Why Brown's Iraq inquiry pledge - to me! - matters

I very much welcome Gordon Brown's commitment to an inquiry " to learn all possible lessons from the military action in Iraq and its aftermath" - even aside from the unusual experience of this very welcome political development coming in correspondence between myself and the Prime Minister. (Naturally, one also expects that other Cabinet ministers will take note. We were very pleased with last week's budget commitments on child poverty and will be thinking about where else we should now be pressing for progress).

On Iraq, the Prime Minister's spokesman says "that there is nothing new in the letter to the Fabian Society". I am not particularly concerned about a Westminster village debate about how much we have learnt from the letter. If an inquiry has been the government's intention all along, then I very much welcome the fact that this is now clearly on the public record and in the Prime Minister's own words too.

For me, the most positive aspect of Brown's letter are that it adds to the sense that he is planning and ambitious and rather different foreign policy for the 'World after Bush' - a pursuit to which this blog is dedicated.

But the letter has also naturally been the subject of considerable political and media interest today because of that clear, personal commitment by the Prime Minister on behalf of his government. The Independent's powerful front-page coverage of the Brown letter helps to take forward the newspaper's own sustained campaign for an inquiry. It is striking too that The Times and the Evening Standard, two papers which were editorially supportive of the government's decision to go to war, also report that Brown's letter marks a significant development of policy. That is also reflected in reaction from Labour backbenchers and the opposition parties, with Nick Clegg and William Hague stepping up pressure on the issue.

The Times reports that:

Since succeeding Mr Blair last summer Mr Brown has stopped short of calling outright for an inquiry. Last September he said the time would come to discuss whether one should be held. His letter to Sunder Katwala, the Fabian Society’s general secretary, suggests he has accepted that one should be conducted.

The Evening Standard says that

There have been hints before of an inquiry but this was the first confirmation from No 10.

I wrote my letter to the Prime Minister mainly to make the case as to why an inquiry is important, and why the fifth anniversary offered the government the right context to announce this. But, as I told The Independent, the letter was also motivated by the fact that I wasn't clear what the government's policy on an inquiry was, despite trying to follow these issues clearly. I am not omniscient about these issues, but I was not aware of any public statement from the current Prime Minister or current Foreign Secretary setting that out since the Brown administration took office in June.

Those of us trying to read between the lines of various statements as to what the final decision would be were coming to different conclusions. For example, David Miliband's comments rejecting an inquiry when interviewed by Fabian Review in December were reported as marking a significant cooling of the government's attitude towards an inquiry.

"I am obsessed with the next five years in Iraq, not the last five years in Iraq. And I think that the best 'inquiry' is putting the best brains to think about how to make sure the next five years in Iraq get that combination of political reconstruction, economic reconstruction and security improvement that are so essential."

Certainly, his words then were much more sceptical than both Margaret Beckett and Des Browne had been before the transition, in seeming to accept that an inquiry in due course would make sense. But as I - blogged at the time -

I think is too early to say "Government rules out inquiry into Iraq conflict". I don't see that Miliband has given a definite indication of future government policy ... The case for an inquiry will continue, within and outside government.

And, despite that scepticism. Miliband did, in his keynote speech to the Fabian Change the World conference, make a significant argument about the need to 'learn the lessons' from Iraq and Afghanistan.

'democratic institutions need to be built from the bottom up not just the top down; and military victories are never a solution in themselves; they need the backing of economic and social reconstruction'

By contrast, Tony Blair was, for the most part, strongly opposed to an inquiry. Competing quotes can be found on both sides. The authentic Blair view is, I would suggest, is the claim that "We have had inquiry after inquiry we do not need to go back over this again and again." It was only well into injury time towards the end of Blair's Premiership that Ministers began to suggest they were open to an inquiry - and again there was something of a guessing game as to whether this had been inspired by the Prime Minister in waiting, or might rather have been a case of other Ministers seeking to anticipate

It is certainly true that the Brown letter does not go into any detail as to the nature of an inquiry or its timing. However, it would be more than pushing my luck to complain about that, and I hope that the government will set out more details of its plans as soon as possible. (More formally, I expect, but I would like to place on record that the Fabian letterbox remains very much open).

Now, I hope somebody at Number 10 is also paying attention to the very cogent case made in Saturday's Guardian against the extension of detention without trial.

UPDATE: Andy Grice of the Independent also blogs about the Brown letter, pointing out that Brown had not previously said any more than that "there will be a time to discuss the question" of an inquiry. So the Prime Minister's support for an inquiry is new.

Dear Gordon: why we need an Iraq inquiry

A letter to the Prime Minister, which is reported in today's Independent.


11th February 2008

Dear Prime Minister

Next month will mark the fifth anniversary of the House of Commons' debate on military intervention in Iraq in March 2003. I believe that this would be the right time for the government to set out plans to ensure the lessons from Iraq are learnt and inform the future of British foreign policy, by announcing an independent public inquiry into the Iraq war.

Iraq has been the most significant foreign policy and military engagement of the last decade. It has also been the most controversial and publicly contested episode in British foreign policy for half a century, since Suez, dividing Parliament, political parties and the country.

An inquiry can not change the course of events since 2003. But there is widespread recognition, among those who took different views about the war, of the need to learn lessons from the Iraq war and its aftermath. A full inquiry would ensure that a rounded assessment of the pre-war diplomacy, the intelligence failures regarding Iraq's WMD programme, the conduct of the war itself, and the difficulties of post-war political and economic reconstruction could inform future policy.

