Veteran MP warns Hammond on Mali
Monday 04 February 2013
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EmailFormer Labour minister Frank Dobson was right to warn that the US's disastrous war in Vietnam had begun in an "advisory capacity" (M Star January 30).
It is important MPs make their warning voices heard.
Parliament has not had the opportunity to debate the latest deployment of British troops to the current African conflict zone.
But MPs did have the chance to challenge Defence Secretary Philip Hammond last Tuesday following his statement on the latest troop deployment.
Labour veteran David Winnick asked: "After 11 years of warfare in Afghanistan, does the Secretary of State accept that there is no appetite whatever in this country for British troops to be sucked into a new war?"
Mr Winnick has fine and consistent form on such concerns.
Shortly after he entered Parliament for the first time in 1966, he challenged the then Labour government over support it was giving the US in Vietnam.
He forced ministers to admit that British police and "security advisers" were active in south Vietnam and that British troops were training the southern Vietnamese as early as 1961.
Of course, in the end Labour prime minister Harold Wilson did keep British troops out of direct combat operations.
The persistent pressure in Parliament from Mr Winnick and other back-bench dissidents, warning ministers of the dangers of mission creep, played it part then over Vietnam.
It should do so now as well over Mali.
Dr David Lowry
Stoneleigh
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