Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in the House not on a good topic. The possibility of war is never a pleasant topic. I want people to understand that the only reason we are standing here tonight in the House, the only reason we are having this take note debate and the only reason we are even discussing this issue is because of the will of our forefathers who had the courage to stand up to tyrants such as we are talking about tonight and fight for that right. I want to thank those people. We should remember when we are in this discussion tonight that a lot of them sacrificed their lives to allow us to stand here fighting against people such as Saddam Hussein.
There are those on the other side of the House and in the general population who will refuse to see just how big a threat to world peace and stability Saddam Hussein really is. The hard evidence is overwhelming if we only just look at his track record to date. Add on the mountain of evidence that says he is building and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and the only logical conclusion can be that he must be stopped and stopped soon.
He is a man, a brutal man, who has caused the death of thousands and thousands of people and threatens the lives of millions more. He is simply and unarguably a mass murderer in anybody's description. This is not fresh and new evidence. His own son-in-law who escaped his clutches in 1995 revealed at that time that Saddam Hussein was accumulating biological weapons.
We know beyond a shadow of a doubt what he did to the people of Iran. We know what he did in Kuwait. We know how many he killed in Kurdistan. We know what he has done to anyone in Iraq who has posed a challenge, imagined or otherwise.
Why does the government waffle and dodge and not act in the best interests of not just ourselves but the whole world? How many more condemnations of the Security Council will we see before decisive action is taken?
Sixteen times that man has broken separate resolutions passed by the UN Security Council, the highest body of the UN, and we still waffle. “Give him one more chance” is what I hear. “Give him one more chance; maybe he will change”. How many times more?
Time is not on the side of the millions who face a direct attack from Saddam Hussein. If anything, time is on the side of Saddam Hussein. The more time he has to prepare before we take pre-emptive action, the more time we allow him to build these awful weapons, the more danger we put the world in.
Consider what a new and democratic regime might do for Iraq if all that wealth was not being squandered on finding new and terrible ways to kill people. In the last four years, since the United Nations' flagrant violation resolution, we can only guess and shudder at how much more he has at his disposal.
The government's chronic neglect of our armed forces puts Canada in a very awkward position. We simply cannot ask our men and women in the forces to do any more than they are doing now. The government obviously does not have the same concerns about our military but I do not believe even the Liberals could be so cruel as to try to squeeze much more out of those overworked and underpaid dedicated defenders of our sovereignty and freedom.
As has been said by other members in the House, even if we cannot afford to offer military support to our friends and our allies, the very least we could be doing and should be doing in the House is offering our moral support.
This is not warmongering. It is simply realizing the truth and looking at the evidence.
Saddam Hussein does, beyond a shadow of a doubt, pose a threat to the whole world. He is a menace to every country, including his own. In the Middle East he harbours terrorists within the borders of Iraq.
The United Nations has been unable to reason with Saddam Hussein, just as we cannot reason with a rabid dog. A man like Saddam Hussein, who has expressed no remorse or concern of any kind for any of his actions or for the victims of those actions, is not a man of reason. All he knows is brute strength. It is very likely that even brute strength will not stop him.
Saddam Hussein does not concern himself or show any discomfort in being harshly condemned for his actions by the United Nations. How could anyone possibly think anything less than pre-emptive military action will stop him?
There are those on the other side and some on this side who would like to negotiate with Saddam Hussein and try to reason with him. They are fooling themselves. If they think the man who launched the war in Kuwait, who slaughtered the people of Kurdistan, who slaughtered the Kurds and used chemical weapons on them will listen to reason, I think they had better give their heads a shake.
Any man who uses chemical weapons against other humans, including pregnant women so that infants are born with horrific birth defects, is not a man who will listen to reason. Any individual who stockpiles chemical, biological and nuclear weaponry capable of killing millions will not listen to reason. Saddam Hussein is beyond the point of reason. He may well be certifiably insane. We do not rub the ears of a rabid dog and we do not try to reason with murderous madmen like Saddam Hussein.
All the soft words that can be uttered and all the negotiations for eternity will not stop this man. Consider the lessons of history. Over 60 years ago Neville Chamberlain thought reason and goodwill would prevail. How very wrong he was. They sat and did nothing until it was too late. We lost a lot of good people because of sitting and waiting. We cannot afford to let that happen again.
If Saddam Hussein is not stopped and stopped soon, the only peace in our time will be between right now and the day in the very near future when he begins to launch the weapons of mass destruction against the world. For those who like to sit here and think that we will be safe in this country, I have news for them: we will not be safe. Biological weaponry does not pick or choose where it goes or know only those who supply it. We are more at risk than ever before.
It is time we stood up on behalf of the people, on behalf of our allies, on behalf of those who would stand beside us in our time of need. It is time we got rid of all this anti-Americanism and stopped mollycoddling people like Saddam Hussein. We can supply all the money he wants. We can give him what he wants, but the money will be used to create more weaponry to use against humanity. It is past time that we stood up to this type of person and put a stop to it in this world. On behalf of humanity, it is time we did something.
