OPENING SPEECH BY JACK STRAW
UK FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH SECRETARY

UK FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

September 24, 2002

Mr Speaker,

This debate raises several critical issues relating to security in the Middle East and beyond. I want to look at four key questions.

First - Is the Iraqi regime the threat we say it is?

Second - Aren't there other countries which have developed equally dangerous arsenals of weapons of mass destruction?

Third - Isn't the international community guilty of double standards?

Fourth - Even if Iraq is the danger we claim, is the threat of force, or its use, justified?

Let me deal with these questions in turn.

First, how much of a threat is the Iraqi regime?

Mr Speaker,

The dossier we have published today sets out a forensically-argued case about the nature of the regime. In terms both of its human rights record and the threat from its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq is in a league of its own, uniquely evil, and uniquely dangerous.

On human rights, no other regime now in power anywhere in the world has Saddam's record for brutality, torture, execution as a routine way of life, and as the principal means by which the elite stays in power.

Mr Speaker,

Page 48 of the dossier spells out starkly the number of Iraqis executed recently under Saddam. But sometimes it is the individual human stories which better bring home the true bestiality of this regime. For example, in October 2000 Amnesty International reported the beheading of dozens of women by the regime allegedly for prostitution. The victims were executed in front of their homes by a militia created by Saddam's son, Uday. Amongst those executed for 'prostitution' was Dr Najat Mohammed Haydar, an obstetrician in Baghdad's leading hospital whose only alleged crime apart from prositution was to be critical of corruption in the health services.

As the dossier shows, the Iraqi security apparatus and weaponry are not incidental extras to be used in extremis. They are fundamental to the regime's exercise of power.

The Iraqi regime has systematically persecuted and oppressed ethnic and religious groups. No group has suffered more than the Iraqi Kurds. In one year, Amnesty International estimates that more than 100,000 Kurds disappeared or were killed. The world had a glimpse of the genocide in 1988 when Iraqi planes used poison gas to kill 5,000 Kurds in Halabja.

Saddam had already by then shown his appetite for chemical weapons in the war with Iran. Halabja confirmed that his weapons of mass destruction would be turned against his own people as well as the outside world.

Iraq has fought wars of aggression against two neighbours, and launched missile attacks against three others. In 1991, following the Gulf War, the UN Security Council required inspectors to remove the threat and disarm Iraq. The inspectors did some heroic work during their seven years in Iraq, notwithstanding continuing intimidation and harassment. Their achievements are spelt out on page 40 of the dossier. But in 1998, as they closed in on the most vital secrets at the heart of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programmes, they were forced to leave.

Mr Speaker,

As page 16 of the dossier reveals, in 1998 the regime retained an arsenal of material for chemical and biological weapons.

Since then, as the dossier explains, Iraq has continued to produce chemical and biological agents, and their means of delivery, and to make yet another attempt to develop nuclear weapons.

Mr Speaker,

This brings me to my second question: namely, what about the other countries which have amassed equally dangerous stockpiles of weapons? And what are we doing about them?

As the Prime Minister told the House on 14 September during the first debate following 11 September last year, we in the UK are greatly concerned about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in several countries. In tackling the problem, we engage the relevant governments bilaterally and through the UN and other international bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, to persuade these governments to comply with their international non-proliferation obligations. We also exert pressure on them through our efforts - nationally and with other partners in the various international export control regimes - to block their access to sensitive materials and technology relevant to weapons of mass destruction and to ballistic missiles.

It is our hard-headed judgement that we can best prevent the use of their weaponry through diplomacy. That is simply not the case with Iraq.

With Saddam Hussein the diplomatic route has been constantly obstructed by his intransigence and duplicity. It has been blocked altogether since December 1998 - leaving us no alternative but to consider other options. Iraq - not the UN - has chosen the path of confrontation.

Mr Speaker,

What further distinguishes Iraq from other proliferators is the nature of its intent. Saddam's is the only regime in recent history to have used chemical weapons, the only regime to have been declared in breach of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons, the only regime which sees these weapons of mass destruction as an active tool of regional and internal dominance. As page 19 of the dossier sets out, Saddam is prepared to use these weapons; they are by no means a last resort.

Mr Speaker,

My third question is whether in its approach to Iraq, the international community has been guilty of using double standards, especially with regard to Israel/Palestine.

My answer is 'No'. But I want to explain why, since I recognise the strength of feeling behind this question.

As a permanent member of the Security Council, Britain wants to see the full implementation of all UN Resolutions, in the Middle East and elsewhere. The current situation in Israel and in the Occupied Territories is dreadful.

My condemnation of suicide bombers and those who organise them is absolute. But despicable though they were, the latest terrorist outrages do not justify the latest incursions by the IDF into Ramallah or into Gaza. I said at the weekend that these forces must be withdrawn. UN Security Council Resolution 1435, passed this morning, reiterates this demand.

UNSCRs 242, 338, 1397 and 1402 set out the steps all parties in the region must take to secure lasting peace. They impose requirements on Israel, and on the Palestinians and on every Arab state, to recognise the State of Israel and allow it to exist in peace and security. Despite the horrendous violence there has been progress. Exactly a year ago, as I have particular reason to recall, even uttering the word Palestine aroused controversy in some quarters. Now, a commitment to a viable State of Palestine alongside a secure State of Israel is the official policy of the UN, provided by UNSCR 1397 with the full support of the US.

