Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-09-Speech-3-053"
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"en.20021009.5.3-053"2
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"Mr President, no one is in any doubt that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator. That is not sufficient justification for launching a pre-emptive attack on Iraq. If it were, we would be attacking many countries around the world.
We need to be clear that the motivating force for this war is primarily about trying to ensure secure access to oil. President Bush cannot, of course, admit this. Instead, we are told we must go to war in order to destroy Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Let us be clear about this, our moral authority might be a little stronger if we did not also have weapons of mass destruction.
I also want to talk about the United Nations. Commissioner Patten said that working with the UN confers legitimacy. I agree it is a step towards legitimacy. It is a necessary but insufficient requirement for any action because the UN process is itself highly imperfect. In order to get agreement from the UN Security Council for the first Gulf war, the US used bribery, blackmail and threats and they will do it again.
The resolution which the US is currently trying to get through the Security Council is not designed to avert war but rather to provoke war. Leaked drafts resemble nothing so much as a plan for unopposed invasion.
A just war to the extent that any such thing might be claimed to exist can only be pursued when all peaceful means have been exhausted. In this case, peaceful means are not only unexhausted, they are being deliberately avoided."@en1
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