I am very happy to have the opportunity of participating in this discussion on the most recent and appalling developments in Iraq. I welcome the tone of the contributions so far from the Opposition Members even though they enable me to differ with them as well as with the statement of the Minister of State.
In the preface to his thoughtful speech, Deputy Noonan referred to the great intellectual movements and challenging movements of this century and the last in terms of fascism, Marxism and democracy. Unfortunately at the background of this appalling level to which we have fallen, there is another movement, the newly developed movement of unaccountable international capitalism. We must remember that it exists and has changed relationships. Social democracy might have saved capitalism from itself on occasions and equally on occasions the labour movement and trade unions might have softened the impact of transitions in economics. However the reality is that a new totally uncontrolled, unaccountable, capitalism — for example in the United States case driven by the oil industry — is at the root of this problem.
While I do not intend to delay on this preface, I want to make a point that will, I hope, make that connection. We should remember that those who questioned prisoners in a prison in Baghdad were recruited from private companies with no experience or commitment to any tenet of international law. Last night's "Panorama" programme gave a list of the companies that contracted to interrogate prisoners. Why have the funds allocated under the Madrid pledge not been spent? They are not spent because not a single contract in that area has been given to a company outside the United States. These hucksters want to grab every cent that is going in restoring the devastation that was not accidental. It was not accidental because the Americans bombed the water system, sewers and reservoirs and insisted that only their companies and friends would have a contract to restore them.
This is an appalling and sad day. This is one of the very few places where we can use language to express what we feel morally and what we expect from the Government. I have given up hope of the Government answering honestly a question on Iraq. Whoever takes the opportunity now might do so. Why will the Government not answer the questions we ask it? Where does it stand on the principle that started this, the principle of pre-emptive strike? It has been said this was invented by the Project for the New American Century, the neo-conservative lobby, which suggested that if the country has spent the money on defence and has the capacity, it should be seen as powerful. What is the Government's position, clearly and unequivocally, on the illegality of pre-emption?
Will the Government say what everyone knows, that the "war" — to use its word not mine — or rather the international co-operative movement against terrorism, which was discussed and agreed at the United Nations, was severely dislodged by the illegal invasion of Iraq? Not only was there no evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction, which is a tissue of lies, but there was no evidence of the existence of terrorist networks in Iraq. Al-Qaeda had made three attempts on the life of Saddam Hussein. The cliques were coming from Saudi Arabia, with which the United States was dining every other week. Where is the Government on that issue? There is and there was no connection between the invasion of Iraq and the international movement against terrorism.
The Americans then created the finest recruiting ground in the world for every kind of terrorist group that will see their cultures degraded, their citizens humiliated, their religious beliefs mocked and exploitations of gender relationships and cultures thousands of years old. Even in here every day I hear people tripping off their tongues in the same phrase "the war in Iraq and the war on international terrorism". There was no connection and it was that group of bigots who when they were taking time off from supporting uncritically the Israeli attack on the Palestinian people decided to promote that agenda of invading Iraq.
We stayed silent and we were degraded and shamed. When we are quacking on about our outrage over the pictures we are still not in a position to say that some of the people involved, private or in the army, did not go through Shannon with the Government's agreement. It is now time for questions to be answered. In the absence of other opportunities, we will have one great opportunity when the presiding officer of all these disgraceful developments in humanity will visit this country and be entertained by our Government. I will be protesting wherever I can and I hope people throughout the country will say in the streets morally what is not being said on their behalf by their Government. It will be the only chance we will have.
When I first stood for election a long time ago, in 1969, people in politics could be expected to speak out. At the time the concept of a press release did not exist. However people like Michael McInerney and Donal Foley wrote articles in the newspapers when The Irish Times was a newspaper of record. I now read articles in The Irish Times by somebody included for balance, Mark Steyn, who referred to what took place in Abu Ghraib in an interesting way. He referred to the bodies piled and manacled on top of each other as follows: “Making a homoerotic pyramid of young Iraqi men naked with their bottoms in the air is not my idea of a good time.” There was a time when that piece would not appear in The Irish Times. Repeatedly this column of bigotry, homophobia and racism that is presented every Monday contains attacks on what we call the basic decencies on some principle of balance. The editor of that newspaper would want to indicate to me what she is balancing when she produces material like that.
