September11/Lord Howell Of Guildford

British House of Lords

14 September 2001

Lord Howell of Guildford

My Lords, like, I suspect, many of your Lordships, I find it hard to muster the words appropriate to this hideous calamity which has occurred and the ghastly events that we have all seen on our television screens. Obviously we associate ourselves totally with the views expressed by the Government and the condolences to the relatives of the vast number of bereaved--both our own people and all the other nationalities, including the Americans who are our brothers and sisters.

At a time like this, the burdens on our leaders are, of course, enormous. I, for one, congratulate warmly President Bush, Secretary Powell and his other colleagues in the lead they have given at this crucial moment. I think that our own Prime Minister has found the words to express all our feelings and to represent our emotions at this time. He has spoken well and true. I also think--and this will be the one and only reference to party that I shall make--that the new leader of our party on this side of your Lordships' House spoke fine and good words when he accepted the leadership role last night in pledging our total support and unity with the Government in all that it is necessary to do and support for the Government in the support which, in turn, they pledge for the United States, as we have heard this morning. I hope, trust and believe from all we have heard that it will be unconditional, unqualified and ungrudging.

It will be a long debate and many wise and experienced people wish to speak. Therefore, I shall confine myself to two points. First, nothing in the lexicon of human affairs or in human history can possibly justify or excuse this calculated mass barbarity which has occurred. No grievance or feeling of dispossession, or quarrel between tribes, nations or ethnic groups can possibly merit what has been done. People may ask, "What about the thousands who were killed at Hiroshima, Dresden or other hideous events of the past?" But those were actions against war aggressors who had waged murder and conquest across the world and were determined to do so. America is not at war with anyone. Far from being at war, America is not a tyranny. It is a democracy and it is the home of liberty. It seeks again and again, in ways that some people criticise, to promote the values of freedom and liberty by which we live and survive today; and we have to thank America that we are here today living in freedom.

So there is no justification. I am sickened by some of the remarks we have heard: that this terrible thing is in a way America's fault; or the nauseating suggestion from a senior Minister in Paris that it was all because of America's policy errors. This is not the right language or the right view. I do not accept any of that.

Nor do I accept the other weasel arguments: that somehow this is a payback for the evils of global capitalism. I believe that they are vastly outweighed by the benefits of global capitalism. Nor do I share the views--I do not think that they are gloating but I hear them--that it shows how feeble the United States has become. In one particularly asinine article I read, it has been likened to the decline of Rome, the collapse of the Roman empire. On the contrary, I think that in the resolution and bravery of the American people we now see signs that they are more determined than ever to wage war--and it is a kind of war--against the new enemies and the amorphous, invisible, non-states from which the threats for the future will come.

Nor do I believe, as I have heard some suggest, that this is the end of America's thinking about revising the whole doctrine of missile defence. It may be that national missile defence has some technical problems; it may be wrongly aimed. But the thinking behind it was and is that the threats to the present and future will come not from conventional states and conventional governments but from rogue regimes and strange organisations supported by those rogue regimes which may come from anywhere out of a clear blue sky--as indeed happened on Tuesday.

The new reality which some people are beginning to face and some of us have argued about over the past five or six years since the age of information technology and the Internet began is that power has been transferred away from responsible governments or even irresponsible governments into the hands of some good but some extremely dangerous organisations. It may be said that flying airliners into skyscrapers is not new technology, but the whole organisation of this devilish plot was driven by e-mail, Internet, modern secret communication, coding and ciphering of a kind which would not have been possible 10 or even five years ago. It enabled these people simply to programme their aeroplanes, once they had seized them, to drive straight into the World Trade Centre. So technology has transferred power and the sooner democracies and governments understand that point the sooner we shall be able to cope with the entirely new situation.

My second point is this. There is, of course, no one-off quick response to terrorism. Perhaps we should ready ourselves for a rapid and immediate response of some kind, but that will not be the solution to the problems. We are in for the long haul. When President Bush says that it must be a sustained effort, "sustained" is the word. This will take years and years of effort and policy at all levels to begin to move the situation to better times.

I totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, that the response should not be to turn this into religious terms and blame Islam. This is nothing to do with Islam which, for many millions of Muslims, is a very gentle and wise creed. For Islam and for the Koran, just as much as for us, what has been done is a sin against humanity and leaves those who did it cursed for ever.

The new war--if that is what the Americans are calling it--will, of course, have many aspects: the military--which may be the most visible; the political; the economic; and the diplomatic. I think that it will operate at three levels. First, there has to be a coalition of states. I think that that is achievable. Some say that the idea that Muslim states should now co-operate with the United States is incredible. But I think that they will. Pakistan is the crucial element in this. The Americans are working hard there. Egypt is another. Muslims everywhere have expressed their horror and perhaps their words should now be followed by deeds.

I want and expect to see Russia and America working extremely closely and intimately together at all levels of security and action in dealing with the situation--I understand that American officials are in Moscow this morning and, for all I know, perhaps Russian officials are in Washington--in ways which leave the whole idea of the Cold War far behind. A coalition of states must happen and we must play our full part in working for it.

Secondly, there must be no safe havens. When we talk of safe havens, I have heard it said, perhaps unfairly, that this country of ours, the United Kingdom, may be a mite too safe for evil people planning evil deeds. The noble Baroness mentioned Omagh. As far as I know, the perpetrators of Omagh have not yet been brought to justice. That is a disgrace. As far as I know there are people in this city, let alone this kingdom, actively and openly preaching terror and ways in which to bring down aeroplanes over Heathrow or to go out and kill lots of people. That should not be allowed.

It seems also--this is more controversial--that young terrorists or young fundamentalists determined even to commit suicide in their mad cause are still coming too easily into this country. I am afraid that we shall yet again have to revisit the issue of the asylum entrants. We shall yet again have to ask whether the Schengen area can cease to be the sieve that it clearly is and to think very hard before we even contemplate the idea of joining it. No doubt my noble friend Lord Cope will say a few more words about that in a moment.

Finally, we shall have to be ready to see the training grounds of the terrorists tackled directly. That will be violent. It will be the wiping out of wasps' nests. NATO has said that we should see the events in America as an attack on all of us. The test will come when there is violence and bloodshed, as there will be, when these horrific sources of evil are wiped out.

Finally, we must dry our tears and steel our hearts. The enemy may not be visible, as the noble Baroness said in her opening remarks, and as the Prime Minister and the US President have said. But evil is clear, visible and unambiguous--by any religion, any standards and any moral criteria that exist on this planet. When good people of every race, religion and nationality come to understand that, we shall be on our way forward after the unparalleled darkness of the past few days.