Colonel Tim Collins is speaking at St George’s Hall on Thursday, as part of the University’s Security and Conflict lecture series
Colonel Tim Collins, the man made famous by a speech delivered on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, warns a military confrontation born of Western indebtedness to Eastern states could shatter world peace.
Col Collins was speaking ahead of his appearance at St George’s Hall on Thursday, as part of University of Liverpool’s What does 2020 look like? Security and Conflict lecture series.
No plan and huge naivety
Reflecting on the speech that made his name, and reportedly found its way on to the wall of the Oval Office, Col Collins said: “The reality was there was no plan and huge naivety from the Coalition about what they expected to happen in Iraq. They were hearing what they wanted to hear, as opposed to what they needed to hear. The information was there but it wasn’t what people wanted to hear.”
The Northern Irishman left the Army under a cloud in 2004 following allegations – since shown to be entirely without foundation – of war crimes.
He subsequently successfully sued two national newspapers and was awarded significant libel damages.
Since then, he has become CEO of a private military company employing around 500 people, and was even approached by the Conservative party on two occasions. Firstly as a potential MP, and secondly to gauge his interest in putting himself forward as a Police and Crime Commissioner candidate for Kent – a job, Col Collins said, he “offered to do for free”.
But it is the future, not the past, that the father-of-five views most starkly.
He said: “We, and the rest of Europe, because of the social welfare system, are in huge debt, and we’re in debt to China. The reality is something like 400m Chinese people will go to bed tonight hungry. The deal that we, and particularly the welfare states across Europe and rest of the world, have to strike with them is that those people will have to stay hungry for another 20 years, so that we can have a free health care system.
Military confrontation?
“We owe them the money, they own the assets that supply that. We’re living way beyond our means. It’s only by them agreeing that people should remain hungry at night that we can enjoy our welfare system, and that there will be peace. Otherwise I think we’re inevitably heading towards a military confrontation with Eastern states.”
Follow Thursday’s event on twitter, using the hashtag #2020series
The Security and Conflict series, ‘What Does 2020 Look Like?’, also features David Miliband, British Labour Party politician and former Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; General The Lord Dannatt, British Army Chief of General Staff from 2006-2009; and Rageh Omaar, the Somali-born British writer and world affairs correspondent. Book tickets here.
