Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-20-Speech-4-020"
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"en.20030320.2.4-020"2
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"Mr President, the thoughts and prayers of my British Conservative colleagues today are with the men and women of my country's armed forces on whom has fallen the heavy and dangerous responsibility of disarming Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction. The international community has long recognised the threat that Saddam poses for the security of our world, but our institutions have sadly failed to implement its decisions and bring about Iraqi disarmament as the UN has demanded in 17 resolutions. I have to say that, listening to this debate, I quite wonder whether some people ever intended that these resolutions should be implemented.
Today is not a day, however, to argue our differences over the reasons for this. As the Commissioner has said, there are lessons which the UN, NATO and Europe will have to learn for the future. That includes the practical reality of reaching a full European consensus when there clearly is division - there is even division in this debate.
It is because our first responsibility is for the defence and security of our people and the preservation of our democratic values - the very values which defend the freedom to participate in demonstrations such as those we have seen throughout Europe in recent days - that my party has given its clear support to the British Government and helped the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to secure a major and decisive vote of confidence in our Parliament last Tuesday evening.
Now that the war has started, the eyes of the world have clearly moved elsewhere, but I welcome the publication of the road map to peace in the Middle East and believe it should not be treated in the cynical way in which it has been referred to in this debate today. If we are committed to peace in the Middle East we should all welcome that announcement. I also welcome the recognition of the role of the UN in post-war reconstruction in Iraq.
I am very encouraged by what Commissioner Patten had to say today about reconstruction after what I thought was a rather different message last week. There is no doubt that we enjoy peace, democracy and freedom of expression because European history has told us that the last generation, including the United States led by Roosevelt, fought to preserve these freedoms. Failure to confront Hussein now would create dangers to those freedoms in the future."@en1
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"Jonathan Evans (PPE-DE )."1
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