View From The House - 12th September 2002

Reprinted From The Lichfield Mercury

On September 11th last year I was at my home in Lichfield. The telephone rang. It was a pal of mine, Marlo, phoning from Seattle at 6.10am his time, 2.10pm in Lichfield. “Go and switch on your TV”, he said. And for the next hour or so we watched identical live TV pictures as we sat on our living room floors separated by 8,000 miles, but united by a growing horror. We witnessed the murder of 3,047 people. Mainly Americans died, but British, and citizens of 81 other countries too as the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed and the Pentagon was attacked. 3,251 children lost parents in the New York attacks alone. It could have been worse. A fourth plane was heading for the White House.

At the time, it was thought that the U.S. would immediately retaliate; lashing out at anyone they could. But they did not. I wonder if we would have been so cool if London had been attacked and there were now a gaping hole in Westminster or at the site of St Paul’s Cathedral? And it could have happened here. Perhaps it might still.

In due course the U.S. and British deposed the Talaban in Afghanistan and restored order there and dignity for Afghanistan’s women folk. And much – but not all - of Al Quaida’s infrastructure was destroyed. But there are still many terrorist groups in the middle east and elsewhere.

Some of this was predictable. In the 1980s I travelled frequently to the Soviet Union, mainly to Moscow and Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and made many friends in the intelligence community there. When the USSR collapsed and a multitude of former soviet socialist republics became independent states, they warned me that there would be no real peace dividend. Although the threat of all out war between NATO and the Soviet bloc (known as the “Warsaw Pact”) had evaporated, the Soviet Union had kept the lid on a bubbling cauldron of discontent and religious rivalries. Small and impoverished new republics suddenly found they had very few assets except, perhaps, stocks of uranium and nuclear warheads. The temptation was great to exchange them for cash. Other former soviet republics provided a safe haven to harbour terrorists in exchange for funds.

So now the War against Terror continues. Syria and Iran provide training facilities for terror groups. Saudi Arabia is thought to provide funds as a sort of protection money to prop up there own regime. So why now are we focussing on Iraq?

During the Gulf War when Iraq fired Scud missiles into Israel (while Israel showed considerable restraint as the missiles fell on Tel Aviv and Haifa), British and American Special Forces operated behind enemy lines in Iraq trying to hunt down the mobile Scud launcher sites. None were found.

Since the Gulf War, the Iraqis have been seeking to purchase enriched uranium and nuclear triggers. They have enhanced the accuracy and range of their Scud missiles so they can now travel thousands, not hundreds, of miles. Saddam Hussein has murdered all his political opponents sometimes squeezing the trigger himself. He subdued his Kurdish minority by bombing their villages and using poison gas. He invaded Kuwait and still refers to that country as Iraq’s “19th Province”. Before that, he made an unprovoked attack on Iran and used chemical weapons on their forces. He continually hindered the work of UN investigators in Iraq making their stay pointless. He remains one of the most despotic and dangerous rulers on earth.

Time is running out for the west. Once chemical, germ, or nuclear warheads are attached to the enhanced Scud ballistic missiles, we may not be able to locate them. Tony Blair says he will publish a dossier showing the dangers of the Iraqi regime. It will be incomplete. More detailed information would endanger the lives of our intelligence sources in Baghdad. But let us be clear. If we do decide to attack Iraq, it will be in our own self defence and not a mindless act of aggression.