Mr. Speaker, the member for Calgary Southeast has raised some very important points. They are points that I was already aware of.
I have no problem in suspecting that some of the permanent members of the Security Council had their own reasons for threatening a veto. I actually think that the United States committed a major strategic error by not actively endorsing Canada's proposal for a new resolution that set out clear dates, the last of which would have been April 8, for Iraq to clearly comply with resolution 1441 in terms of disarmament.
If the United States had supported Canada's proposal, in my view it would have had an overwhelming approval by the members of the Security Council. It would have been voted in the Security Council. One of the permanent members, possibly France, Russia, China or Germany, might have, and probably would have, vetoed it. Then we would have had a situation where the overwhelming majority of the members of the Security Council supported military action and one or two permanent members, against the will of the majority, vetoed it. That would have made an entirely different situation for the United States, for the U.K., for Spain and also for Canada, in terms of how we may have viewed supporting or endorsing military action against Iraq.
The United States decided not to support Canada's diplomatic efforts to get that other resolution through. It decided to simply not put any resolution before the Security Council and gave a 48 hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. I think that was a major strategic error on the part of the United States. It would have had the majority of the world in its favour because it would have had the moral victory within the Security Council.