton inquiry into the death of the government scientist David Kelly, he revealed that the decision to name Dr Kelly was made in a “meeting chaired by the Prime Minister.”(9) That could have been the end of Blair, but a week later Sir Kevin quietly sent Lord Hutton a written retraction of his evidence(10). No one bothered to tell parliament or the press; the retraction was made public only when the Hutton report was published, three months later(11). Blair knew all along, and the secret gave him a crushing advantage(12).

The discussion also reveals that Guthrie and Tebbit appear to have learnt nothing from the disaster in Iraq. They are not alone. Soon before he stepped down last year, Tony Blair wrote an article for the Economist called What I’ve Learned(13). He had discovered, he claimed, that his critics were both wrong and dangerous and that his decisions, based on “freedom, democracy, responsibility to others, but also justice and fairness” were difficult but invariably right. He called his article “a very short synopsis of what I have learned”. I could think of an even shorter one.

We have yet to hear one word of regret or remorse from any of the major architects – Blair, Brown, Straw, Hoon, Campbell and their principal advisers – of Britain’s participation in the supreme international crime. The press and parliament appear to have heeded Blair’s plea that we all “move on” from Iraq. The British establishment has a unique capacity to move on, and then to repeat its mistakes. What other former empire knows so little of its own atrocities?

When people call our unwritten constitution a “gentleman’s agreement”, they reveal more than they intend. It allows the unelected gentlemen who advise the prime minister to act without reference to the proles. Britain went to war in Iraq because the public and parliament were not allowed to know when the decision was made, what the intelligence reports really said, and what the attorney-general wrote about the legality of an invasion. Had the truth not been suppressed, our armed forces could never have attacked Iraq.

Real constitutional reform requires much more than the timid proposals in the green paper on the governance of Britain, which are likely to appear in a new bill in a few weeks’ time. Yes, parliament should be allowed to vote on whether to go to war, yes the Royal Prerogative should be rolled back. But the prime minister, his diplomats, civil servants and generals would still decide which wars parliament needs to know about, which crimes could be secretly committed in our name. Real constitutional reform means not only handing power to parliament; it also means confronting the power of the cold, unaccountable people who act as if it is their birthright.

References:

1. http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/

2. Lord Guthrie, 24th March 2004. House of Lords debates, Column 731.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldhansrd/vo040324/text…

3. Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, 9th November 2004. Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904A.shtml

4. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Nuremberg Trial Proceedings. Vol. 1:
Charter of the International Military Tribunal.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/imtconst.htm#art6

5. Lord Guthrie, 24th September 2002. House of Lords debate, Column 896.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200102/ldhansrd/vo020924/text…

6. Lord Guthrie, 14th July 2005. House of Lords debate, Column 1234. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldhansrd/vo050714/text…

7. Home Office, July 2007. The Governance of Britain. Green paper. Para 28, p19. http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm71/7170/7170.pdf

8. David Leigh and Rob Evans, 13th October 2003. MoD chief in fraud cover-up row. The Guardian.

9. Sir Kevin Tebbit, 13th October 2003. Hearing Transcript, The Hutton Enquiry,
para 57. http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/transcripts/hearing-trans47…

10. Richard Norton-Taylor and Owen Bowcott, 2nd February 2004. Tebbit’s late change put Blair in clear. The Guardian.

11. ibid.

12. John Kampfner, 2004. Blair’s Wars. pp350 and 364. Free Press, London.

13. Tony Blair, 31st May 2007. What I’ve learned. The Economist. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9257593

UK Operations in Iraq

JamieSW — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:09:38 +0000

Editor’s note: In September 2007, Dr. Eric Herring (senior lecturer in International Politics at the University of Bristol) submitted this written evidence concerning British operations in Iraq to the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence.

Emphasis in original.

===========

Executive Summary

In nearly all of the provinces which have been under formal British control, there is clear overall support for the invasion. However, most of the population expect security to improve following a withdrawal of Coalition forces and most think that the US military surge begun in January 2007 has made security worse. The UK has sought to play three roles in relation to Iraq – persuading the US of its views, acting as a broker between the US and other international actors and implementing its own policies independently of the US in southern Iraq – but has failed in all three. With the US making all the key decisions on the state building project, UK armed forces have engaged in what could only be intermittent and intermittently productive operations. In specific times and places, UK forces will carry out positive security tasks for the local population. However, this is insufficient reason for them to remain when the population mostly think they are making the situation worse and want them to leave.

