Key Tony Blair Speeches on Iraq and WMD
Full text of the Prime Minister's speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on 11 November 2002
[Check against delivery]
Last Friday was an important day for the world. After months of debate, the United Nations came together and made its will plain. Saddam now has to decide: There is no dispute with the Iraqi people. Iraq's territorial integrity will be absolute. The dispute is with Saddam. It is now up to him as to how it is resolved: by peace or by conflict.
WMD is but one aspect of the new dangers we face. The Cold War has ended. The great ideological battle between Communism and Western liberal democracy is over. Most countries believe both in markets and in a necessary role for Government. There will be thunderous debates inside nations about the balance, but the struggle for world hegemony by political ideology is gone.
What preoccupies decision-makers now is a different danger. It is extremism driven by fanaticism, personified either in terrorist groups or rogue states.
As we have seen from recent atrocities, whether the attacks of September 11 last year, Bali, the attack on the French ship off Yemen, the Russian theatre siege, today's breed of terrorist knows no bounds - of geography, of inhumanity, or of scale. They are looking for ever more dramatic and devastating outrages to inflict upon the people they claim to be their enemy. There is this added dimension: it is not just that they care nothing for the lives of others, they care nothing for the loss of their own life.
At the moment, barely a day goes by without some new piece of intelligence coming via our security services about a threat to UK interests. Some of it will be based on sources in Britain and abroad. Some of it will be reliable; some of it may be misinformation being fed in to waste our time chasing shadows. Some of it will be gossip. Other material will be based on technical intelligence gathering. This kind of material is crossing the desks of the intelligence agencies, my desk, the Home Secretary's desk, all the time, and other nations are in exactly the same situation.
Tonight I want to take you through the dilemma that confronts us in meeting this threat and explain to you our strategy for it. The purpose of terrorism is of course not just to kill and maim. As the name suggests, terrorism is about terror. It is to scare people, disrupt their normal lives, produce chaos and disorder, distort proper and sensible decision-making. The dilemma is reconciling warning people with alarming them; taking preventive measures without destroying normal life.
Our strategy is as follows. Where there is specific intelligence about a particular attack, we act to thwart it directly. Where we know cells of Al-Qaida are operating, here or abroad, our services are monitoring them, disrupting them, where possible, dealing with those involved; if they are here, prosecuting, detaining or expelling them. Where there is intelligence suggesting potential targets, we increase surveillance or security as far as we can without causing unnecessary hardship or alarm to the public.
But there is a balance to be struck. After the attack in Bali there were suggestions that somehow because the US had issued a general warning to Americans not to gather in large groups, this meant we knew something, that we were holding back on telling the public.
But if, on the basis of a general warning, we were to shut down all the places that Al-Qaeda might be considering for attack, we would be doing their job for them. If we acted on every piece of raw intelligence in a way that some were suggesting after Bali, we would have in my time as Prime Minister on many occasions shut down roads, railways, airports, stations, shopping centres, factories, military installations. If a terrorist thought that all he had to do to shut down the travel industry for example was to issue a threat against our airports, we really would be conceding defeat in the war against terrorism.
So we make a judgement, day by day, week by week. So the international community has to work together to ensure the safest possible transport systems and tough laws, and proper inter-agency co-operation. Government has to ensure we take whatever security measures we can, consistent with the desire of people to live normal lives. Businesses have to ensure that the security measures we advised in the wake of September 11 continue to be implemented. Whether here in the UK or when travelling abroad, all of us as citizens have to be alert, vigilant, and to cooperate fully with the relevant authorities.
This is a new type of war, fought in a different way by different means. But as with all wars, it will test not just our ability to fight, but our character, our resilience and our belief in our own way of life. It is a war I have total confidence we will win, but it will not be without pain or come without a price.
Terrorism and WMD are linked dangers. States which are failed, which repress their people brutally, in which notions of democracy and the rule of law are alien, share the same absence of rational boundaries to their actions as the terrorist. Iraq has used WMD. North Korea's admission that it has a programme to produce Highly Enriched Uranium was an important confession. We know North Korea has traded ballistic missile technology. We know there are other highly unstable states who want to get their hands on Highly Enriched Uranium. With it, a nuclear weapon could be a step away. Just reflect on it and the danger is clear.
And terrorism and WMD have the potential, at least, to be directly linked. Would Al-Qaida buy WMD if it could? Certainly. Do they have the financial resources? Probably. Would they use them? Definitely.
