The belief I have is this: that if we do not take a stand now against the growth of this chemical, biological and nuclear weapons threat, then at some point a state or a terrorist group, pursuing extremism with no care for human life, will use such weapons, and not just Britain but the world will be plunged into a living nightmare from which we will struggle long and hard to awake.
I know many of you find it hard to understand why I care so deeply about this. I tell you: it is fear. Not the fear that Saddam is about to launch a strike on a British town or city tomorrow or the next day. Not a conventional fear about a conventional threat. But the fear that one day these new threats of weapons
of mass destruction, rogue states and international terrorism combine to deliver a catastrophe to our world; and the shame then of knowing that I saw that threat, day after day, and I did nothing to stop it. I cannot, and I will not, do that. No matter how hard the decision, I will try to do what I believe to be right.
And do not think that, if we back away now, we will cease to be a target. If we fail to insist on the disarmament of Saddam and leave him in charge of Iraq with his weapons, having faced us down, do you think it will be the last we hear of weapons of mass destruction? And to those people who say we will encourage more terrorism by enforcing the UN’s will, do you think if we retreat now, the terrorists will reward us, will respect us, will fold up their machinery of death and disappear? If we think so, it is a cruel delusion. If we fail this, the first test of our determination, it will not be the end; it will only be the beginning.
For these extreme groups or states
do not abide by our values of tolerance, liberty or democracy. On the contrary: they detest them. And they know that
in conventional military terms we are infinitely more powerful than they are. That is why people here find it so hard to feel threatened. It is where we have
to dispense with all notions about traditional forms of threat and realise
that this is a new phenomenon.
Understand what terrorism of this kind is designed to achieve. It is designed to produce chaos and hatred. And it can succeed. Look at the tensions between India and Pakistan, possibly as dangerous as any situation in the world today. What is fuelling it is, of course, the Kashmir dispute and of course there are underlying reasons for it. But what is inflaming it is terrorism, making it harder for people to come together to resolve it. Look at the baleful effect of terrorism
on the Middle East peace process; on Chechnya; or the effect on American policy after September 11. Look at how, now, in Europe, nations are having to introduce new laws, how there are community tensions, how our economies and security are affected, by the potential threat of terrorism.
And now imagine what would happen if the terrorists did get hold of weapons of mass destruction; or if one of these states used a nuclear device. Do not think there is a single corner of any land, no matter how distant from the original act, no matter how uncomprehending of the original dispute, that would not be enveloped in its consequences.
There are glib comparisons that can be made with the 1930s. And I don’t make them. History never repeats itself precisely. There are a multitude of differences between now and then. But there are lessons from that time. We look back now and with the wonderful benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of what happened, we think it all obvious; obvious fascism was a threat; obvious we had to fight it; obvious the opponents
of fighting it were wrong.
But none of it was obvious. In 1938 Chamberlain was a hero when he brought back the Munich Agreement. And he did it for the best of motives. He had seen members of his precious family, people he loved, die in the carnage of World War I. He strove for peace, but
not because he was a bad man. He was
a good man. But he was a good man who made the wrong decision.
Because the lesson we learned then was that if, confronted by a threat, we back away because we assume that our good and peaceful intentions are matched by those threatening us, the threat only grows and at a later time has to be confronted again, but in a far more deadly and dangerous form.
And, naturally, Saddam will play his game, throwing out concessions to divide us, to try to weaken our will. He’s done it for twelve, long years. He’s at it now. Does anyone think he would be making any concessions but for the army camped on his doorstep? Ah, people say, but what you’re saying is it doesn’t matter what
he does, he’ll never satisfy you. But he knows exactly what he must do. He must account for what the UN inspectors, when after years of obstruction, they finally left Iraq, said was unaccounted for. The 8,500 litres of anthrax, the 360 tons of bulk chemical warfare agents, the 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, the 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent, or the 6,500 chemical bombs. And he must free the experts who worked on the programmes to speak to the inspectors, not tape recorded, not minded by Iraqi security, but able to talk freely and honestly of what they have done. He must, in other words, stop playing and decide to disarm. A genuine change of heart and mind. That is all we ask.
It is what the UN demanded when
it gave him a ‘final opportunity’ in Resolution 1441 last November; when
it said that he had to comply fully, unconditionally and immediately. And
all we ask now is that the UN means what it said and does what it meant.
I passionately want this resolved through the UN. Unilateralism is the very opposite of the approach we have sought and argued for. But that is why multilateralism has to be the means of achieving our objective, not the means
of avoiding its achievement.
And if we have to act, let us do so
on this basis. Let us put as much resource and commitment into the humanitarian plight of the Iraqi people as we do into any conflict. And to those on the left who doubt the justice of removing Saddam, understand that the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is not something we will create. It is there. Listen to the testimony of Ann Clwyd, a brave and tireless campaigner against the barbarism of the Iraqi regime and the suffering of the Iraqi people when the world’s attention was turned away.
Listen to the accounts of the victims of Saddam’s torture and brutality. Hear those voices of the four million Iraqi exiles who are forced to live abroad, of the Shi’a muslims driven from the lands of the south, of the Kurdish muslims murdered in the north. And recognise that thanks to the British and American pilots who police the no-fly zone in northern Iraq, Saddam’s writ there is contained and there at least, despite even the sanctions, hospitals and schools have been built, child mortality has fallen, human rights are given some respect.
By all means let a rightwing isolationist who believes only in a narrow view of self-interest attack us for interfering in someone else’s business. But for those of us who believe in international solidarity, who will intervene to prevent another human being’s suffering, who say that such suffering is our business, if we do take action, let us do so, secure in the knowledge that to remove Saddam would be to rid the world of one of the most revolting regimes in modern political history.
• This is an edited version of Tony Blair’s address to the Welsh Labour party conference in Swansea