The UK should not support US efforts to strengthen the existing Iraqi Government by armed force and training of security force. As Iraq has no coherent government, and as the lines between the state, insurgents, militias and mafias are blurred, there can be no confidence that training of Iraqi security forces is actually a contribution to strengthening the state. It is just as likely – indeed, often more likely – to result in the strengthening groups which will pursue their own interests, stand in the way of strengthening the Iraqi state and turn on Coalition forces when it suits them. The UK should not support the ethno-sectarian partition of Iraq because it is overwhelmingly opposed by Iraqi public opinion; federalist sentiment in Iraq is divided over the specifics and mostly not ethno-sectarian; and the Iraqi constitution sets out the process of federalisation as one to be decided by Iraqis voting in referenda. Nor should UK forces be kept in Iraq because the US wants them to stay for symbolic purposes or to protect its supply lines. The US role in Iraq is neither legitimate nor prudent and hence not worthy of British support.

Instead, the UK should end its combat role in Iraq. No-one can be sure whether the humanitarian and political situation will become worse or better for Iraqis should Coalition forces leave. But the assessment of most Iraqis is that it would improve, and hence withdrawal would not be ‘cutting and running’ – it would be compliance with clearly expressed Iraqi preferences.

The UK should also promote international and regional diplomacy aimed at making economic, political and non-combat security assistance contingent on acceptance of negotiations and political reconciliation among insurgents, militias and the factions that make up the Iraqi Government.

Introduction

This evidence derives from my academic research on Western policy on Iraq over the last seven years or so based on open source documents and interviews in Iraq (2002), the US and UK. My most recent book Iraq in Fragments: The Occupation and its Legacy published in November 2006 by Hurst and Cornell University Press was co-authored with Dr. Glen Rangwala (Cambridge): ‘first-rate … a compelling account – the clearest yet available of the “new Iraq”’ (Prof. Charles Tripp, author of A History of Iraq), ‘an admirably sober and powerful analysis … a must read‘ (Prof. Tareq Ismael, editor International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies) and ‘serious and persuasive … Splendidly researched … required reading’ (Prof. Jeffrey Record, USAF Air War College). I was specialist adviser to the Select Committee on Economic Affairs of the House of Lords for its inquiry into economic sanctions in 2006-07. My current research is on the political economy of peacebuilding in Iraq and I recently addressed the Royal United Services Institute in London on British counter-insurgency in Iraq.

Why the invasion was wrong – and why it has mattered for UK operations in Iraq

Perceptions of illegitimate, illegal and unilateral action matter in terms of undermining the willingness of international actors and the local population to accept the invasion and occupation. The window of opportunity for acceptance of the occupation by much of Iraqi opinion was brief. Only a massively resourced effort which transferred power rapidly to Iraqis would have had any chance of success, and that would have been a huge gamble. Instead, the US embarked on a violent but under-resourced attempt to retain power until the ‘right’ institutions and economy were imposed and until the ‘right’ Iraqis looked like they might be elected. This has been doomed from the outset and has been the essential determinant of the failure of UK operations in Iraq.

Did Britain and the US have the legal right to do what they did? No. The invasion was not and would not have been authorised by the UN under international law. That is why they did not go back to the Security Council for a resolution authorising war, having ensured the passage of earlier resolutions by insisting that the US and UK would not treat them as authorisations for war.

Did Britain and the US have the moral right to do what they did? No. First, this was a war launched with a mixture of deception and self-deception. If a society is to go to war democratically it must at least be on the basis of the facts presented and debated honestly and accurately. Second, starting a war has potentially huge and potentially uncontrollable consequences – the first of these creates an obligation to prepare for the aftermath (an obligation not taken seriously) and the second creates a presumption against gambling with lives and property through war, requiring compelling evidence of necessity (another obligation not met).

