Iraq

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:19 pm on 26 February 2003.

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Photo of Baroness Uddin Baroness Uddin Labour 6:19, 26 February 2003

My Lords, these are the last hours of hope. My heart also goes out to the Prime Minister and I pay tribute to his gallant efforts to achieve Resolution 1441. I am sure that no one disagrees.

I sat through the whole of the Prime Minister's Statement in another place yesterday and agree wholeheartedly with and believe my right honourable friend when he says that he does not want war and knows that no one in the House wants war. But my agreement stops at that point.

After hearing moving contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I feel humbled by my own contribution. I almost withdrew my name from the list of speakers, thinking that there was nothing more to be said.

However, as we approach the beginning of this inevitable, horrible war that will end the world as we know it, as a mother I have to share my opinion and have my say. It is a difficult endeavour, but the Prophet of Islam instructed that even at the moment that we are surrounded by Armageddon, the believer should continue to plant trees. The wisdom there is that the end of something is always the beginning of something else. I am not for one moment suggesting that we plant trees.

As a child of war in Bangladesh—it had its fair share of violent conflict, to which members of my family were lost—I carry many of the scars of my then countrymen and women: scars of rape, death, pain, broken limbs, devastated lives, pain and revenge. My abhorrence towards the particular conflict that we face by no means comes from the fact that I am a pacifist.

My right honourable friend the Prime Minister will acknowledge our absolute and total support for his efforts in Afghanistan. My criticism of the current approach of the Government whom I support comes with equal commitment to the fact that what I believed then about Afghanistan, I believe about Iraq now. Any war against Iraq would be both unjust and immoral in my opinion. Thank God, I share that opinion with a number of noble Lords and other people in Britain.

Support for action is incredibly unwise and inhumane. The context in which the war is to be waged is not only based on untruths—I hesitate to say lies—and duplicity, but is frightening in its avowed barbarity and ferocity. The message coming from the US is that Iraq and whoever "happens" to be there is about to be annihilated. Recently at Mayport Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida, US President George Bush told hundreds of naval personnel, on the eve of the war, that rules of war did not apply to terrorists. He said:

"On 9–11, the terrorists brought war to us—now we're taking it to them".

He called terrorists—whom else could he be referring to but the Iraqis, with whom the US is about to go to war—"cold-blooded thugs" and "outlaws".

Earlier, the US public was told that Saddam Hussein was using his own citizens as human shields. Pentagon reports claimed that the Iraqi army was hiding among the Iraqi citizenry. The Pentagon also showed satellite images of what it claimed were missile launchers "parked" outside mosques. In January, Iraq "experts" Frank Gaffney and Richard Perle said that the chemical and biological weapons in Iraq's possession were hidden in the private homes of Iraqi citizens, and in hospitals, universities and mosques. All those locations have effectively been made fair game and open to attack.

Actually that was a cue: here we had helicopters and 150 policemen invading a mosque in Finsbury Park. The rash action, which had the effect of tarnishing the image of mosques and demonising Muslims, political asylum seekers and exiles, has also set a scenario for people in this country to accept the bombing and destruction of mosques in Iraq when the war begins. I am not suggesting that anything is leading to propaganda.

At the same time as our armed police were desecrating a holy place, the same was happening in Baghdad. Five UNMOVIC inspectors invaded the Al-Nidaa mosque, the largest and most populated in Baghdad, and interrogated the Imam, Shaykh Qutaiba Ammash. The "weapons inspectors" inquired as to the dimensions of the mosque and how many people it could house during prayers. The outraged Imam later held a press conference and asked:

"Are the inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction or are they trying to measure the extent of faith in our hearts?".

CNN's Nick Robertson, speaking during a live broadcast, said that the head of the inspections team in Baghdad had no idea who gave the orders for the five inspectors to intrude on the mosque. Many well-respected analysts in the region believe that the inspection was ordered and orchestrated directly by the US National Security adviser, Miss Rice, to raise the level of tension between Iraq and the UN and provoke Iraq into the daring, if not foolish, act of not co-operating. That would then give President Bush's Administration the excuse that they need to wage war unilaterally.

