When I wrote last week that our response to the Syrian gas atrocity must be carefully targeted and “based on certainty, caution, openness and proportionality” I had no illusions of how complex a task that would be.
Acting with professionalism, speed and effective force, the RAF, alongside our allies, achieved just that in Syria on Saturday. There was no entanglement with Russian forces. There were no fatalities on the ground. Assad’s ability to research, develop and deploy chemical weapons has been degraded. The threat of action hangs over him and every other dictator if they resort to tactics banned from the battlefield, let alone the homes of civilians, for many years.
It was clear in the Commons this week that while the official opposition may not support the strikes MPs as a whole, by some margin, did. The key debate this week was on why Parliament wasn’t recalled to vote before they happened.
Votes in Parliament on the deployment of UK forces are the most serious undertaking. I have no doubt that for any major or prolonged deployment of our armed forces into a hostile environment Parliament should be consulted. However when pursuing swift action in pursuit of humanitarian objectives the Government must have the right to act first and be held to account by Parliament later.
Having seen the strike and its effect I am comfortable that the Government acted within my own criteria. There is no way that I could have been totally satisfied that it would be doing so without hearing in Parliament, prior to the strike, the proportionate and limited nature of the attack, the type of assets that were being targeted and, potentially, hearing about the intelligence upon which the targeting is based. Without that information Parliament would have been voting without the necessary facts. Had the Government provided the facts it would have enabled the Syrian regime to focus their forces to defend against a known threat and to move assets rendering useless selective targeting. We have even seen in the past, elsewhere, the threatened use of “human shields”.
Every deployment carries risks. On this occasion I have no doubt the right decision was taken and a strong message has been sent in doing so.
Photo caption: In Parliament with Sussex NFU representatives and Farming Minister George Eustice. While the Commons’ main focus this week was Syria, on Tuesday we raised concerns on livestock being attacked in the County: especially at lambing time its so important for dogs to be kept under control around livestock.