Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. 'Mission complete'—those were the words of President Trump following the joint US, French and British air strike on Syria last weekend. An estimated 400,000 Syrians have been killed since the outbreak of war in 2011. More than 5.6 million Syrians have fled the country, according to the United Nations, and 6.1 million people are displaced internally. The Assad regime remains safely in power, and senior generals, including the Director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, have said that Assad retains the capacity to use chemical weapons after the attack. That does not sound like 'mission complete' by any measure.

I would like to address three central issues to this Assembly for Wales and our role in supporting and managing the awful consequences of the Syrian conflict. I would first like to seek to gain clarity from the First Minister for his stance on the weekend's air strikes. Secondly, I would like to discuss the material and financial cost of the attack, before moving on to discuss how we can redouble our efforts to offer a safe haven to those dealing with the fall-out from the Syrian civil war.

Before I move on to my speech proper, I'd like to reiterate my disappointment that Members of the Labour front bench felt that this was not a significant enough issue to warrant debate. Failing to support Plaid Cymru's calls for a debate on this issue is not only disappointing but bizarre, considering their colleagues' calls for greater parliamentary scrutiny on this issue in Westminster.

Yesterday, in First Minister's questions, I asked the First Minister a straight question: does he stand by his statement of support for the military intervention in Syria? His answer was typically evasive. Without a single vote being cast in any of the UK's Parliaments, on Saturday morning the First Minister gave his support to the Prime Minister and her decision to join the American-led bombing. I wanted to give the First Minister another chance, today, to answer that question. Without any parliamentary approval, does the First Minister stand by his statement of support for the Prime Minister and her air strike, as she claimed it was in the British national interest? And knowing now that the air strike has not mitigated the Syrian regime's capacity to use chemical weapons or change the course of the conflict, does he still support the action? But he's not here for this debate. I very much hope that this will be brought to his attention, and that he is able to answer these important questions in due course.

Tokenistic strikes do little to help desperate Syrian people who do not need more bombs to be dropped, but a solution to what is a political crisis and a human tragedy.

War is an expensive pursuit. Of course, for some, it is profitable. To see the shares of companies like BAE Systems rise at the prospect of further conflict shows the vile corporate structures that underpin the defence establishment.

British Typhoon and Tornado aircraft launched eight Storm Shadow cruise missiles. According to a 2011 parliamentary question, each one of these missiles costs £790,000. A crude calculation shows that we are looking at in excess of a cost of £6.3 million for the single strike undertaken on the weekend. This excludes the costs of the planes used to fire each of those £0.75 million bombs. When money is needed to pay our WASPI women a fair pension, the coffers are empty. When penny-pinching and cruel welfare reforms lead to people committing suicide out of desperation, we are told there's no money left. All of us here have lost valuable assets and services in the communities that we represent all because of austerity, yet when it comes to weapons of war, the British state seems to have very deep pockets. It is shameful that Westminster can claim that spending millions on bombing foreign countries is in the national interests while homeless women and men are told that there is no money to house them.

I'm ashamed to say that Wales's record on Syrian refugees remains disappointing. By dropping bombs on this war-torn nation, the British state may well be making more refugees at the same time as it's refusing to fulfil its existing obligations. Wales took just over 300 refugees last year, and I'm proud to say that it was a Plaid Cymru-led council in Carmarthenshire that gave home to the most—51—all from Syria. Yet some councils—the Labour administrations in Merthyr Tydfil and Neath Port Talbot—had not taken a single refugee by the end of last year. For shame. I implore the First Minister to speak to his party colleagues and get them moving on this issue. Here, in our national Parliament, in our councils and in our communities, we can save lives. We can offer these desperate people a safe haven. We have a moral obligation to act, and I reiterate to the First Minister that he must act now to ensure that Wales is doing all that it can to help people fleeing this terrible conflict.

To conclude, much more can be and must be said about this extremely complex and important issue. However, for now, I would like to close with the same sentiment with which I began: Plaid Cymru does not support this tokenistic American-led air strike on Syria, and I will once again remind Members that the path to peace is never paved with the weapons to war.