The US and British Governments have been propagating the myth that the invasion was based on an intelligence failure – that the expectation was that WMD would be found after the invasion. Some of those who favoured the invasion were persuaded themselves that WMD would be found, but this self-deception was despite, not because of, the intelligence. For example, Carne Ross, who was the First Secretary in charge of Iraq policy at the UK Mission to the UN between 1997 and mid-2002, has said regarding that period:

It was emphatically our view, and that was based on very careful consideration of the intelligence evidence and the evidence that was gained from inspectors in UNSCOM and later UNMOVIC, that Iraq was not in any substantial way rearming with its weapons of mass destruction …

Others such as Scott Ritter, chief UN weapons inspector between 1991 and 1998, made that point repeatedly and publicly before the invasion. It is easy to forget now that there were no finds of WMD or WMD production programmes in Iraq from 1992 onwards because the Iraqis had destroyed them in 1991 and possibly also early 1992.

The best and most common defence of the invasion is that getting rid of Saddam Hussein’s regime (and economic sanctions) made the current mess worthwhile on balance. However, while a majority of Iraqis polled used to be in favour of the invasion, Iraqi majority opinion is now against the invasion, and increasingly strongly so. In the BBC poll in March 2007, 47% of Iraqis said the invasion was right and 53% said it was wrong. In the BBC’s August 2007 poll, 37% said it was right (12% absolutely right) and 63% said it was wrong (35% absolutely wrong). Furthermore, it is no coincidence that those areas which were not actually invaded and occupied (the mainly Kurdish north east) have been most in favour of the occupation, while those areas which have suffered the brunt of US use of force (the mainly Sunni Arab centre) have been most opposed to it. And the around 2 million who have fled the country as refugees, the further 2 million displaced and of course the hundreds of thousands of dead will not have featured in the polls. When these factors are taken into consideration, even these negative polls must be regarded as flattering to the occupation.

The most damning aspect of the polls for the occupiers is that, among those in the sector of the population – the Sunni Arab one – that has experienced the occupation most directly, opposition has been consistent and almost total. For example, in the August 2007 BBC poll, 97% of Sunni Arabs thought the invasion was wrong (70% absolutely wrong), 93% thought attacks on Coalition forces were acceptable, 95% thought Coalition forces were making security worse and 72% wanted them to leave now. These figures refute the Coalition claim that it is protecting Sunni Arab Iraqis from terrorists. Instead, according to the population, the US is illegitimately imposing its presence.

UK forces currently remain in Basra at the airport.They have withdrawn from their bases in Muthanna, Dhi Qar and Maysan provinces but were engaged in combat as recently as June 2007 in the vicinity of Amarah, the capital of Maysan, which resulted in over 100 Iraqi deaths. In nearly all of the provinces which have been under formal British control, there is clear overall support for the invasion. In the ORB poll in February 2007, 70%, 90%, 90% and 49% respectively by province thought themselves better off now, almost no-one thought themselves better off under the previous regime, while 22%, 4%, 5% and 39% thought the two were as bad as each other. However, most of the population expect security to improve following a withdrawal of Coalition forces (60%, 74%, 70%, and 91%). In Basra, 40% expect security to get a great deal better following the withdrawal of Coalition forces and only 5% think it will get a great deal worse. While polling did not generally distinguish between British and US forces, in a Ministry of Defence poll in August 2005, support for attacks on Coalition forces was 25% in Basra and 65% in Maysan province.

It is not the case that support for attacks on Coalition forces is restricted to Sunni Arabs. Many Shi‘a think that such attacks are acceptable (e.g. 61% in September 2006 and 50% in August 2007) and even around 15% of Kurds supported them in September 2006.

Iraqis have been divided on whether Coalition forces should leave immediately, when security is restored or when Iraqi security forces are stronger. However, the preference for immediate withdrawal has climbed steadily to 47% in August 2007, and there was majority opinion poll support in 2006 among Kurds and Shi‘a as well as Sunni Arabs for withdrawal after six months to two years. As far as most Iraqis are concerned, the US military surge begun in January 2007 has made security worse. 72% (more than ever) in August 2007 thought Coalition forces were making security worse, and 61% thought security had become worse in the country as a whole in the preceding six months.

It is true that the Iraqi Government wishes Coalition forces to stay, but that government only survives because of those forces, and its legitimacy is overwhelmingly rejected by the mainly Sunni Arab areas in particular that are on the receiving end of the use of force by the United States. The Iraqi Government is elected, but a dictatorship of the majority is counter to the principles of liberal democracy which require that the interests and views of minorities are taken into account. The Sunni Arab population tried boycott and then voting to have its voice heard, and neither worked. Not surprisingly, 86% of Sunni Arabs polled in September 2006 said that they regarded the current Iraqi Government as illegitimate.

