Window on Westminster

The frenetic pace of events obscured coverage of three days of parliamentary debate on the Chilcot report but Iraq is certain to further polarise this summer's bitter contest for the Labour Leadership between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith.

One Corbyn supporter denounced former shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn as "a total traitor," presumably because he supported the invasion and airstrikes against Daesh in Iraq and in Syria. As another senior MP recalled his first contact with a Halabja survivor in 1988, his eyes welled up at the continuing emotional weight of the atrocity. The genocide should never be forgotten but has not yet been a sufficient part of the Chilcot debate.

Former International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell told the Commons he feared that the debate "will be characterised by a discussion of whether Mr Blair is guilty or very guilty." He was right, despite thoughtful speeches which avoided accusations of deceit but pulled no punches on errors made.

Some MPs examined Kurdish views. Conservative MP and Chair of the Defence Committee, Dr Julian Lewis, had unearthed a British intelligence assessment from 2003 in the 2.6 million word Chilcot report that conceded “We are unlikely to receive any advance warning of a pre-emptive attack on the Kurds."

Veteran Labour MP Ann Clwyd recalled the appalling scenes she had when the Kurds fled from Saddam’s helicopter gunships in 1991 and meeting an Iraqi who said “The biggest weapon of mass destruction was Saddam. Why did it take so long for him to be removed?”

She protested that few Iraqi voices are being heard and cited Dr Latif Rashid, senior adviser to the Iraqi President, who said “It must be remembered that at the time not only did Prime Minister Blair and President Bush wish to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, but so did most of the entire spectrum of the Iraqi opposition (including Kurds, Arabs, Shia, and all other minorities that make up the Iraq) and most of the international community."

Clwyd also quoted Rashid saying Blair and Bush were acting in response to the Iraqi people and to protect them, on the basis of evidence available at that time and that "We are still finding the mass graves of the nearly one million Iraqis murdered as a result of his actions. Although Iraq currently has its problems, I believe they are the result of Iraqis themselves. We will always remain grateful for the support shown by Tony Blair, and the British Government and British Parliament at that time.”

Clwyd appealed for continuing support for Iraqi and Kurds while Benn said "The best evidence for the difference that good politics and good governance can make in Iraq is shown by the Kurdish region, which, let us not forget, was as it was partly because of the support we had given it through the no-fly zone. As a result, it is now the most stable and relatively prosperous part of Iraq. I pay tribute, as others have, to the Peshmerga for the role that they have played, and still play, in trying to defeat Daesh."

In arguing that the Kurds regard the 2003 invasion as a liberation, Benn cited the KRG High Representative to the UK, Karwan Jamal Tahir, who had that week written that “there was an Iraq before the 2003 invasion, an Iraq that, for millions, was a concentration camp on the surface and a mass grave beneath.”

Another former Labour Minister, George Howarth added that "Having spoken to many Iraqis who were on the receiving end of vicious attacks and repression by Saddam Hussein’s regime, particularly Iraqi Kurds, I felt strongly that the course of non-action would be an abdication of humanitarian responsibility."

Listening to Tony Blair’s critics, said Labour's Ian Austin "anyone would think that Iraq had been a peaceful haven of tranquillity before 2003, but nothing could be further from the truth." He rounded on the anti-war movement, led by Corbyn which "supported what it called the Iraqi 'struggle' against British troops 'by any means necessary', and that "for the hard left, the world is a simple place: all the problems are caused by the west, and the solutions are easy."

He argued inaction can have terrible consequences and concluded "Perhaps we ought to consider a Chilcot-style inquiry into the consequences of not intervening in Syria, where people have been slaughtered or displaced in their millions."

But many were basically advocating Deblairification rather than calmly assessing the lessons from excessive Debaathification, for instance. The gravest danger is that Kurds and Iraqis will be ignored if Chilcot continues to be weaponised against those who made honest and honourable decisions about how to tackle the genocidal monster that was Saddam. The past should not be the enemy of solidarity now.

Gary Kent is the director of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.