Madam Speaker, that was a very long question.
First, I would like to apologize, on his behalf, to seniors. Seniors are just as important to me as everybody else. They have the right to speak on this issue, be it in the UN or whatever.
The member asked why the government was picking on Iraq? Last January George Bush gave a speech to the U.S. congress. He used the phrase “axis of evil”. By that he meant Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
We all know North Korea has weapons of mass destruction. We all know of its capacity to bomb Hawaii or Japan. How did the U.S. react? It is sending the army over to Iraq and confining North Korea within its region.
The other point the member made about resolution 1441 was that Iraq was not cooperating. Resolution 1441 asked specifically for the west to provide intelligence information for the inspectors to do their job. The U.S. and the west has failed to do that.
Mr. Blix will have to come to a conclusion. Next week he will present a concrete resolution to this issue by saying that, yes, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction based on intelligence, or no, it does not. If Mr. Blix is not provided with the tools to work with how can we expect him to make a recommendation to resolve the conflict and come back with a report that says, yes, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction?