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'Nobody wants military conflict'
24/09/2002 14:26 - (SA)
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| The L-29 jet trainer, which the dossier says Iraq has attempted to modify to allow it to be used as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) potentially capable of delivering chemical and biological agents over a large area. (AP) |
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London - At the publishing of a dossier on Iraq on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged the international community to unite to ensure Iraq disarms and said nobody wanted military conflict.
"Our case is simply this. Not that we take military action come what may. But that the case for ensuring Iraqi disarmament is overwhelming," Blair told parliament at the start of an emergency debate on Iraq.
Saddam Hussein could launch a weapon of mass destruction at just 45 minutes' notice and is seeking to build a nuclear capability, according to Blair.
Blair said he was in no doubt Iraq and its neighbours would be far better off without Saddam Hussein. He added that diplomatic channels were being pursued, but preparation for action must continue in case they failed.
Britain has stuck resolutely to its proposals to use a United Nations resolution to force Saddam to honour his international obligations, while hawks in US President George W Bush's administration continue to call for "regime change" in Baghdad with or without UN backing.
Saddam 'ready to use' weapons
The dossier setting out Blair's case for action against Iraq said Saddam was "ready to use" chemical and biological weapons and had tried to acquire uranium from Africa.
"We know Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa, though we do not know whether he has been successful," Blair said.
If sanctions remained effective, Iraq would not be able to produce nuclear weapons, the dossier said. But if it obtained fissile material and other essential components from foreign sources, it could produce nuclear weapons in between one and two years.
"Saddam Hussein is continuing to develop WMD (weapons of mass destruction), and with them the ability to inflict real damage upon the region, and the stability of the world," Blair said in the introduction to the dossier.
"His military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them."
Iraq slammed Blair's dossier as "baseless".
"Mr Blair is acting as part of the Zionist (Israeli) campaign against Iraq and all his claims are baseless," Iraqi Culture Minister Hamed Yousif Hummadi told reporters.
'Pulp fiction'
Blair's 50-page dossier contained little in the way of new evidence against Saddam, but set out the threat posed by him, gave voice to the British government's allegations against him, and collated previous reports on his weapons stocks.
In one section, the dossier sought to highlight Saddam's grand ambitions by comparing one of his vast presidential sites to the relatively small total area taken up by Buckingham Palace, the official residence of Queen Elizabeth.
Blair, who has given unqualified support to Bush in his "war on terrorism" since September 11 last year, hopes the dossier will win over sceptics within his own Labour party who are reluctant to back military action against Baghdad.
But he has an uphill struggle if he is to sway some hardline left-wingers determined to voice their opposition.
More than 160 members of the 659-strong parliament, most of them from Blair's Labour Party, have in the past few months signed a motion expressing "deep unease" about Britain backing military strikes on Iraq - particularly if there is no explicit UN resolution calling for an attack.
Anti-war Labour member of parliament George Galloway, who has travelled several times to Baghdad in recent weeks, dismissed Blair's dossier as "pulp fiction."
As protesters circled the Houses of Parliament in an open-topped campaign bus and singing "Give Peace a Chance", Galloway slammed the document as "out of date".
"The vast majority of the British people are on my side in this argument, not with the intelligence services and their pulp fiction," Galloway told reporters.
An opinion poll published on Tuesday showed British opposition to a military attack on Iraq at 39%.
It also showed 65% pproval of an attack on Baghdad if there were sufficient proof that Saddam had developed new mass killing capabilities.
- Reuters
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