I worked on the McBride commission on prisoners. When we published the report and the Minister would not agree to discuss it with us, we could rely on The Irish Times to be interested in prison welfare. However instead of this we are supposed to take the notion that this is an arena of abuse. We are all being degraded. Ministers will not answer questions and will not state where they stand on the war. They will not say it is illegal. They will not say unequivocally the Geneva Convention is being broken and we condemn them for it. Why should I have to take it when the Minister of State says he is waiting for the four inquiries by the United States forces? What nonsense. His accountability is to us, the people, and not to the United States forces. He is not in a position in any event to deliver on it because many of the people questioning the prisoners were recruited from private companies. Others were reservists.
It is easy to blame a poor 21 year old female from a trailer park in West Virginia, but that is to forget the Taguba report. Why did the Minister of State not mention it? The Taguba report showed very clearly as did the "Panorama" programme that all along there was evidence of systematic abuse. Functions were handed over to interrogators which were not theirs and for which the Geneva Convention offers no protection. In one statement after another on Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and other matters, the Secretary of State of the United States said prisoners were being looked after in the spirit of the Geneva Conventions but not in compliance. Yesterday, I asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs to establish an independent international commission to answer any questions on compliance. The Minister of State is not in a position to say that he can implement anything as he has no commitment from his St. Patrick's day friend that if the United States is found to be in breach of the Geneva Convention, it will comply with its provisions. The Minister of State has no control over the private contractors and he knows as well as me that many of those involved are reservists.
President Bush used the word "uncomfortable" to describe his feelings on looking at these pictures. While I can be positive about making suggestions as to where we go from here, I must note the degradation of journalism and discourse and the inadequate ability of people to discuss these matters on the basis of moral or philosophical principles. Language has been fixed up and statements spun. It is time for a speech from the Minister for Foreign Affairs in this Chamber on these issues and for people to have the courage to condemn the abuse as people should. We were told yesterday that when the four internal inquiries and the investigation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights are completed, the Government will arrive at an opinion. There was a time when this country had an opinion and Governments were not afraid to state where we stood on issues like this. No doubt, the Minister of State will say the recommendations of the reports are being implemented, but people will continue to have hoods placed over their heads.
I used the Geneva Convention to condemn the disgraceful treatment of US soldiers by Saddam Hussein's regime. I have often referred to it. The beheading of a person in front of a camera is an appalling level to which to sink and condemnations of such an act should be unequivocal. I condemn Islamic extremism. How can one argue, as I have seen in various newspaper columns, that there is some kind of equivalence? In The Irish Times Mark Steyn said there had been more fuss about a man with woman’s underwear over his head than about a man who had no head at all. This is typical of the slick, degrading, immoral rubbish which is being propounded every Monday in that newspaper. It is an example of the degraded level to which we are falling and the loss of the moral capacity to debate these issue. The first reaction on many kept television stations around the world was to wonder how the pictures of abuse got out. It was suggested that it might have been a pity that they were released and that it might have been better if they had never been made public. This is in contrast to the substantive moral position of whether any person should be treated in this way.
It was claimed that the authorities had not had a chance to train its soldiers in the Geneva Convention. Does one need to have studied the Geneva Convention to treat another human being without degradation? Every subtle cue was invoked in terms of the gender relations between cultures and the fact that women were involved in abuse rather than men. Sexual abuse was used systematically. Every nuanced technique had been rehearsed in Afghanistan and, probably, Guantanamo Bay. Many isolation and hooding techniques were rehearsed earlier in Northern Ireland. There is no point in being a Parliament if we cannot speak without equivocation on matters like these. One does not hedge and say one is waiting for four internal inquiries to be completed and for the UN High Commissioner to publish his report and deliver it to Kofi Annan.
The next question involves what other options were available. The best model is probably the federal one suggested by former ambassadors to the region, including Dr. Galbraith. The possibility of a project to hold Iraq together as a federation and create some form of administration is becoming fragile. There is also the protectorate model of the United Nations, but I have never heard it advanced by the Government in the House. The protectorate model has the advantage of enabling the United Nations to go in with the support of the full force of a meaningful Security Council resolution. The United Nations cannot return to Iraq if substantive powers are not transferred to an interim authority on 30 June. How could it? What is on offer to Mr. Brahimi of the United Nations is an invitation to stay around and help prepare for the elections next spring, but he cannot accept it. He could accept the invitation if Iraq were declared in the interim a United Nations protectorate and that body could anticipate the support of a sufficiently strong Security Council resolution. The UN would then have control over Iraq's oil resources, exports and imports and the running of its health services.