Brig. Gavin Bulloch, retd. is currently rewriting UK counter-insurgency doctrine for publication at the end of 2007. In a presentation on 21 September 2007 to a conference held in the Royal United Services Institute, Brig. Bulloch announced that the new doctrine would for the first time include the notion of popular consent as a requirement. This is a development to be welcomed. It contrasts strongly with US Army counter-guerilla doctrine adopted in 2004, which states:

Commanders must be prepared to operate in a broad range of political atmospheres. The host country’s form of government may be anything from an absolute, and not too benevolent, dictatorship to a democracy struggling to establish itself, or anything in between. … No matter what political atmosphere prevails in the host country, the brigade commander must engage the guerrilla with every asset at the commander’s disposal. He must realize that democratic principles may not be immediately applicable. However, he should act within the limits of his authority to improve the circumstances of the government he was sent to support.

British doctrine is, fortunately, moving in a direction that is incompatible with this US requirement.

UK operations in Iraq have been undermined fatally at the political-strategic level

Counter-insurgency doctrine and practice have two elements – legitimation and coercion. Legitimation is often termed ‘hearts and minds’, and the latter has a practical function (providing guidance on what to do), an ideological function (obscuring counter-insurgency’s coercive dark side in which a polity is being imposed violently on an unwilling population) and a self-deceiving function (reassuring those engaged in coercion that they are legitimate because what they would ‘really’ prefer to do is win hearts and minds but are being forced by their opponents to act coercively).

Despite the widespread approbation in Western policy circles at the end of 2006 regarding the appointment of counter-insurgency expert Gen. David Petraeus to lead Coalition forces and the adoption by the US military of its new counter-insurgency doctrine, the US strategy since the beginning of the surge has been based primarily on coercion – for example, aerial bombardment and detention have been at record levels. Subjecting around 25,000 to internment with entirely inadequate due process is wrong and will have the net effect of deepening the Coalition’s unpopularity. The same can be said of US air strikes which receive little attention outside Iraq. In the first half of 2007, the US Air Force dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq, triple what it dropped in the second half of 2006 and five times the total for the first half of 2006.

The US state building project has lurched repeatedly in different directions, and British political and military operations in Iraq have been deeply affected by those lurches. The original US intention was rapid elections so that Iraqis would install pro-US exiles who would inherit functioning governmental institutions. When the exiles proved incapable and unpopular and governmental institutions collapsed or were abolished by the US, the new model was direct US rule for as long as it took to install an ideal neoconservative state. When that dream evaporated, the US sought rapid formal handover to the alliance of Kurdish paramilitary leaders and Shi‘a fundamentalists who dominated the elections. And now the US is floundering in its efforts to bring about some kind of compromise that will incorporate Sunni Arabs and protect what it sees as US strategic interests.

The UK has sought to play three roles in relation to Iraq – persuading the US of its views, acting as a broker between the US and other international actors and implementing its own policies independently of the US in southern Iraq – but has failed in all three. With the US making all the key decisions on the state building project, UK armed forces have engaged in what could only be intermittent and intermittently productive operations. The UK military presence in Iraq has been tiny and under-resourced, and the UK political mission in Iraq to which it is meant to be subordinated has been even tinier. There has also been persistent incoherence and lack of integration, with little guidance from London or Baghdad or even neighbouring provinces. In continual fear of being over-run, the priority has been to avoid antagonising excessively existing or rising armed local political actors. UK forces have made reconstruction, anti-militia and anti-corruption efforts such as Operation Sinbad which ran from late 2006 to early 2007. However, this should not obscure the fact that they have tended to be (often uncomprehending) spectators, occasional protagonists and only rarely the centre of power and legitimacy. Their position was notably jeopardised by the ill-conceived and half-hearted US actions such as its offensive against the Mahdi Army in the Spring of 2004.

