Madam Speaker, far be it from me to try to explain the actions of the foreign affairs minister or the ambivalence that is demonstrated all too often in the Prime Minister's assertions, or the Deputy Prime Minister's assertions, toward Iraq.
I want to give the benefit of the doubt here. What I will say is that the Prime Minister and the foreign affairs minister have been correct in this respect to be supportive of recent U.S. actions. When we saw President Bush go to the United Nations to engage a round, seeking a solution in Iraq, if I understand correctly, the position of the Canadian government was to applaud that and try to reinforce it. That is not something with which I or my party disagree. We all agree that it was exceedingly important for President Bush to go to the United Nations. We want to do anything we can possibly do to reinforce the possibility of the United States acting within the rule of international law and acting in the spirit of multilateralism.
What is very disappointing is to see that there is not a kind of wholesale embracing by the government of the important opportunity that has opened up here in terms of making sure that the weapons inspection goes ahead undeterred, uninterrupted by new sabre rattling by the U.S., because we know that weapons inspections are not an end in themselves. Weapons inspections are about determining if in fact there are any weapons of mass destruction.
Let us be very clear here that the way to deal with that problem surely is not to unleash any possible illegal weapons that Iraq may have on the rest of the world. The objective is to make sure that those weapons of mass destruction, if they exist, are in fact destroyed to make the world a safer place.