Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Cambridge.
Approximately an hour ago President Bush gave a 48 hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein and his regime. Do we not all wish that he would take him up on that and that he would depart Iraq. He is a brutal dictator and certainly the Iraqi people would be much better off without him. But I do not think that will be a great possibility, as much as it would be wished.
The next step the president intends to take is one that involves military action. I believe that is a mistake. I believe that the inspection regime was producing results. Yes, we must all admit that to a great degree it was because of the very pressure President Bush brought to bear on the Iraqi regime, but that does not justify taking it to the next step of war because, as Mr. Blix has said, progress is being made. More time is needed by him and the inspectors. There can be containment of the situation by the United Nations.
Indeed, the agenda of the United Nations is one of disarmament. That is not the agenda of President Bush. He has made it clear that it is one of regime change. He has said that right from the beginning. The United Nations believes there is not a clear and present danger to the world or to the United States from Iraq and that inspections should be allowed to carry on.
The position that was put forward today in the House by the Prime Minister is the correct position. It is one where we will not become involved in the conflict in Iraq because it does not have the sanction of the Security Council. We must be a part of and support the United Nations and its Security Council process. Yes, there are imperfections. Yes, there is a need for a lot of reform in that system. But it is the one international forum we have to try and maintain peace in the world and I think we must respect that forum.
Mr. Bush tonight said that it had failed to act and he indicated his disappointment in the Security Council. I do not believe we should allow him to attack the credibility of the United Nations because he did not get his way, because there are many countries that simply do not agree with the next step that he wants to take. Canada will continue to support the United Nations and the Security Council process, and that is what I believe most Canadians would want Canada to do.
At the same time, we must recognize that we are the closest friends of the people of the United States. We are tied very closely economically to the United States. Our neighbours have gone through a very traumatic experience with the attacks of September 11. We must be careful in dealing with our friend and ally that we bear that in mind as we go through the troubled times ahead.
Some mention was made of the legality of going into this conflict, whether resolution 1441 in fact does provide, as the president has indicated, the sufficient justification to proceed with conflict, with a military attack. I think lawyers will argue for a considerable amount of time whether in fact it is legal. Meanwhile, whether it is or is not, regardless what the lawyers may say, a military action is about to occur.
Canadian troops were mentioned today in the House. I do not believe that any Canadian troops should be a part of any action in Iraq. If we are not participating in that war, our troops should neither be involved in direct combat nor in a support operation where the maple leaf is on their shoulder and they are participating in any way in the Iraq conflict.
There are other roles which they could play with the United States, Britain or our other allies around the world, that may well not come within that category, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Nor is it wrong for our troops to be involved in the war against terrorism. Indeed the campaign against terrorism is one that we have thoroughly supported. We are involved again in sending troops to Afghanistan and that region as part of the effort to bring about greater stability in that country. Our Canadian troops should not be part of the conflict in Iraq.
There is also the question of a humanitarian disaster which is looming for the people of Iraq, the innocent civilians of Iraq. Half of the people of that country, some 60 million people, depend upon the government for food supplies and half of them in turn are children. There are many children that are undernourished, many children that are already going without clean water. Disease is already a factor in their lives. How much worse is it going to be when the conflict begins?
Unfortunately the United States and the other countries that are involved in the conflict have not put enough time and attention into how they are going to relieve that kind of pain for the very people the President of the United States said tonight he was not attacking. He wants to help them. He wants to liberate them. Hopefully he and his country will be able to do more to help relieve the pain that might result from any attack.
It is not going to be the people who become, in the jargon of war, collateral damage. It is the people who will suffer from starvation, disease and other factors that are going to be part of this humanitarian catastrophe.
There is also the risk of instability in the entire region. There must be great caution in terms of not inciting the potential for a clash of civilizations, Muslim versus the west. Nobody wants that. When we get into war, when we get into this kind of conflict and the kind of instability that could be created in that entire region, there are always risks that have to be watched. Hopefully as any military action progresses, the world community through the United Nations will keep an eye on the situation to help ensure that this war, this conflict does not spread beyond what the President of the United States says he wants to accomplish in terms of regime change.
Post-war governance again will be an issue that will require a lot of attention. It is probable that there will be a military governor from the United States who will be in Iraq for some period of time. We do not know what length of time that might be, but again that can cause a lot of anxiousness, a lot of resentment for many other people, not only in Iraq but people in the surrounding areas. We only hope that out of all of this, if there is going to be war we end up seeing the people relieved of so much pain they have been through and that we end up moving toward the kind of democratic institutions that I believe they deserve.
It would have been better to go the other route. It would have been better to contain the conflict. In fact the more clear and present danger probably comes from North Korea. The President of the United States says that we can solve that by diplomatic means, but somehow we cannot solve this by diplomatic means. I believe that he is making a mistake in the plan that he is about to unleash.
One can only hope that if this is going to happen, that it be mercifully short. I think there is a very high risk of it being quite dangerous, quite messy and a high risk of it going on for some period of time, a high risk in it spreading beyond where the President of the United States thinks its limits are.
One of the lessons of history is that wars do not very often go according to plan. They become something far different than we had ever imagined. We only hope and pray that will not happen in this case and perhaps in these last moments somehow war will totally be avoided.