| Conflict with Iraq |
| The changing of Saddam's regime is a legal and moral duty - one that should be honoured by anyone who believes in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His barbarous and genocidal behaviour towards his own people - the Iraqi Kurds poison-gassed at Halabja in 1988 and the Marsh Arabs later - gives the jus ad bellum [just cause - the conditions under which the use of military force is justified]. We live in a world where people who suffer under barbarous and illegitimate regimes die as a consequence of their own government's hand... If we take no action, they die anyway And this duty is properly mandated. It is in the Genocide Convention and in previous United Nation resolutions regarding the suffering Saddam inflicted on his citizens. In particular resolution 688 (which is cited within the current key resolution, 1441) condemns the human rights abuses of Saddam, and mandates the restoration of international peace and security to the region. There are those who ask whether war can be justified if it risks innocent civilian lives. This is something that has preoccupied people who think about the eventuality of war ever since St Augustine formulated his theory of Just War. My starting point is that it is a false proposition to suggest that the alternative to a war of liberation - which I believe this war would be - is that no one would die. In the 20th Century 35 million people died in wars. But three times as many died at the hands of their own governments, victims of Stalin, Hitler, Mao. We live in a world where people who suffer under barbarous and illegitimate regimes die as a consequence of their own government's hand, as we have already seen in Iraq. If we take no action, they die anyway. In fact I would go further. Those who oppose the use of armed force would be, in effect, condoning the possibility that more people would die than may die in a war of liberation, both in Iraq and elsewhere (in Britain for example) as a result of Saddam's continuance in power. Removing Saddam The question of moral responsibility lies in intent. The intention in conducting a just war is to minimise injury both to your own troops and to innocent civilians insofar as is possible. In the context of removing Saddam, there are several ways in which that moral responsibility can be fulfilled. Minimising innocent civilian deaths can best be done by conducting a very large military operation which swamps the enemy and quickly extinguishes resistance The first is to conduct the diplomatic and psychological war in a manner that maximises the chances of the dictator being removed by the action of his own people. This is exactly what is being done at the moment. But, if that doesn't work, you have to follow through with the threat and design the military action in such a way as to meet the criteria of jus in bello [how to conduct war in an ethical manner]. This means that your use of force is proportionate to the threat and discriminates between combatants and civilians as much as possible. In the context of Iraq, I believe the longer the troop build-up goes on, the larger our range of options to meet those criteria becomes. Minimising innocent civilian deaths can best be done by conducting a very large military operation which swamps the enemy and quickly extinguishes resistance. Providing the operation is supplied with overwhelming mass, as now seems likely, the defeat of Saddam's army should not be technically too challenging. If some innocent people die in those operations, those people die as a consequence of liberation. The situation is then no different from, say, the French or Italians who welcomed the liberation of Paris or Rome from Nazi occupation. Those people fully understood that there was the possibility that civilians would die in the process of that liberation, but they thought it worth the price. 'Forces of good' We live in a new world - one that is no longer dominated by superpower confrontation. I believe it is possible to use the forces of good to protect the rights of those who are defenceless and to assist in the liberation of those who are persecuted. The potential use of force on Iraq will not be the first time we have used miltary force to achieve a greater goof for mankind. For example, we sent British troops to conduct a magnificent and much applauded rescue of Sierra Leonians in 2000. And I believe this is the way he saw the use of our forces in Bosnia, where we played a crucial role in rescuing Bosnian Muslims. He saw it in the same way in the case of Kosovo and more recently in the liberation aspect of the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Much of the criticism of the use of force in Iraq that was heard from the "old" Labour back benches at Prime Minister's Questions, is, I think, actually a cover for people who really want to say that much as they may dislike Saddam Hussein, they hate the U.S more, or that they really think that the US is the greater threat to their view of the world. Such people give Saddam Hussein all the benefit of the doubt, and none to the democratic restraints upon any US president. Mr Bush cannot act without a formal mandate from Congress; and he has it. |
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