Counter-insurgency usually implies a coherent state that is being protected from overthrow by a clearly separate armed group. In the case of Iraq, the line between the state, insurgents, militias and mafias is blurred. Iraq is a fragmented state in the sense of there being no agreed overall political authority and no means of resolving disputes over its location. There is fragmentation between and within regions, classes, religious sects, ethnicities, government ministries, tribes and political parties. Ethno-sectarian fragmentation into Kurds, Shi‘a and Sunni Arabs is only one axis of fragmentation and often not the most important one. The Iraqi Government will not move decisively against militias in general because it is largely rooted in them. The Iraqi Government is not a coherent actor and the line between it and those it is supposedly fighting is blurred, with (for example) Sadrists in and out of government posts. This is even more the case with the state as a whole, most obviously in the case of the security forces which are permeated with embedded insurgents – people taking the pay, training, intelligence and resources of the state security forces but using them against the Coalition and the Iraqi state. It is also the case with supposedly Iraqi but actually almost purely Kurdish or Shi‘a Arab units deployed in Sunni Arab areas. This practice generates and exacerbates ethno-sectarian tensions rather than protects Iraqis from insurgents and militias. It seems that a significant proportion of Kurdish troops speak little or even no Arabic, which can only contribute to inter-communal alienation.

What’s left for the UK to do in Iraq?

The UK should not support US efforts to strengthen the existing Iraqi Government by armed force and training of security forces, and should not support ethno-sectarian partition. Nor should UK forces be kept in Iraq because the US wants them to stay for symbolic purposes or to protect its supply lines. Instead, the UK should promote international and regional diplomacy aimed at making economic, political and non-combat security assistance contingent on acceptance of negotiations and political reconciliation among insurgents, militias and the factions that make up the Iraqi Government.

Military backing for the existing Iraqi Government?

There has been far too much willingness to accept the US claim that the decline in the number of attacks between late July and mid September represent successes for the surge. First, the level of attacks was at an all time high in May and June, despite the extreme summer heat. Second, other factors were probably more important in the decline in attacks – insurgents resting and regrouping after their surge in attacks, insurgents and militias lying low as the surge passed their areas, unsustainable bans on the use of vehicles in places such as Falluja and parts of Baghdad, segregation through displacement and rumoured Saudi and Jordanian behind the scenes efforts. The US’s own figures show that the average daily casualties in Iraq remained at near-record levels for the entire period of the surge since February 2007 inclusive, with only a slight dip in June. More importantly, there can be no military victory in Iraq for the Coalition: the key measure of success has to be political progress, and that has not occurred.

The US military surge has not achieved its stated goal of creating the space for political reconciliation: instead it has had the opposite effect of removing the political incentive for it. The Kurdish and Shi‘a groups favoured by the US in the Iraqi Government have not had to compromise because they have been able to rely on the US military to prop them up.

The process of training Iraqi army and especially police forces is suffering from poor retention rates of weapons as well as personnel. But there is an even deeper problem. As the state is fragmented, there can be no confidence that training of Iraqi security forces is actually a contribution to strengthening the state. It is just as likely – indeed, often more likely – to result in the strengthening groups which will pursue their own interests, stand in the way of strengthening the Iraqi state and turn on Coalition forces when it suits them. The problem with Iraqi security forces is not lack of training but alternative loyalties, which is precisely why the US is reluctant to provide them with weapons, especially heavier ones. The Iraqi Government has complained publicly about this, and the US Government, torn between fear of what Iraqis will do with the weapons and the need to arm Iraqi forces to take over from US ones, has recently boosted its arms sales to Iraq. Even if some groups, such as tribal ones, work with Coalition forces, such alignments will be temporary and contingent, and are not evidence of endorsement of the Coalition’s goals or presence.

Violence in Basra escalated recently and the situation remains unstable. In specific times and places, UK forces will carry out positive security tasks for the local population. However, this is insufficient reason for them to remain when the population mostly think they are making the situation worse and want them to leave.

Support partition?

There is much talk, especially in Washington, of backing some form of top-down ethno-sectarian partition, either hard partition (separate states) or soft partition (a federation with a relatively weak centre). The UK should not back schemes for partition in Iraq because they are completely against the wishes of most Iraqis. Federalist sentiment in Iraq is divided over the specifics and mostly not ethno-sectarian and the Iraqi constitution sets out the process of federalisation as a bottom-up process via referenda.

