In his article in the Guardian David Miliband stated that amongst the key tasks facing Labour is a need for "better planning to win the peace in Iraq, not just the war." Gordon Brown should immediately take this to heart and ask David himself as Foreign Secretary to come up with an appropriate set of proposals.
Or does the fact that David came up with such a comment (as if he has no previous responsibility on this matter) indicate that plans he has already pushed behind the scenes have been blocked?
Exactly five years and a half year's ago and some seven weeks before the invasion of Iraq, the Commons discussed the need for a "Humanitarian Contingency Plan" for Iraq should the deed be done. Then numbers of us raised this issue during the period of the invasion itself - as well as often since then. If David wishes to draw up belated and improved plans for social, economic and political assistance for Iraq perhaps he should turn to bodies such as "Labour Friends of Iraq" who have always adopted his belated insight.
2 comments:
Yep - they need to start getting Iraqis clean water, electricity, food and jobs instead of more military offensives and less off all of the first four - (see e.g here and sources 79 to 90 in it
Calgasus: Unfortunately over the past five years even much of the Labour Left has been weak on this matter, concentrating instead almost exclusively on "troops out". The TUC and individual Trade Unions such as the FBU have been the ones to provide relevant practical help.
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