Mr Speaker,

There is one other aspect of the double standards argument. This is that the military action taken by the UK and US over the past decade has been directed against Muslims. Such claims are palpably untrue.

The facts speak for themselves. The four major military campaigns Britain has fought over the past decade have each had the effect of helping oppressed Muslims: Kuwait in 1991; Bosnia in 1995; Kosovo in 1999; and Afghanistan in 2001.

In the case of Iraq, our differences are emphatically not with the long-suffering Iraqi people. With the United States, Britain sponsored a new UN resolution earlier this year to increase the flow of civilian goods to Iraq. But our efforts to soften the impact of sanctions on the Iraqi people have been frustrated by the Iraqi regime which prefers to spend oil revenues on weapons. Saddam Hussein has done nothing to meet the UN's conditions for the lifting of economic sanctions, condemning the Iraqi people to a life of penury.

Mr Speaker,

The fourth question is whether even if Saddam is as great threat as we say; is it justifiable to use force to deal with the threat?

The short answer to this question is yes, provided force is a last resort, and its use is consistent with international law.

Mr Speaker,

Law, whether domestic or international, fundamentally depends for its legitimacy on the values it reflects. Law without values is no law at all. But whilst the moral legitimacy of any law will strengthen the natural consent for that law, there are always going to be some who reject or despise the values on which the law is based. Against them, the law has to be enforced, ultimately by force of arms. But the force which is used has itself to be consistent with the moral and legal framework it seeks to defend. Law without force is no law. Force without law is no law.

These realities about the nature of law have long been recognised within states. The painful experience of the twentieth century made us recognise them too in respect of regulation between states. The League of Nations was shown by its specific failure over Abyssinia literally to be powerless. When exhortation ran out the world community had nothing. The subsequent collapse of the League gave the green light to the tyrannical excesses of Hitler; and in the end, much more force had to be used, much more blood shed, than if both the system and the world's then leaders had been capable of acting to enforce international norms of behaviour.

The architects of the United Nations learnt these lessons. The UN Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter are the most powerful invocations I know of the moral imperatives behind international law, 'to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war'. But the Declaration and Charter skilfully combined high idealism with hard-headed realism, and above all recognised that, as with domestic law, the ultimate enforcement of the rule of international law had to be by force of arms.

Mr Speaker,

Diplomacy, of course, should always be tried first: but the paradox of some situations, and Iraq is pre-eminently one, is that diplomacy only has any chance of success if it is combined with the clearest possible prospect that force of arms will be used if diplomacy fails. As the Secretary General of the UN has said, 'We have learned that sensitive diplomacy must be backed by the threat of military force if it is to succeed.'

We have used all of the diplomatic instruments at the disposal of the United Nations, but so far Saddam has rendered them unworkable. The recent sequence of events has been a re-enactment of the past twelve years. Only two weeks ago, the Iraqi DPM, Tariq Aziz, said Iraq would never readmit weapons inspectors. Then President Bush made his powerful speech to the General Assembly on 12 September. A new international consensus started to come together. Saddam's alibis started to run out. So just a week ago we were suddenly told that, after all, Iraq would readmit the inspectors without condition. Some of us were just a little sceptical. Quite right, because two days later the Iraqi Foreign Minister began to re-impose conditions. But even this pretence of co-operation has only come about because Saddam has at last realised that he faces a clear choice - compliance or compliance by use of force.

Mr Speaker,

Some assert that containment as a policy has worked. My answer is this. Containment - backed by the potential use of force - was broadly working whilst the inspectors were able to do their job and the Security Council's resolve remained firm. But all the evidence suggests that Saddam has used the past four years without inspectors to break out of his containment, and to seek to re-establish his power.

Only free and unfettered inspections backed by a Security Council united in its determination to disarm Iraq, offers the prospect of dealing with the threat by peaceful means. And a peaceful conclusion is the outcome which is desired on both sides of the Atlantic, by Her Majesty's Government and by the United States Administration. We should applaud the efforts of President Bush to secure that end. We are now pressing for a new resolution, setting out the case for a tough and intrusive weapons inspection regime. It should allow for an early test of whether the latest Iraqi offer is genuine. But if it is to have any effect on Iraq, it must carry the implicit threat of force.

Mr Speaker,

We should all be gravely exercised by the potential use of force. I hope and pray it won't come to that. If there is military action, any participation in it by HMG would be strictly in accordance with our obligations in international law; and its purpose would be the disarmament of the Iraqi regime's weapons of mass destruction and to end its deliberate and persistent flouting of the will of the United Nations.

The choice, Mr Speaker, is Saddam's. He has flouted international law, he does pose a serious and significant threat to the region and beyond, yet this threat can be resolved without force, by full disarmament verified by the inspectors. Yes, we face some uncomfortable choices. Yet if Saddam continues to defy the international community, the alternative - doing nothing - will be much worse. We will have re-empowered a monster. We faced difficult choices over Kosovo, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone - but does anyone now say we should not have taken action in those countries? And 11 years ago, we faced difficult choices over Iraq. But to have stood aside then and allowed Saddam free rein across the Arab world would have had dire, incalculable consequences for the region and for international security.

Abdication of responsibility, equivocation in the face of evil led Europe down a desperate path in the late 1930s. From the ashes was born the United Nations, a new international order. But this international order requires law, law requires enforcement. That is the issue before us today.