By Martin Bell
The Guardian
Saturday December 19, 1998
I had never thought for a moment that during my parliamentary episode I would find myself allied with the "awkward squad". Yet I would have been in the lobbies with them for the vote on the bombing of Iraq, if a vote had been allowed. And I was as dismayed as Tony Benn and Tam Dalyell that it was prevented by an arcane House of Commons manoeuvre. People have a right to know where their MPs stand during this Government's first major foreign policy crisis. Appearances were deceiving. The loyal rhetoric of that debate reflected neither the reservations felt privately by many Members, nor the doubts and divisions in public opinion at large.
It may be that I am wrong. I hope that I am wrong. It is one of the weaknesses of our politics usually that it does not allow for the admissibility of error. But I think it hardly conceivable that Saddam Hussein can be bombed into "coming to his senses", or surrendering his weapons of mass destruction. Rather, he will be strengthened politically at home and abroad, even as his barracks and bunkers crumble around him. We and the Americans, by contrast, risk finding ourselves increasingly isolated.
I am neither leftwing nor rightwing, nor of any political persuasion. My views on this issue come from my former life. I probably know less about parliamentary procedure than any other MP; but I can reasonably claim to know rather more about the nature of modern warfare. One thing I know is that there is no such thing as a conflict free of casualties. No bomb is so smart that it can distinguish between a soldier and a civilian. Another thing I know is that there are two campaigns being conducted here simultaneously. One is being fought with bombs and missiles and the other with satellite dishes. The battle of the airwaves will probably be decisive. And history provides us, as recently as the Vietnam War, with the example of a military victory which turned into a political defeat. We should be very careful.
Like many people, I am suspicious of the timing of the Anglo-American offensive. It is a legitimate observation to make that President Clinton's belligerence towards Iraq has increased as his problems at home have multiplied. It happened in February of this year, and it is happening again now. We have to believe that it is a coincidence. But there are MPs on both sides of the House who support the military campaign and are nonetheless troubled by it.
As it happens, I was in uniform in the last Gulf conflict eight years ago, as an accredited war correspondent with the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars, part of the allied coalition deployed to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait. There was a world of difference between that operation and this. Operation Desert Storm enjoyed widespread support in the United Nations and the international community; it included contingents from Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Operation Desert Fox is a poor relation indeed. Just study the silences - the speeches not made and the offers of help not given, The British and the Americans are out there on their own. Is the United States the world's chief sheriff? Is the United Kingdom the deputy sheriff? And who appointed us? It seems to me to set a dangerous precedent if we use the Security Council when it suits us, and bypass it when it doesn't.
I have a horror of military euphemisms. A phrase which sends a special chill through me is the one about degrading an enemy's capability. The Prime Minister used it in the House of Commons. I wonder if he really understood it. We heard it.
