Mr. Speaker, no one would wish to make light of the unacceptable conditions now prevailing in Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. This is a secret and autocratic regime which is brutalizing its Kurdish minority and is responsible for multiple executions, a regime which refuses to observe international ethics and bow to the entirely legitimate resolutions of the United Nations.
It is clear that Iraq and Saddam Hussein must immediately comply with the recent UN directives that it allow not just the entry but the complete freedom of action of accredited UN inspectors to examine the Iraqi infrastructure of illegal chemical, nuclear and other weapons.
There was a consensus to this effect in the UN security council. It is certainly Canada's position. Where the consensus breaks down, however, is around the insistence of the United States, with the backing of Great Britain, to look for any excuse for a so-called pre-emptive strike against Iraq.
The constant and systematic statements by President Bush and his associates on the White House staff leave no doubt as to the president's fierce determination to wage war on Iraq at any cost. Yesterday, at a press conference, his press secretary, Ari Fleischer, even went so far as to publicly suggest that Saddam Hussein be assassinated. In any form it takes, he said.
Without in any way supporting what is going on in Iraq, if wars were necessary every time UN resolutions were ignored, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere, or every time human rights and freedoms were trampled by one dictatorial regime or another—President Mugabe's or someone else's—it would be necessary to wage war on many more countries than just Iraq.
If it were necessary to selectively assassinate every autocratic leader who did not suit us, we would be looking at much more than just one assassination.
The United States and its allies rightly call for Iraq to open itself without delay and, without excuses or subterfuge, to complete and total arms inspections.
At the most recent meeting in Vienna between Iraqi officials and the UN arms inspection team, the chief UN arms inspector, Dr. Hans Blix, advised that Iraq had accepted to permit inspectors into its territory within two weeks from now.
However, suspicions against Iraq run very deep within the free world, suspicions that Iraq will once again subvert the UN process and turn its back on the latest UN resolutions. Therefore the Security Council nations rightly insist on the strictest observance of the resolutions. They insist that Iraq should comply completely and let the UN establish the incontrovertible proof that it is not resorting to building an arsenal of mass destruction, this being the only condition for lifting the sanctions imposed on Iraq through Security Council resolution No. 687 of 1991 as well as subsequent Security Council resolution No. 1284. This position was made quite clear last night by our Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Now that the resolve of Security Council members, backed by a large body of free world opinion, including our country, is in place to force Iraq to comply with transparent inspections, surely the wise and only decision at this point is to let this first phase of the process prove or disprove itself.
To talk of pre-emptive or other types of military strikes at this stage is not only premature and ill-advised, but it is to ignore the tremendous calamity that war always visits on innocent people. War must be and always must be the very ultimate option when all possible means of diplomatic and other means of settlement have been exhausted.
I read Senator Kennedy's words in the current debate in the U.S. Senate. With courage, he spoke eloquently about the fact that war must be the ultimate resort and answer, that all possible means of settlement must be exhausted first. To speak in that fashion in the U.S. Senate in the climate of the U.S. administration today shows courage. I hope that senators on all sides of the political divide in the United States will echo his words.
I must admit very frankly that I find the triumvirate of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld scary and frightening for world peace. They give the impression of a war happy trio, anxious to pull the trigger at all costs, looking for the excuse and the self-justification to let the B-52 bombers and the small bombs loose.
President Bush gives the impression of someone involved on a personal vendetta, on a crusade, determined no matter what the odds to complete the task left uncompleted by his presidential father. Somehow this has become a Bush fixation: Let us fire the torpedos and somehow the world will be a better and safer place, immediately Iraq is military defeated and Saddam Hussein disappears from the scene. It is the magic of war; it will solve all our world problems overnight.
The international community, including Canada, must resist at all costs going beyond the strict reach and resolutions of the Security Council and treat the Iraqi crisis with the firmest resolve, of course, but also with wisdom and caution.
Canada has an important role to play as a neighbour and closest historical ally of the United States. After all, we have shown decisive leadership on many key international issues where the United States has taken a completely different stand from our own. Let me mention in passing key international issues and agreements, such as the international criminal code, in which we led the way and where the United States has been looking for escape hatches; the anti-personnel landmine convention, again led by us and which the Americans refused to join; the biodiversity convention of the United Nations, again led by us at Rio and which the United States decided not to sign; and more recently the Kyoto protocol.
The evidence is increasingly present of a unilateral stance in the United States administration, which is to decide that what is good and safe and worthy for the United States is good and safe and worthy for the whole world, no matter what the judgment of the rest of the world may be. Perhaps this became evident when President Bush unilaterally withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty or was the first important signatory to withdraw from and denounce the Kyoto protocol.
Lest I be misunderstood, I have nothing but revulsion for dictatorships and brutality, as practised by Saddam Hussein, or Mugabe or anybody else. I understand and sympathize deeply and warmly with the American people over the terrorist acts that claimed American lives so savagely last year. However despite all this, I remain convinced that war is an instrument of destruction and killing and that war causes untold savagery on innocent people with consequences that we cannot foresee in advance.
It was one thing to go to war to defend human liberties on a world scale when Hitler attacked or the Japanese attacked. However this is a far different question, where a small country can certainly listen and be told that it must comply with United Nations resolutions.
War in this case must definitely be an ultimate weapon and I hope that we will continue our resolve to persuade the United States and Great Britain to exercise the greatest caution and wisdom before using B-52 bombers and small bombs, which obviously will kill innocent people.