Madam Chairman, I do not doubt the hon. member's concern about this issue, but I must, on behalf of many Canadians, doubt her sound judgment, both in her remarks this evening and in her very unfortunate recent trip to Baghdad, where she met with apparently senior officials in one of the most tyrannical regimes in the world. That is not my partisan view. It is the position taken by every human rights organization in the world that has condemned the Saddam Hussein regime as one of the most tyrannical.
This member really does not understand. Perhaps she should have listened to her hon. colleague, the member for Ottawa--Nepean, who quoted Winston Churchill on the kind of moral confusion created by appeasers.
She was quoted from Iraq speaking positively about assurances she had been given by senior government officials in Iraq that the regime would clean up its human rights record and review its laws and its frequent resort to capital punishment. I wonder if she could tell us, did she raise the cases of women being beheaded in public squares in Iraq recently for unproven charges of prostitution? Did she raise the systemic abuse of women and children who are related to dissidents? Did she raise the cases of children who were tortured in front of their parents by the Iraqi secret police in order to extract information? Did she raise any of these questions?
Further, the hon. member says that she is terribly concerned about international law and is opposed to any pre-emptive action. Is she not aware that in this conflict the violator of international law is the Iraqi regime? Is she not aware when she speaks of pre-emptive strikes that in fact the military action being contemplated to enforce resolution 1441 and 15 predecessor UN Security Council resolutions in fact would be a continuation of the hostilities suspended by the instrument of a ceasefire in 1991, to which the Iraqi government was a party and in which it committed to a total disarmament under UN supervision? In other words, does she not understand that, legally speaking, the gulf war of 1990 is not over? There is no peace treaty. There is a ceasefire. It was Saddam Hussein who started that conflict. Is she not aware that this tyrant is in violation of every human rights covenant under the aegis of international law of 16 United Nations Security Council resolutions? How can she possibly suggest that responsible democratic allies of Canada are violating international law when in fact it is international law that they are seeking to impose? If she is so concerned about international law, why does she not support efforts to enforce UN Security Council resolution 1441?
Finally, if she is opposed to sanctions and opposed to the use of force to ensure compliance with the resolutions, what then does she propose, more peace missions to talk to Saddam Hussein's minions in Baghdad? Is that how she suggests the Iraqi regime will suddenly come to terms with international law?