Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-15-Speech-3-041"
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"en.20040915.2.3-041"2
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"Mr President, on behalf of my Group I would like to thank Commissioner Patten for his willingness over the past five years to engage in debate with this House wearing a tie with a very light tinge of blue. I am pleased that he is enjoying the political freedom which my party helped him to find and we wish him every success in his future endeavours.
There are many in this Chamber and outwith who still focus on a reckoning for responsibility for the war in Iraq. Whatever form that reckoning might take, Liberals and Democrats insist that we must not allow it to come between Europe and its urgent responsibility to that battered country. When your friend's house is burning down, you do not stop to argue over who dropped the match. With the oppressive brace of dictatorship ripped away, Iraq has burst like a broken dam. If we do not control the flood, it threatens to sweep across the region, engulfing Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It will drown the hopes of democracy in the Middle East.
Everything else in Iraq depends on stopping the killing. Iraq is a vacuum, and in Falluja, Talafar and Baghdad, violence and the unacceptable terror of hostage-taking has rushed in to fill the space emptied by the fall of Saddam Hussein. Yet too often, the coalition forces and the struggling Iraqi Government have met violence with blundering violence. Helicopter gunships and heavy-handed military tactics in crowded urban streets can only feed the resentment and the disorder that recruits for militancy.
Iraq needs international help: a deep and wide commitment that cannot afford to countenance failure. Under the auspices of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546 the international community must offer every assistance to the interim government, and then to its sovereign successor. I welcome the commitment our diplomatic expert, Mr Bot, has expressed here today.
Liberals and Democrats believe that the European Union has experience to offer in everything from restoring Iraq's devastated infrastructure to advising on the drafting of its new constitution. That is why we have backed the Commission's call for a further EUR 200 million to be made available in humanitarian assistance. But Iraq needs more than money. If the cycle of violence can be broken, Europe can help train policemen, judges and teachers. Europe can help rebuild civil society in Iraq through support for non-governmental organisations, trade unions and political parties. The European Union can play a key role in supporting and securing the elections to the Transitional Iraqi National Assembly in January of next year. In a country where almost every citizen relies on government aid, we can help find the rice and the wheat flour that stand between Iraq and starvation, and the soap that guards against devastated public sanitation.
We believe that Europe must help Iraq take steps away from authoritarianism. The new Iraq must be built on stable democratic institutions. Iraq presents us with a challenge. Only stable, democratic government offers the chance to remake the Middle East, and that may require our commitment for a generation."@en1
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