Blair Makes the Case
Blair Makes the Case Faced with mounting pressure from within his own Labour party, as well as from other European leaders, British prime minister Tony Blair last week courageously and forcefully...
...ON THE IRAQI PEOPLE One of the things I have found most bizarre about the last few weeks is the sight of very decent, liberal-minded people lining up and saying effectively that we shouldn't do anything about the regime of Saddam Hussein...
...And some of the talk about this in the past few weeks, I have to say, has astonished me...
...and that confronted with this reality we have to face up to it and to deal with it...
...Here are excerpts from Blair's remarks during his 90-minute press conference on September 3. ON THE ISSUE OF REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ We, at every level of government, have been and remain in close dialogue with the United States of America about this issue, and where we are in absolute agreement is that Iraq poses a real and a unique threat to the security of the region and the rest of the world...
...What is the threat...
...International terrorism executed its worst atrocity on the streets of America, but that was an attack on the whole of the free and civilized world...
...And therefore it is right that we respond to it together, and when people attack America and say why do they act unilaterally and all the rest of it, I actually haven't found on these issues of security they do that at all...
...And I also hope, incidentally, in part of the debate that develops, it would be good to hear from some of the people who have lived in Iraq under Saddam Hussein...
...And if Britain and if Europe want to be taken seriously as people facing up to these issues too, then our place is facing them with America—in partnership, but with America...
...Now the issue is making sure it is not a threat and either the regime starts to function in an entirely different way—and there hasn't been much sign of that—or the regime has to change...
...I think there is a lot of that around, and I think it is wrong, misguided, and dangerous...
...He waited weeks in order to make sure that the action that would be taken was right...
...Because what I say to you is the policy of containment as it exists now can't continue indefinitely, it simply can't...
...Let's just be clear about the nature of the regime that we are dealing with...
...We are dealing with a regime that routinely tortures and executes its political opponents, that probably was responsible for up to 100,000 Kurdish people dying in a brutal campaign in order to enforce Iraqi rule...
...My answer to that is yes, it wasn't just a threat to America, they could perfectly easily have done it in London, or Berlin, or Paris, or anywhere...
...But I want to say this about our relationship with the United States...
...And I believe that there is evidence that they will acquire nuclear weapons capability if they possibly can...
...ON THE COMPLACENCY OF OTHER EUROPEAN LEADERS I think it is in part because people fear that some action will be taken of a preemptory nature, without any proper discussion and without considering the consequences...
...And the reason why our place is beside them in addressing this issue is not because of some misplaced allegiance or because of blind loyalty, it is because it is the right thing to do...
...That is what people fear...
...That is the choice, very simply...
...And as I say, the question that should be put right round the world at the moment is: Can you afford to allow Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime, knowing what we know of them, knowing how many hundreds of thousands of people they have killed, can you allow them to carry on developing biological, chemical, potentially nuclear capability...
...The reason why I supported the United States of America after 11 September was because it was the right thing to do...
...And here we have a situation again—you would think with the debate going on in the past few weeks, it was somehow us who were in breach of the United Nations resolutions and Saddam who was wanting compliance...
...He built up international support...
...The important thing to realize is that there is no doubt that at some point the Iraqi regime were trying to develop nuclear weapons capability—that is why the actual nuclear weapons inspectors went in there and shut down parts of their program...
...We are talking about a regime that was responsible for a million people dying in the Iran-Iraq war, the annexation of Kuwait, and that we know . . . was trying to develop these appalling weapons and indeed actually used these weapons against their own people...
...that he is in breach of United Nations resolutions...
...Go and ask a few of them what it is like living under a regime where you are not allowed to say anything against the government, where people are routinely tortured and murdered and executed, where if you are from certain tribes or certain people who might be opposed to the regime you are subject to a brutal form of execution— The fact that this is an appalling, brutal, dictatorial, vicious regime doesn't mean to say that you have to remove it...
...And I think it is better that we confront these issues together as partners of America, and I think that is so for Britain, I think that is so for the rest of Europe, too...
...Tony Blair, for the Editors...
...The threat is an Iraq that carries on building up chemical, biological, nuclear weapons capability...
...But...
...And America should not have to face these problems alone...
...For a long period of time we have done our best to contain that threat, though it is increasingly difficult to do it without inspectors being back in there with a proper regime on the ground that alters the way the regime behaves...
...Blair Makes the Case Faced with mounting pressure from within his own Labour party, as well as from other European leaders, British prime minister Tony Blair last week courageously and forcefully made the case for regime change in Iraq...
...There is also what] I described as anti-Americanism earlier...
...America shouldn't be left to face these issues alone...
...he was firm and determined to deal with the issue but dealt with it in the right way...
...Again some of what I read...
...The person that I know and work with operates on these security issues in a calm and sensible and measured way, and the best proof of that is after 11 September...
...We posed the question—was 11 September a threat to British national security or not...
...that Saddam Hussein is continuing in his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, that means a biological, chemical, nuclear weapons capability...
...I just want to say this...
...I also think that some of the criticism of George Bush is just a parody of the George Bush that I know and work with...
...This is a regime that suppresses its people in the most appalling and brutal way, that has been responsible for thousands of them dying...
...The Americans in raising this issue are not wrong, they are right...
...the rest of the world has a responsibility, not just America, to deal with this...
...a lot of it is just straightforward anti-Americanism...
...I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, "the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out," and then to worry when America wants to sort them out...
...the whole of the international community has a responsibility to deal with it...
...I have absolutely no doubt at all that the vast majority of Iraqi people would love to get rid of Saddam Hussein, because what I have found in all these situations is that most people want the same things whatever part of the world they are in...
...I find it very odd that people can get into the situation of not understanding that the people who would be most delighted if Saddam Hussein went would be the Iraqi people...
...How we deal with it, as I have said to you on many occasions, is under discussion, but that we have to do it is not in doubt---The key objective for us is to deal with the threat...
...If the answer to that is no, then let's have a debate about the right way forward, but let's answer that question first...
...You would think from some of the discussion that we were dealing with some benign liberal democracy out in Iraq...
...ON THE QUESTION OF "BLIND LOYALTY" TO AMERICA I would never support anything I thought was wrong out of some blind loyalty to the U.S...
...There are plenty of them, there are scores, thousands actually, of refugees flooding across Europe from the Iraqi regime...
Vol. 8 • September 2002 • No. 1