So these are new and different dangers. It's not like the old Soviet bloc versus NATO. There, defensive alliances were formed; crises occurred, often serious; but in a funny way, the world knew where it was. The year 2002 is different. These dangers can strike at any time, across any national boundary and in pursuit of a cause with which there can be little or no rational negotiation.
One part of our response is security, intelligence, policing and where necessary military action. But above all, the international community needs to be unified in its political response.
This is the other danger: not just terrorism or WMD, but polarised opinion in how we deal with them: Europe dividing off from the US; the Arab world versus the West; Moslem versus Christian.
I remember a few weeks ago, doing a Q&A session with young people. In the audience were some young British Moslems. They were obviously bright, born in Britain, with a good future here, intelligent and articulate. And convinced: one, that the US was the real threat to world peace; and two, that the reason Iraq was in our sights, was that it was a Moslem country. In vain did I point out that Saddam had killed many more Moslems than any Western Government; or that when we took on Milosevic, we were fighting an Orthodox Christian oppressing Moslems.
The point I'm making is that these new threats confronting the world aren't conventional: and they can't be fought by conventional means alone. We will not defeat terrorism only by security measures.
We must accept that there is a significant part of the world that is, at present, deeply inimical to all we stand for and is so from a mixture of tradition, ignorance of our true motives and values and from a belief that we are governed by a one-sided view of what is just.
I believe this view to be profoundly mistaken but I believe it to be real. And it menaces the very unity we need in confronting the dangers before us. What can we do?
First, we need to reach out to the Arab and Moslem world. Where countries are undergoing a process of transition, we need to help. Where there are problems between us, we need to engage vigorously. Above all, we need to understand the passion and anger the state of the Middle East Peace Process arouses. I don't want to repeat what I have said so often before. But I would make just this one point. I understand entirely the reasons why Israel has taken action to combat the terrorism it suffers from. Any country faced with its citizens being blown up in cafes, discos, restaurants, buses, innocent people savagely murdered going about their daily business - I say, any country in these circumstances, will act and has a duty to do so.
But without moving towards a just and final settlement based on President Bush's speech of June, the Palestinians, the majority of whom are also innocent victims of this tragedy, are consigned to the most abject state of poverty and despair.
The answer is not to apportion blame. The answer is to move the process forward: on security, on political reform, on the only viable solution the whole world now supports - an Israeli state, recognised by all and a viable Palestinian state. And to do it quickly. Until this happens, this issue hangs like a dark shadow over our world, chilling our relations with each other, poisoning the understanding of our motives, providing the cover under which the fanatics build strength.
Second, we need to be prepared to help failed or failing nations recover. Afghanistan is the clearest example of regime change effected by the international community. It has to work. Investment in Afghanistan today - in money, time, troops and energy, will be repaid many times over. It will be visible proof that we are responsible actors, that compassion is as important to us as the use of force, where necessary. The most remarkable example of helping nations that have failed, is on our own continent of Europe. In 2004 the EU will become 25 nations. I hope no later than 2007 Romania and Bulgaria will join. Balkan nations, plagued by war, division and collapse are seeing, even if only in the distant future, the possibility of coming fully into Europe and it is giving them hope. Every dollar spent now in assisting them, is also assisting us to create a more stable and prosperous Europe.
Third, we need to create bridges of understanding between religious faiths also. Part of the fanaticism is religious. Part of the solution lies in religion too. George Carey's work in the inter-faith field was pioneering especially in the Alexandria Process, which I commend. Within Islam, moderate voices are now speaking up, the world over. They need encouragement. Young people need to be brought up with a clear understanding of other faiths, respect them and cultivate knowledge both of differences and the vast areas of common values and traditions of which so many are ignorant.
Finally, what brings all these things together is a sense of justice, of fairness in our dealings with each other. There can be coalitions of force. But these are always stronger when buttressed by a coalition of common ideas, of a shared agenda. To put it plainly, I believe that we are absolutely right to tackle terrorism and WMD and would be irresponsible to ignore the threat they pose. But I also believe the world needs a broader agenda than simply terrorism and WMD. And we need full US engagement and leadership on all of it. President Bush recognises that. Witness the decision to go through the UN on Iraq; the new relationship between NATO and Russia; last June's agreement on a plan for Africa agreed at the G8. But the world needs to see that for example the famine in Ethiopia, the looming crisis in Southern Africa can demand and receive our attention and energy too.
