Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-29-Speech-3-024"
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"en.20030129.2.3-024"2
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".
Mr President, representatives of the Commission, Mr Solana, I believe that both you, Mr Solana, and Commissioner Patten have made it clear that the European Union has achieved a number of foreign policy successes of which we should remind ourselves at the present time. For if you add up the number of operations the European Union has mounted in Bosnia and in Macedonia, and consider the great burden that European forces in Afghanistan are taking upon themselves, as well as the fact that the European Union devotes three times as much of its budget to overseas aid as does the United States of America, all these important factors are, in my view, things of which old Europe can be proud.
We should also be stating what is to happen once the war is over. What form is political reconstruction to take? For how long will Western troops have to remain there? To what extent does this relate to the creation of a new order in the region as a whole, what sort of new order will that be, and at what cost? To date, I have heard no answer to these questions, and I believe that if you are going to go into something, you have to think about how you are going to get out again.
At the same time, we should also remember that the achievements that this month has seen – the eastward and southward enlargement of the European Union and the consequent extension of the zone of stability and democracy – play a decisive part in making the world more peaceful. The primary motive for the enlargement of the European Union is that it will extend the stability zone. I think that we should make that point by incorporating this into the integrated approach.
Hitherto, admittedly, we lacked the ability to speak with one voice when it came to issues of war and peace, a defect dating back as far as last summer. For if one says that he will join in whatever happens and another that he will not under any circumstances, that makes it difficult to find a middle way, but thank God we have found the essentials of one with help from the French President and from you, Mr Solana and Commissioner Patten.
Ladies and gentlemen, it must also be clear in this context – if we are honest with ourselves – that if we are to get our voice heard everywhere, be it in New York, Washington, or Baghdad, it will only be by attempting to work out a common position based on the knowledge that this is the only way. This is the road we must take, rather than following others on their celebratory processions, whether these be to Baghdad or to Washington.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my belief that we should now press on with the endeavour that the Council has – God be thanked – set in motion this week, which, for the time being at least, gave us a halfway reasonable position, with the multilateral approach being particularly valued and preferred, and with the attempt being made, within the UN framework, at finding a peaceful solution. It must, however, be made clear that this must be kept up to the very end. This is a consensus that does not just last for eight days, but one that must be made to work.
Ladies and gentlemen, any consideration of these matters must of course have as its starting point the view of the international community – expressed, for example, in Resolution 1441 – that Iraqi disarmament must take place, and that Saddam Hussein must play an active part in it. Dr Blix, for example, has stated that these conditions have not been met, and so it is a good thing that the efforts of many have gained us a breathing space, time that must be used to find a peaceful solution, by which I mean the dismantling of the weapons of mass destruction – insofar as they actually exist – and the disarmament of Iraq, thus enabling the will of the international community, as expressed in international law, to prevail.
However, ladies and gentlemen, Dr Blix's inspectors need to have the same information as is held by those who claim they were already aware that there was something there and that they would at some point present the facts to the public. In my view, Dr Blix should be told the facts right now, for how are we to explain to the public that a war is inevitable if we do not tell even our allies' inspectors the whole truth, thus enabling them to find what they are looking for? It seems to me that something of a credibility gap is developing here, one that may cause a great deal of damage in days to come.
It should not, however, be forgotten, when considering this issue, that Saddam Hussein is a mass murderer. Baroness Nicholson and I were in an Iranian camp for Iraqi refugees, and I have seen how people had to live there, having been driven from their homes and tormented by Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons. The depiction of Saddam Hussein as someone who represents no real danger does not strike me as credible.
Ladies and gentlemen, we should also be clear in our own minds about the real menace of weapons of mass destruction when they are in the hands of people such as Saddam Hussein, particularly if he is to emerge from this conflict as the victor, with all the resulting effects on the region's morale."@en1
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