UK FOREIGN SECRETARY

UK FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

October 15, 2002

Excerpt

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MULTILATERALISM AND THE THREAT OF FORCE

From its instrumental role in the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials and the drafting of the UN Charter to support for war crimes tribunals in The Hague (for Yugoslavia) and Arusha (for Rwanda), from the Korean War to Operation Desert Storm, America has applied multilateral solutions to international problems. 

As a consequence, the past five decades have been one of the most stable and prosperous periods in history.  The international architecture established at the end of the Second World War has served mankind well.  But dictatorial regimes in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, international terrorist groups and states at risk of internal collapse have one thing in common: they are often not susceptible to diplomacy alone. Tackling these challenges may ultimately mean the use of force. 

This reality has applied to Saddam Hussein for over a decade.  Iraq is the prime example of a regime, which despises our values and threatens all the things we believe in peace, freedom, the rule of law, tolerance and above all human life.

Saddam's record of murderous suppression of political dissent and religious diversity places him alongside history's worst dictators.  The punishment for criticising Saddam is to have your tongue cut out.  Every day, pilots from our countries risk their lives in the no-fly zones to protect the security of those who Saddam would otherwise terrorise.

It is an understatement to say that his regime has no respect for human rights.  It holds human life in contempt.

For eleven long years the United Nations Security Council and all members of the transatlantic Alliance have attempted to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.  But our demands have been consistently flouted: not of the United States, the UK, but the UN.

The immediate priority therefore must be a new UN resolution, which establishes a highly intrusive inspections regime with the widest possible backing.  Saddam has exploited loopholes in the earlier resolutions not just because of defective wording, but because that wording has reflected divisions in the international community.

Under a new inspection regime, any time, any place should mean just that: there must be no hiding place in the so-called Presidential Palaces.

If any new resolution is to have real effect, it must be backed with the credible threat of force.  The Iraqi regime should be left under no illusion of the consequences of non-compliance or the depth of our resolve. 

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