This process would require those who see material benefit in the reconstruction of Iraq to walk away from their illegal conflict. That is the difficulty. It would be a principled position to support this proposal. It would be interesting to hear Ireland make a suggestion of that sort occasionally. Instead, it crawls along and speaks from one side of its mouth to say it is doing its bit for the United States though it is tough. From the other side of its mouth, the Taoiseach makes a bilious attack and contends that he was against the war all along. In his final hallucination he says the 100,000 people who marched against the war supported him. Frankly, the great revisionist must revisit his morals. I rank these comments with all the other abuses of language.
The pronouncements from the Department of Foreign Affairs on this issue are dishonest. The Taoiseach sat where the Minister of State, Deputy Kitt, is sitting now and indicated that everything had been proved by Colin Powell's famous presentation to the Security Council. While poor Colin Powell, who has sacrificed his reputation on bogus information from an informant known as "curved ball", is apologising for everything he said, the Taoiseach has never returned to the House to do so. It would be interesting to hear him say he is against the war and is sorry for ever facilitating anything which helped it to take place. He never will.
The public is considering the language being used. When language is debased in the press and Parliament and the Government attends international meetings to say nothing it creates an incredible political apathy. People's moral instinct is for decency. People with whom I discussed the photographs of abuse did not need to have read the Geneva Convention to know they were appalling. They did not need to have read it to know the abuse should never have happened. They asked what the Dáil will say about it.
I do not contend that we should continuously issue strong statements condemning various things and that diplomacy does not matter. I have defended diplomacy, the writ of which had not been exhausted when this war was started. There were many possibilities. France had not said it would vote automatically against any Security Council resolution. Despite the clarification of that matter by the French ambassador for the Government, we have drifted along. Once the war had started, it was as if we could do nothing but take the money at Shannon Airport. As the Taoiseach said, if we did not take it, someone else would. That is the level to which we have descended. People, who want more from their politicians, are looking forward to them clarifying on the doorsteps where they stand on the war and President Bush's re-election Irish roots visit. No doubt this will be atmospheric in Dromoland.
The Minister of State, Deputy Kitt, knows I hold him in high personal regard. However, what he has accepted as inevitable on behalf of the Government makes him as guilty as the Government of complicity and evasion. By not answering the questions asked, the Government is keeping a comprehensive silence on important moral issues and is party to what is happening. It cannot say if any of these hirelings sent to torture in Baghdad and elsewhere travelled through Ireland.
Inevitably, I will be accused of anti-Americanism. I studied and taught in the US and I know the feelings of decent people there. Some of the finest intellectuals, to which Deputy Noonan referred, including Peter Galbraith's father, have written humane and thoughtful documents on the war. In the US mid-west, there are many for whom George Bush's little neo-conservative clique do not speak. I am not anti-American but I am against this poisonous policy that rolls on from one part of the world to another, trampling on cultures, democracies and people as it goes. It is incredible how easily old concerns are dismissed.
Respect for human rights led to agreements such as the Geneva Convention. The world was shocked after the gates of Dachau and the camps were opened. Never could humankind sink to this level again and, as a result, the finest moment for human rights emerged. Standards were set down for us to honour and below which we should never fall. The moral instinct of a common shared humanity and a discipline that both small and large countries would take upon themselves has now been shed for a set of pragmatic statements on interests.
For the past 20 years in this House, I have listened to Members argue that international affairs and foreign policy is about interests, not norms. That was the old abuse when moralists were considered old-fashioned and a bit of drag. What is the justification for the theory of interests and individualism that allows a private company to run a prison and women to abuse men from another culture? There are no weapons of mass destruction or terrorist networks and Iraq was not attacking its neighbours. It is now suggested the Iraqis are better off without Saddam, of which I have no doubt. Are we, however, better off that international law and moral principles have been cast aside?
We have seen the most degrading images of the abuse of the most vulnerable outside the context of war. Few war images equal them. Does the Government believe this was the abhorrent behaviour of a few people or is this the systematic abuse related to the ability to contract out the gathering of information for a political project in an illegal war to sadists? That is exactly what took place. Shame on the Government that it has not the courage to condemn it unequivocally. A statement was dragged out of it because of the EU Presidency. Only when it was asked questions did it condemn these images. That is not good enough. I am grateful to have the privilege to ask questions in this House. I will enjoy the other privilege of being on the streets at the end of June.
