Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is trying to suggest that this is anti-American. It has nothing to do with being anti-American. It has to do with dealing specifically with a situation which yes, it has been 12 years and it has taken time, but there are inspectors in Iraq today.
The United States wants to have a U.S. led aggression. Canada was one of the countries that said no. We said that we work through the United Nations. It is important to maintain the integrity and the strength of the UN system, the multilateral system.
Inspectors are in Iraq and until such time as there is a chance to continue to inspect we should give peace a chance.
Why have we not looked at what this might do in the region? We talk about urban warfare door to door. We talk about cutting off power and water. Have we thought about the possibility of hundreds of thousands of refugees, of the possibility of igniting war in the Muslim world in that area? Have we talked about what that would mean in terms of increasing and igniting further al-Qaeda? By the way not only is it probably linked to Saddam Hussein, but I understand it has links to 60 countries. Have we thought about the ramifications of this action before we even try to do it?
It is not as simple as getting up one morning and deciding we will go over there and hit hard and it is over the next day with no casualties and nobody will be killed. There will be civilians in Iraq that will be killed. They will die of dysentery and probably of famine. Many Iraqis will leave that country and will end up in refugee camps. We do not know what the reaction will be in the whole region. We are talking about an extremely sensitive area. Meanwhile North Korea has openly said, “We have nuclear weapons and we do not want you guys to bother us”.
What the member is saying is let us go right now. The member's position is to go unilaterally with the U.S. My position is that we wait, we work and we allow the process to work. We have to allow the peace process to work.