This is a particularly important moment for the future of foreign policy. The US election has provided a natural moment for America to take stock at the end of a political cycle: it is striking that the theme of change has been central to the campaigns of leading candidates for both parties. With a growing awareness among political leaders and broader public opinion in the United States of the limits to what even the most powerful nation in the world can achieve alone, it is important to show that working together for stronger international cooperation can provide a more effective alternative.

Britain, our European partners and other allies can make a major contribution to leading an international public debate about how we can work together to strengthen multilateral institutions for an age of growing interdependence. This should lead to new thinking about how to address the global challenges of our age, including security and terrorism, climate change, the responsibility to protect human rights, and spreading global development and decent chances in life to all.

This agenda should also be at the heart of the Labour Party's thinking as it creates a new progressive foreign policy agenda to put forward at the next General Election in Britain, and the party should seek to reach out and work with those outside party politics who are working on these great progressive causes.

But our ability to pursue this debate within Britain and beyond, and to engage people in it, will depend on acknowledging and learning the lessons of Iraq, showing a clear commitment to building from these to create the new internationalist agenda we need for the future. A public inquiry into Iraq would be an important way to achieve this.

Yours sincerely,

Sunder Katwala
General Secretary
Fabian Society

Does Rawalpindi matter in Iowa?

The parochial concern on the 2008 campaign trail was the need to appear Presidential in responding to news from Pakistan.

Despite the Bhutto assassination throwing US policy into deep flux, most candidates realised that their immediate responses should simply mirror the statements of President Bush and other world leaders - expressing shock and sympathy at the tragic news and pledging to redouble efforts for democracy and against terrorism.

Still, Mike Huckabee messed it up, bizarrely apologising for the assassination, before correcting his remarks later.

Fred Thompson was particularly concerned to make sure that people around the world didn't get the wrong idea from the apology.

With more time to consider, Huckabee put up a policy argument. The Bhutto assassination showed why the US needed to build a border fence with Mexico to keep out Pakistanis.

“We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country", he said.

Further clarifications defending these remarks did not seem to clarify much.

Mitt Romney had picked a bad day to argue that foreign policy experience doesn't matter all that much, though stressing the Reagan rather than the Dubya precedent to make his case:

“If the answer for leading this country is someone that has a lot of foreign policy experience, we can just go down to the State Department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who’ve spent all their life in foreign policy.

Rudy Giuliani and John McCain stressed the opposite message to highlight their own experience.

On the Democrat side, the issue played to Hillary Clinton's experience on the international stage. Her personal relationship with Bhutto allowed her to stress that she will be ready on "day one" for the international demands of the Presidency. Perhaps for that reason, the Obama camp took an aggressive approach, bringing the issue back to the question of judgment over Iraq, sparking controversy about comments by Obama's strategist David Axelrod, who seemed to imply that Clinton's support of the Iraq war had contributed to the causes of the assassination.

Meanwhile, John Edwards placed a personal call to President Musharraf himself to press the case for democratic reform.

UPDATE: CNN quotes Huckabee campaign staff, explaining that his immigration comments were intended to distract attention from the fact that he has "no foreign policy credentials". Let's hope Iowa and New Hampshire care more about foreign policy experience than that.

Will there be a public inquiry on Iraq?

Today's Independent reports on the David Miliband interview in the new year issue of the Fabian Review. Asked by my colleague Tom Hampson about the case for a public inquiry, the Foreign Secretary said:

"I am obsessed with the next five years in Iraq, not the last five years in Iraq. And I think that the best 'inquiry' is putting the best brains to think about how to make sure the next five years in Iraq get that combination of political reconstruction, economic reconstruction and security improvement that are so essential."

As the Independent correctly reports, this is rather cooler than a number of previous Ministerial comments. The paper reports that this suggests that the government has "backtracked over demands for an independent inquiry into the mistakes made in the run-up to and aftermath of the invasion of Iraq". That could be a significant development.

However, the headline goes a bit further than the story itself. (As can often happen: reporters don't get to write or approve the headlines on their pieces). I think is too early to say "Government rules out inquiry into Iraq conflict". I think it is equally plausible to regard David Miliband's comment as an attempt to give a fairly neutral/open answer - that the focus should be on the future - because no decision has yet been taken or announced. Fabian Review is very important, of course. But it isn't Hansard! I don't see that Miliband has given a definite indication of future government policy.

In my view, the issue remains an open one. The case for an inquiry will continue, within and outside government.

The call for a public inquiry is one of the points in my own 10-point 'Manifesto for the World After Bush', which will also be published in the Fabian Review.

"Learn the lessons of Iraq to rethink intervention"

We must learn many lessons after the Iraq war – from the failures of intelligence and diplomacy to the shameful lack of a reconstruction plan. In the UK, Gordon Brown should announce that a full public inquiry will begin once British troops leave Iraq. Increased government contributions to the Iraqi Reconstruction Fund (IRFFI), and civil society engagement with Iraqi media, trade unions and other bulwarks of democracy is the best way to reflect our continuing moral responsibility to post-war Iraq.

Learning the lessons of a catastrophic pre-emptive intervention should not involve ignoring genocide in future. The UN Responsibility to Protect principles should be at the heart of a new European Security Strategy: national governments should promote much greater awareness of how these principles address public concerns about how intervention can be effective and legitimate

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