Mr. Chairman, I fear the former leader of the official opposition may have had a peek at my speech.
I welcome the opportunity to express my views on this grave issue of international peace and security. The matter of when to use force is the most critical issue any government can face. It must never be taken lightly and it must always be a last resort.
I have never encountered any Canadian who wishes to go to war. In that respect I think we are all, each and every one of us, peace activists.
For anyone who has seen the horrors of war, not from the surreal images that have flooded our TV screens in recent times, but up close at ground level, looking into the eyes of the people affected, it is something that one never ever forgets. The devastation, the loss, the shattered lives, the communities changed forever, the mental and physical scars, many of which never heal, are all part of the devastating cataclysmic horror of war.
I have seen firsthand the face of war in Sierra Leone and Guinea, where the poorest of the poor were brutalized in ways that defy the imagination.
I have seen the face of war in Kosovo and Bosnia, where societies dissolved into chaos and where mass murder and rape shattered the calm of what were ordinary lives. Anyone who has seen the effects of war at close quarters understands that it is to be avoided.
In as much as the revulsion against war is felt deeply throughout the world, at the dawn of the 21st century war regrettably has not vanished from our landscape. We seem to have learned little from the horrific decades of the 20th century. If we have learned anything, I hope it is that the forces of evil and aggression, those with no respect for human life or human rights, those that threaten the peace of the world must be confronted directly and decisively.
Over the years of the last century we have tried to fashion international organizations which provide us with the diplomatic and political tools to avoid conflict. The results of these efforts have been mixed, to say the least.
After the first world war, the League of Nations represented the best hope for enduring peace. It faltered grievously when its resolutions went unenforced and when the allies lost their collective will to uphold the disarmament of the Treaty of Versailles.
In dealing with the international crisis that we now face in Iraq, I cannot help but think of the words of Winston Churchill who, in speaking on the situation in Europe in the 1930s, noted and I quote:
--the strict enforcement at any time till 1934 of the disarmament clauses of the Peace Treaty would have guarded indefinitely, without violence or bloodshed, the peace and safety of mankind. But this was neglected while the infringements remained petty and shunned as they assumed serious proportions. Thus, the final safeguard of a long peace was cast away. The crimes of the vanquished find their background and their explanation, though not, of course, their pardon, in the follies of the victors. Without these follies crime would have found neither temptation nor opportunity.
While different in geopolitical terms, there are in my view too many haunting parallels between the regime of Adolf Hitler and the regime of Saddam Hussein. In the cold light of history we know all too well Hitler's crimes against his own people, against his neighbours and against humanity.
Saddam Hussein's grim legacy, although smaller in scale when we count the million casualties from the Iran-Iraq war and the thousands who perished because of his invasion of Kuwait and his persecution of the Kurds, still places him firmly in the category of one of humanity's truly prolific mass murderers.
Hitler skilfully dodged the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles to rearm and re-equip his Nazi regime with the most modern and destructive weapons of the time. Saddam too has skilfully dodged the provisions of almost a dozen UN Security Council resolutions. In the words of chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, “Iraq appears not to have come to the genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it”.
While Hitler's lack of compliance with the Treaty of Versailles was clearly evident to the international community in terms of planes, battleships, tanks and submarines, Saddam Hussein's arsenal is easily hidden, but potentially much more destructive. A single 122 millimetre rocket shell of the type recently uncovered by weapons inspectors when filled with VX nerve agent, fired into a stadium could easily extinguish the lives of between 20,000 and 60,000 people.
Saddam, again, according to Mr. Blix, has still failed to account for significant quantities of biological and chemical weapons, including stocks of VX nerve gas, two tonnes of nutrients or growth media for biological agents such as anthrax, 550 artillery shells with mustard gas and 6,500 chemical bombs. While some may see Saddam's lack of compliance as technical violations, anyone familiar with the destructive capability of these weapons would see these violations for what they are; material breaches of the so-called last chance United Nations resolution 1441.
While some have suggested that they wish to see a smoking gun in terms of proof, Mr. Blix put this issue to rest on Monday in his statement to the Security Council. He reasserted the role of weapons inspectors as disarmament verifiers rather than sleuths or detectives trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack. Blix stated, and I quote:
As we know, the twin operation 'declare and verify', which was prescribed in resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of 'hide and seek'. Rather than just verifying declarations and supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in efforts to map the weapons programmes and to search for evidence through inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence organizations.
While Blix conceded that the Iraqi regime was co-operating on process but not on substance, the fact remains that after 12 years of evasion, frustration, deceit and obstruction, disarmament of the regime of Saddam Hussein remains an elusive goal.
When confronting a criminal regime of the sort that we face in Iraq, our history should tell us clearly that it is a hard message that must be delivered and nothing short of full compliance is acceptable. A failure to convey a strong, clear message is always interpreted as weakness and a lack of resolve. To force compliance to the will of the international community is, regrettably, often necessary to threaten the use of armed force or, as a last resort, to employ armed force to compel compliance to preserve international peace and security.
In the preface to his award winning series on the second world war, Churchill, who once addressed this chamber during the darker days of the second world war, spoke about how the war could have been prevented. He noted, and I quote:
--how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous; how the structure and habits of democratic states, unless they are welded into larger organisms, lack those elements of persistence and conviction which can alone give security to humble masses; how, even in matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued for even ten or fifteen years at a time. We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull's-eye of disaster. We shall see how absolute is the need of a broad path of international action pursued by many states in common across the years, irrespective of the ebb and flow of national politics.
Although time is running out for the regime of Saddam Hussein, some of us still cling to the hope that Iraq might disarm without a single shot being fired and without a single life lost. Failing that, I very much hope we will see a united and concentrated effort through the United Nations to disarm this regime and to ensure that the collective will of the international community prevails.
Should the United Nations fail to accept its responsibility and enforce its resolutions, I believe that this country working with our traditional allies, the United States, Great Britain, Australia and others, should, indeed must, keep its options open in terms of participating in a coalition of like-minded countries to disarm the regime. We have seen the United Nations fail to take effective action in the past in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.
In the final analysis as the next few weeks unfold, we will hopefully have the benefit of more information from Mr. Blix, Mr. Powell and the regime of Saddam Hussein. Reflecting on our values as Canadians, I earnestly hope that we will be able to make a decision which contributes tangibly to international peace and security.