The point is simply this: if a unified international community is the surest way to defeat these new dangers, we need to construct the broad agenda around which unity can coalesce.
The UN Resolution on Iraq was a vital step in this direction: a willingness to act matched by a willingness to act together.
So: these are new times. New threats need new measures. The simplest act of fanaticism carried out in a state thousands of miles from us is of significance on the streets of London or in the villages of County Durham. The interdependence of the modern world has never been clearer; the need for a common response never greater; the values of freedom, justice and tolerance of our diversity never more relevant; and the need to apply them fairly across the world never more urgent.
The Dossier on Saddam Hussein was published on 24 September 2002, here is the accompanying Prime Minister's Iraq statement to Parliament:
IRAQ AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT, 24 SEPTEMBER
Mr Speaker, thank you for recalling Parliament to debate the best way to deal with the issue of the present leadership of Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Today we published a 50 page dossier detailing the history of Iraq's WMD, its breach of UN resolutions and the current attempts to rebuild the illegal WMD programme. I have placed a copy in the Library of the House.
At the end of the Gulf War, the full extent of Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes became clear. As a result, the UN passed a series of resolutions demanding Iraq disarm itself of such weapons and establishing a regime of weapons inspection and monitoring to do the task. They were to be given unconditional and unrestricted access to all and any Iraqi sites.
All this is accepted fact. In addition, it is fact, documented by UN inspectors, that Iraq almost immediately began to obstruct the inspections. Visits were delayed; on occasions, inspectors threatened; materiel was moved; special sites, shut to the inspectors, were unilaterally designated by Iraq.
The work of the inspectors continued but against a background of increasing obstruction and non-compliance. Indeed, Iraq denied its biological weapons programme existed until forced to acknowledge it after high ranking defectors disclosed it in 1995.
Eventually in 1997, the UN inspectors declared they were unable to fulfil their task. A year of negotiation and further obstruction occurred until finally in late 1998, the UN team were forced to withdraw. As the dossier sets out, we estimate on the basis of the UN's work that there were: up to 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agents, including one and a half tonnes of VX nerve agent; up to 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals; growth media sufficient to produce 26,000 litres of anthrax spores; and over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents.
All of this was missing or unaccounted for.
Military action by the US and UK followed and a certain amount of infrastructure for Iraq's WMD and missile capability was destroyed, setting the Iraqi programme back, but not ending it.
From late 1998 onwards, the sole inhibition on Saddam's WMD programme was the sanctions regime. Iraq was forbidden to use the revenue from its oil except for certain specified non-military purposes. The sanctions regime, however, was also subject to illegal trading and abuse. Because of concerns about its inadequacy - and the impact on the Iraqi people - we made several attempts to refine it, culminating in a new UN resolution in May of this year. But it was only partially effective. Around $3bn of money is illegally taken by Saddam every year now, double the figure for 2000. Self-evidently there is no proper accounting for this money.
Because of concerns that a containment policy based on sanctions alone could not sufficiently inhibit Saddam's weapons programme, negotiations continued after 1998 to gain re-admission for the UN inspectors. In 1999 a new UN resolution demanding their re-entry was passed and ignored. Further negotiations continued. Finally, after several months of discussion with Saddam's regime this year, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, concluded that Saddam was not serious about re-admitting the inspectors and ended the negotiations. That was in July.
All of this is established fact. I set out the history in some detail because occasionally debate on this issue seems to treat it almost as if it had suddenly arisen, coming out of nowhere on a whim, in the last few months of 2002. It is an 11 year history: a history of UN will flouted, lies told by Saddam about existence of his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes, obstruction, defiance and denial. There is one common consistent theme, however: the total determination of Saddam to maintain the programme; to risk war, international ostracism, sanctions, the isolation of the Iraqi economy, in order to keep it. At any time, he could have let the inspectors back in and put the world to proof. At any time he could have co-operated with the UN. Ten days ago he made the offer unconditionally, under threat of war. He could have done it at any time in the last eleven years. But he didn't. Why?
The dossier we publish gives the answer. The reason is because his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programme is not an historic leftover from 1998. The inspectors aren't needed to clean up the old remains. His WMD programme is active, detailed and growing. The policy of containment is not working. The WMD programme is not shut down. It is up and running.