In terms of responsibility for most of the violence in Iraq, Iraqis mainly blame the Coalition, followed by al Qaeda/foreign jihadists; and then roughly equal blame for the Iraqi government, Sunni and Shi‘a militias and leaders, sectarian disputes, common criminals and Iran. The fact that Iraqis mostly blame non-Iraqis for the violence is indicative of a continuing national sentiment.

Kurds are fairly consistently positive about the invasion and the performance of the Coalition politically and militarily. Shi‘i tend to be more positive than Sunni Arabs about the invasion but similarly negative about the occupation and Coalition forces. However, it is fundamentally misleading and dangerous to attribute a single view to each supposed ethno-sectarian ‘group’.Opinion polls show that Iraqis overwhelmingly think that separation of people on sectarian lines is a bad thing (98% in August 2007) and that the separation on such lines that has occurred has been forced. Most Iraqis want a unified Iraq with a strong central government in Baghdad (and a substantial minority want regionalised government and a federal government in Baghdad, without suggesting that this is ethno-sectarian).

The overall picture is a fairly strong though variable continuing commitment to the idea of an Iraqi nation and to its expression in the form of a self-determining Iraqi state. The weakest commitment is among Kurds, but even there it is too easy to exaggerate the contrasts between Kurdish and Arab Iraqi views. For example, polled in late 2004, more Kurds expressed a preference for living in an ethnically mixed Iraq than for living in an independent Kurdish state. Kurdish political elites assert a Kurdish right to independence but a willingness to live in an autonomous region within a federal Iraq. At both popular and elite levels, desire for an independent state is tempered by an awareness of the risks of pursuing that goal (such as invasion and occupation by Turkey).

Keep UK forces in Iraq to provide symbolic and practical support for the US?

Some favour keeping UK forces in Iraq protecting supply lines or so that the US Government is not displeased at losing its main symbolic ally. The US is fully capable of protecting its own supply lines. More importantly, for the reasons given throughout this evidence, the US role in Iraq is neither legitimate nor prudent and hence not worthy of British support. The Bush administration’s bottom line in Iraq appears to be to avoid losing until the United States has a Democrat as president (a real prospect in the November 2008 election), and then blame defeat on the Democrats for their weakness and the Iraqis for their fecklessness and ingratitude. A Labour Government or indeed any British Government should not let British soldiers die for this cause. Supporting US operations in Iraq practically or symbolically would require the UK must also share some responsibility for the US actions in Iraq.

Promote international and regional diplomacy which makes non-combat assistance for factions in Iraq conditional on their commitment to negotiations and political reconciliation

No-one can be sure whether the humanitarian and political situation will become worse or better for Iraqis should Coalition forces leave. But the assessment of most Iraqis is that it would improve, and hence withdrawal would not be ‘cutting and running’ – it would be compliance with clearly expressed Iraqi preferences.

To a great extent events in Iraq are, and always have been, beyond the control of the US and British governments, and trying to gain it militarily and unilaterally with a coating of superficial multilateralism will continue the march to failure and make it even harder for the situation to be retrieved by anyone (and that will have to be mainly Iraqis). The US and UK governments need a paradigm shift in their approach from control to influence, from violence to non-violence and from unilateralism to multilateralism. This shift might be beyond them, but the imminent prospect of defeat and escalating chaos may push them in that direction. Assistance in training of security forces and economic reconstruction can and should be provided only to the extent that it assists the realisation of the overwhelming Iraqi preference for a democratic and coherent Iraqi state that is not organised around ethno-sectarianism. In effect, this approach takes benchmarks of political progress seriously. The Coalition approach has been to provide support to the existing Iraqi Government as an incentive to make progress. The reverse approach must be adopted, that is, support should be provide as a reward for actual progress. Furthermore, those rewards should be provided to any committed to negotiation and reconciliation.

There are many intertwined but also in some respects independent armed conflicts in Iraq in the north-east, the centre, Baghdad and the south. They will end when the key actors (a) think they can gain more from negotiating than fighting (either to continue a stalemate or to achieve victory) and (b) are be able to deliver their constituencies in support of a deal reached through negotiations. In other words, they have to be willing and able to negotiate. At present, neither condition exists and the creation of those conditions is not being prioritised at present by the US and UK. It may be that externally-provided rewards will not be able to make a major difference in bringing about those conditions, but at least the effort would be being made, and without the UK being involved in or supporting illegitimate and counter-productive uses of force and detention.