I am no expert, and I do not suggest that that is the truth, but we need to ask what the truth is. How can we know what the truth is any more? All those provocations and allegations, coupled with bits and pieces of reports that have been plagiarized or are quite old, and also the fact that the US has refused to sign on to the International Criminal Court, which holds military personnel accountable for war crimes, spells doom for the innocent Iraqi civilians, among them Iraqi children.

The statement that the Iraqi army is hiding among the civilian population indicates that the US Administration are expecting mass civilian casualties. It exonerates them—it does so in advance of a breakout of hostilities, I might add—because it places blame for the casualties on the Iraqi army chiefs and Saddam Hussein himself. The US Administration are effectively warning us all, saying, "Look, we told you before we went in that Saddam was hiding his weapons in civilian areas and didn't care for his civilians anyway, so the blame doesn't lie with us".

President Bush concluded his speech on the naval base to which I referred earlier by saying,

"we're gonna smoke 'em out".

That has become paraphrased and used by every child on streets in inner-city areas.

A war against Iraq would have numerous consequences, and not only those that I have mentioned. Most of them would not benefit humanity. The allegation from numerous Muslim quarters that the war is against Islam would certainly be reaffirmed. There will be huge consequences. Going to war—I accept everything that colleagues have said on the subject—will certainly mean an increase in extremism. There may even be retaliation by terrorists, mostly against civilians because that is the most easy and effective manner to damage and hurt any country. Moderate Muslim nations with no extremist tendencies will be unable to control the sizeable numbers of their population who already believe that the United States supports the notion of wiping a billion of them from the face of the earth. Those are rising fears, which are not desirable at this vulnerable time.

The economic balance of the world will be altered, as has been said, when the United States has control over the bulk of oil. At least in part, the war is against European oil treaties with Iraq. The economic costs of the war itself will create turmoil in all parts of the world's marketplace, although the people who usually push for such actions because they profit from them will do so again.

I cannot say any more than has already been said on the demise of the United Nations, but when the US Administration thumb their noses at world opinion, it will end the credibility of that organisation and its international authority for ever. Those who do not already fear the United States as a rogue nation will start doing so. The tinderbox of the Middle East, already smouldering for 50 years, will ignite. Let there not be any doubt that we told you so.

I am almost ashamed to talk about the environmental disaster that is estimated to happen as a consequence, given that we are talking about human beings and the desecration of a historical part of the earth, Iraq itself. All those who previously looked towards the United States as their friend and ally will for ever be mindful of having to watch their backs. The special relations that Britain has in particular with the Arab and Muslim world will be irrevocably damaged. Last, but not least, many innocent men, women and children will die. For them there is no voice in this or the other place.

What is going on is profoundly depressing and sad. It is difficult to articulate the sense of frustration and disappointment that I feel, as well as the rage that has gripped me as we head towards disastrous consequences. We might not be able to stop the war, but we must, even if it is only for the sake of posterity, at least have the courage to say, "Please, not in our name". I do that today.

When the might of the then Pakistani army inflicted death and destruction upon the gentle people of Bangladesh, I took part in protest marches with my family. Even as a child I was not silent. I was certainly not silent when the fascists took hold of the East End in the early 1980s. As a young mother I took my children to the South African embassy in Trafalgar Square to protest against apartheid and to support the release of Nelson Mandela.

On all those occasions the words of Martin Luther King echoed in my mind when he said:

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter".

May God protect us from the folly of our friends, the evil of our enemies and the laziness of our actions. In saying my piece today, I echo the call of Archbishop Williams and Cardinal Murphy O'Connor who said that we must hope and pray that with God's guidance, an outcome that will bring peace with justice to Iraq and the Middle East may yet be found.