The dossier is based on the work of the British Joint Intelligence Committee. For over 60 years, beginning just prior to WWII, the JIC has provided intelligence assessments to British Prime Ministers. Normally its work is secret. Unusually, because it is important we explain our concerns over Saddam to the British people, we have decided to disclose these assessments. I am aware, of course, that people are going to have to take elements of this on the good faith of our intelligence services. But this is what they are telling me the British Prime Minister and my senior colleagues. The intelligence picture they paint is one accumulated over the past four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative.
It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability.
On chemical weapons, the dossier shows that Iraq continues to produce chemical agent for chemical weapons; has rebuilt previously destroyed production plants across Iraq; has bought dual-use chemical facilities; has retained the key personnel formerly engaged in the chemical weapons programme; and has a serious ongoing research programme into weapons production, all of it well funded.
In respect of biological weapons, again production of biological agents has continued; facilities formerly used for biological weapons have been rebuilt; equipment has been purchased for such a programme; and again Saddam has retained the personnel who worked on it, pre 1991. In particular, the UN inspection regime discovered that Iraq was trying to acquire mobile biological weapons facilities which are easier to conceal. Present intelligence confirms they have now got such facilities. The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death.
As for nuclear weapons, Saddam's previous nuclear weapons programme was shut down by the inspectors, following disclosure by defectors of the full, but hidden, nature of it. That programme was based on gas centrifuge uranium enrichment. The known remaining stocks of uranium are now held under supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But we now know the following. Since the departure of the inspectors in 1998, Saddam has bought or attempted to buy: specialised vacuum pumps of the design needed for the gas centrifuge cascade to enrich uranium; an entire magnet production line of the specification for use in the motors and top bearings of gas centrifuges; dual use products such as Anhydrous Hydrogen Fluoride and fluoride gas, which can be used both in petrochemicals but also in gas centrifuge cascades; a filament winding machine, which can be used to manufacture carbon fibre gas centrifuge rotors; and has attempted, covertly, to acquire 60,000 or more specialised aluminium tubes, which are subject to strict controls due to their potential use in the construction of gas centrifuges.
In addition, we know Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa, though we do not know whether he has been successful. Again key personnel who used to work on the nuclear weapons programme are back in harness. Iraq may claim that this is for a civil nuclear power programme but it has no nuclear power plants.
That is the position in respect of weapons. But, of course, the weapons require ballistic missile capability. This is again subject to UN disarmament resolutions. Iraq is supposed only to have missile capability up to 150 km for conventional weaponry. Pages 27-31 of the dossier detail the evidence on this issue. It is clear both that a significant number of longer-range missiles were effectively concealed from the previous inspectors and remain, including up to 20 extended range Scud missiles; that in mid 2001, there was a step change in the programme and by this year, Iraq's development of weapons with a range over 1,000 kms was well underway; that hundreds of key people are employed on this programme; facilities are being built; and equipment procured, usually clandestinely. Sanctions and import controls have hindered this programme but only slowed its progress. The capability being developed is for multi-purpose use, including with WMD warheads.
Now, that is the assessment to me from the JIC. In addition, we have
well-founded intelligence to tell us that Saddam sees his WMD programme as vital to his survival, as a demonstration of his power and his influence in the region.
There will be some who dismiss all this. Intelligence is not always right. For some of this material there may be innocent explanations.
There will be others who say, rightly, that, for example, on present going, it could be several years before he acquires a usable nuclear weapon. Though, if he were able to purchase fissile materiel illegally, it would only be a year or two.
But let me put it at its simplest: on this 11 year history; with this man, Saddam; with this accumulated, detailed intelligence available; with what we know and what we can reasonably speculate: would the world be wise to leave the present situation undisturbed; to say, despite 14 separate UN demands on this issue, all of which Saddam is in breach of, we should do nothing; to conclude that we should trust not to the good faith of the UN weapons inspectors but to the good faith of the current Iraqi regime?
Our case is simply this: not that we take military action, come what may; but that the case for ensuring Iraqi disarmament (as the UN has stipulated) is overwhelming. I defy anyone on the basis of this evidence to say that is an unreasonable demand for the international community to make when, after all, it is only the same demand that we have made for 11 years and he has rejected.
