Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-12-Speech-3-161"
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"en.20030212.5.3-161"2
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"President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, in every country in the European Union, the great majority of public opinion is still opposed to the idea of a war in Iraq. If the objective really being pursued is that of disarming Iraq, we must strengthen the inspection programme. The inspectors are the alternative to war. If, on the other hand, the objective is first and foremost to topple the Iraqi regime by force, then we must conclude, here and now, as the American Government has done, that the inspection programme has now become pointless.
We must therefore confirm, at the Security Council on Friday, that the sole objective of Resolution 1441 is to disarm Iraq. I would remind you that the resolution adopted by the plenary session of the European Parliament on 30 January is clearly in line with this reasoning. This attitude in no way signifies that we accept the dictatorial nature of the Iraqi Government. It signifies that we do not want a change of regime to be brought about by war. That, Mr Poettering, is the attitude of the German Government, and it is not an isolated one: it is also the attitude of the French Government and the Belgian Government, and I hope that next Monday, at the European Council meeting, it will be the unified attitude of the fifteen governments of the Union. Whatever happens, I am proud of the position adopted by these various governments.
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I mentioned public opinion in Europe, but I should also like to talk, though not at such length as Mr Wurtz, about the fate of the people of Iraq. I too was a member of that delegation of 31 Members. The contact that we had there, both with the authorities of the UN agency and with the NGO officials, have led us unanimously to conclude that after two wars and the current embargo the Iraqi population is at the end of its tether. A new war in Iraq would obviously have catastrophic humanitarian consequences, and this was confirmed to us by all the UN workers whom we met in Baghdad. Is this really how we imagine we are preparing a future for the people of Iraq?
Finally, in order to give some hope back to the people of Iraq, I should like to emphasise, as I already have done and as we already did at the previous plenary session, the need to change the embargo arrangements. Before 11 September 2001, the whole of the international community recognised the negative effects of this embargo, which is helping the dictatorship and keeping the population in a state of dependency while at the same time stifling the Iraqi economy. I propose that, at the same time as we intensify the inspection programme, there should also be a revision of the mandate of the 'oil for food' programme, which would make it possible to buy local products, thereby encouraging the Iraqi economy to make a fresh start, and which would also give responsibility for distributing food rations to the UN World Food Programme."@en1
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