Locke Keith: Debate on Iraq 
Locke Keith: Debate on Iraq 
[Volume:607;Page:4117] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 This is a very sad time for the people of New Zealand the people of Iraq and the people of the world. I cannot help thinking of what it must be like to be young children in Iraq today—living in terror in their homes and not knowing what might explode around them not knowing which of their friends and relations might be killed and maimed or what might happen to their homes streets and neighbourhoods. That is what war is all about. That is what is about to be visited on the people of Iraq. It is all very well for the men in their fine suits—George Bush Tony Blair and John Howard—to stand behind their podiums and say that they do not have the time to wait even for a few weeks to let the inspections continue to make progress while they unleash a murder-machine against the people of Iraq the like of which the world has never seen. 
They are simply not getting away with it. From Rome to Reykjavik from Dunedin to Denver the people of the world have demonstrated in the largest coordinated protests the world has seen. There has been a huge outpouring of peace protest. Neither Bush nor Blair nor Howard has a mandate from his own population to go to war without United Nations backing. The people of virtually every nation on earth are against this war. The attack on Iraq would also be an attack on the United Nations on its charter and on all institutions governing peaceful relations between nations. This would be a criminal war; it would be a criminal assault on another country—forbidden under international law. 
This is in no way a just war. No country in the Middle East says it is threatened by any immediate invasion by Iraq and the United States Britain and Australia are certainly under no immediate threat. There is no evidence yet that Iraq even still possesses weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors are currently engaged in a process of trying to get from the Iraqis proof that they have destroyed the VX and anthrax stocks they once had. Yesterday New Zealand inspectors were out there in Iraq doing their work. Yesterday Al-Samoud missiles were being destroyed but now tragically the inspectors are on their way home. There is simply no case for war. There is simply no case not to be patient and let the inspectors run their work through to hopefully a successful conclusion. 
There is a huge danger for the world in what the Bush administration is doing because this situation is not just about Iraq. It is about the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war in which the American Government asserts its right to strike whoever it likes whenever it likes on the supposed grounds that the Government of the country it is striking might some day be a threat. In his speech Bill English glorified that saying that we should respect the role of the US as the world’s policeman and that this situation may happen again. We cannot accept that. 
The aggression that is being planned by the United States is covered in the rhetoric of promoting peace and security. George Bush uses grand phrases like “the coalition of the willing” but this is not a coalition of the willing. This is a coalition of the killing—a coalition that will kill many thousands of innocent Iraqis. The way that this war would be conducted might well fit the definition of a war crime. Under the International Criminal Court legislation we passed through this Parliament not so long ago the nature of this war could fit the definition of a war crime. A Serbian commander is currently up before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for targeting the electricity supplies of the people of Sarajevo in the 1990s. George Bush might well qualify as being a war criminal if his troops and planes target civilian targets in Iraq—the electricity supplies the water supplies or broadcasting facilities. Reports that have come out indicate that that will be part of the war about to be conducted. 
Most recently the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that the US could use nuclear weapons against Iraq even if nuclear weapons were not used against US forces. Just hours ago Bush said: “War crimes will be prosecuted and war criminals will be punished.” He could well have been speaking about himself. How can peaceful nuclear - free New Zealand tolerate this sort of thing and this sort of warfare? We may not be able to stop the war now but we should still do everything possible to try to divert it or at least show the war-makers in the clearest possible way that the whole world is against them. Yesterday I wrote to the Prime Minister asking her through her diplomatic representatives at the United Nations to initiate an urgent recall of the United Nations General Assembly under General Assembly Resolution 377. That resolution was used successfully on several occasions particularly by the United States in the Suez crisis to get the French and British troops to withdraw from Suez. 
The Prime Minister should also speak the truth about what is behind this impending assault. It is not good enough for her to say that there are no real differences in objectives between New Zealand and the so-called “coalition of the willing”. She should be saying that this war will not be about whether Iraq might have weapons of mass destruction or whether the US administration wants to get rid of an oppressive regime because obviously the United States currently supports many dictators around the world in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. This war is to advance the interests of Bush’s corporate backers particularly the oil companies. Blair and Howard are there to get a slice of the action for their corporates. 
Australia began free-trade negotiations with the United States yesterday. It may have got the jump on New Zealand in those negotiations by agreeing to go to war with George Bush. But John Howard was making his down payments for a free-trade agreement with the blood of the Iraqi people. We must never go there. 
It is simply not in our interests for America and its corporates to get even more power in the world because they will use that power against us. They will use that power in their own interests in trade negotiations and everything else. We will be the losers as will people throughout the world. 
We must not give any support to the war-makers if this war takes place. The Prime Minister should make a clear statement that if there is an assault against Iraq then the New Zealand Government will withdraw its ship  
Te Mana 
 from one of its operations—that is escorting US warships through the Straits of Hormuz as is explained in many of the Government documents. 
Secondly there should be a serious discussion about whether we should continue to operate the Waihopai satellite communications interception station. It was exposed in the  
Sunday Observer 
 a couple of weeks ago that the National Security Agency that runs the Echelon network of which Waihopai is a part is using it explicitly to spy on United Nations Security Council members to spy on other Governments. Do we really want to be part of that in the context of the brutal war that is about to take place? We should not continue to keep a blanket of silence around the operations of the installation at Waihopai. We have to bring the issue out in the open and decide whether those operations continue to be in our national interest. Out of this crisis we have to reassess our military relations with the three war-making countries.