People say: but why Saddam? I don't in the least dispute there are other causes of concern on WMD. I said as much in this House on 14 September last year. But two things about Saddam stand out. He has used these weapons, thousands dying in chemical weapons attacks in Iraq itself. He used them in the Iran-Iraq war, started by him, in which one million people died. And his is a regime with no moderate elements to appeal to. Read the chapter on Saddam and human rights. Read not just about the one million dead in the war with Iran, not just about the 100,000 Kurds brutally murdered in northern Iraq; not just the 200,000 Shia Muslims driven from the marshlands in southern Iraq; not just the attempt to subjugate and brutalise the Kuwaitis in 1990 which led to the Gulf War. Read about the routine butchering of political opponents; the prison "cleansing" regimes in which thousands die; the torture chambers and hideous penalties supervised by him and his family and detailed by Amnesty International. Read it all and again I defy anyone to say that this cruel and sadistic dictator should be allowed any possibility of getting his hands on more chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons.
Why now? People ask. I agree I cannot say that this month or next, even this year or next, that he will use his weapons. But I can say that if the international community having made the call for his disarmament, now, at this moment, at the point of decision, shrugs its shoulders and walks away, he will draw the conclusion dictators faced with a weakening will, always draw. That the international community will talk but not act; will use diplomacy but not force; and we know, again from our history, that diplomacy, not backed by the threat of force, has never worked with dictators and never will work. If we take this course, he will carry on, his efforts will intensify, his confidence grow and at some point, in a future not too distant, the threat will turn into reality. The threat therefore is not imagined. The history of Saddam and WMD is not American or British propaganda. The history and the present threat are real.
And if people say: why should Britain care? I answer: because there is no way that this man, in this region above all regions, could begin a conflict using such weapons and the consequences not engulf the whole world.
That, after all, is the reason the UN passed its resolutions. That is why it is right the UN Security Council again makes its will and its unity clear and lays down a strong new UN resolution and mandate. Then Saddam will have the choice: comply willingly or be forced to comply. That is why alongside the diplomacy, there must be genuine preparedness and planning to take action if diplomacy fails.
Let me be plain about our purpose.
Of course there is no doubt that Iraq, the region and the whole world would be better off without Saddam.
They deserve to be led by someone who can abide by international law, not a murderous dictator.
Someone who can bring Iraq back into the international community where it belongs, not languishing as a pariah.
Someone who can make the country rich and successful, not impoverished by Saddam's personal greed.
Someone who can lead a government more representative of the country as a whole, while maintaining absolutely Iraq's territorial integrity.
We have no quarrel with the Iraqi people. Liberated from Saddam, they could make Iraq prosperous and a force for good in the Middle East.
So the ending of regime would be the cause of regret for no-one other than Saddam.
But our purpose is disarmament. No-one wants military conflict. The whole purpose of putting this before the UN is to demonstrate the united determination of the international community to resolve this in the way it should have been resolved years ago: through a proper process of disarmament under the UN.
Disarmament of all WMD is the demand. One way or another it must be acceded to.
There are two other issues with a bearing on this question which I will deal with.
First, Afghanistan is a country now freed from the Taliban, but still suffering. This is a regime we changed, rightly. I want to make it clear, once again, we are entirely committed to its re-construction. We will not desert the Afghan people. We will stick with them until the job is done.
Secondly, I have no doubt the Arab world knows it would be better off without Saddam. Equally, I know there is genuine resentment at the state of the Middle East Peace Process, which people want to see the international community pursue with the same vigour. Israel will defend its people against these savage acts of terrorism. But the very purpose of this terrorism is to prevent any chance for peace. Meanwhile the Palestinians are suffering in the most appalling and unacceptable way. We need urgent action to build a security infrastructure that gives both Israelis and Palestinians confidence and stops the next suicide bomb closing down the prospects of progress. We need political reform for the Palestinian Authority. And we need a new Conference on the Middle East Peace Process based on the twin principles of a secure Israel and a viable Palestinian state. We can condemn the terrorism and the reaction to it. But frankly, that gets us nowhere. What we need is a firm commitment to action and a massive mobilisation of energy to get the peace process moving again; and we will play our part in any way we can.
Finally, there are many acts of this drama still to be played out. I have always said that Parliament should be kept in touch with all developments, in particular those that would lead us to military action. That remains the case. To those who doubt it, I say: look at Kosovo and Afghanistan. We proceeded with care, with full debate in this House and when we took military action, did so as a last resort. We shall act in the same way now. But I hope we can do so, secure in the knowledge that should Saddam continue to defy the will of the international community, this House, as it has in our history so many times before, will not shrink from doing what is necessary and right.
Selected relevant site pages:
Biography of George Galloway
Biography of Lord Goldsmith
Biography of Reg Keys