Gulf Conflict: Motion.

Mr. Fallon

I move: "That

Seanad Éireann noting that under the United Nations Charter all member States have agreed to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the Charter;

Expresses its deep regret that the failure of all efforts by the international community to secure compliance with the UN Security Council resolutions in regard to Kuwait by peaceful means made the use of military force for this purpose unavoidable.

At this critical time, Seanad Éireann

Declares its full support for the decisions of the Security Council and notes that Resolution 678, inter alia, ‘requests all States to provide appropriate support for the actions undertaken in pursuance of paragraph 2 of this Resolution’;

Notes that Iraq has persisted in flouting the resolutions of the Security Council which called upon it to withdraw all its forces immediately and unconditionally;

Expresses the earnest hope that all concerned will do everything open to them to ensure that military action will be of short duration and that the loss of human life and destruction will be kept to a minimum; and

Expresses its strong support for the continuation of diplomatic efforts to secure an end of the present conflict and a peaceful settlement of the crisis on a basis which will ensure full compliance with the Security Council resolutions and restoration of the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Kuwait.”

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Calleary)

We meet here today in the midst of a crisis as great as any we have experienced since the end of the Second World War. Daily in our newspapers and on our television screens we witness developments in the Gulf which cannot but be a source of the most serious anxiety and concern to all.

The Government have expressed deep regret that the use of military force to ensure compliance by Iraq with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council has proved unavoidable. It is necessary for us to be absolutely clear on the cause of the situation in which we now find ourselves. This crisis has been brought about by Iraq's flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter by invading and then purporting to annex Kuwait, a fellow member of the Arab League and of the United Nations.

Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August last. The United Nations, freed from the inhibiting superpower rivalry which characterised the Cold War era, moved quickly to meet this challenge to international legality. On 2 August, the same day as the invasion, the Security Council adopted Resolution 660 condemning the Iraqi action and calling for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces and the immediate start of negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait to settle their differences, which predate the invasion. On 6 August the Security Council passed another resolution, 661, which, having determined that Iraq had failed to comply with resolution 660 approved a trade and financial embargo against Iraq with the exclusion of medical supplies and, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs.

On 25 August Security Council Resolution 665 authorised nations with ships in the region to use "such measures a may be commensurate to the specific circumstances as necessary" to enforce the trade embargo. On September 25 Security Council Resolution 670 extended the trade embargo of Iraq by land and sea to include aircraft with member states of the UN denying all aircraft take-off rights if they carried any cargoes other than medicine or, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs. Finally, on 29 November the Security Council adopted Resolution 678 which authorised those countries co-operating with the Government of Kuwait to use all necessary means to uphold and implement the relevant resolutions if Iraq did not comply with them on or before 15 January 1991.

The response of the international community to the act of aggression against Kuwait was unprecedented and the blockade imposed on Iraq received very wide support. The Security Council first adopted economic sanctions and then progressively increased that kind of pressure on Iraq. Only on 29 November, almost four months after the invasion, did the Council proceed to authorise the use of "all necessary means" to reverse the aggression. Even then it allowed for more than six further weeks as a "pause of goodwill" to give Iraq more time to reflect on the consequences of its action and to reconsider its refusal to abide by its UN obligations. During that time, an impressive array of contacts took place, involving representatives of many Governments and the Secretary General of the UN in further efforts to bring about a change of mind in Baghdad. Of particular importance were the efforts of Mr. Perez de Cuellar and the direct contact in Geneva between the US Secretary of State and the Iraqi Foreign Minister. Regrettably, the Iraqi leaders were unmoved. They must bear the responsibility for what is now happening. It was, indeed still is, in their hands to bring about the peaceful solution which everyone so earnestly desires. I have, regretfully, to say that they seem unwilling to take the necessary steps.

In my remarks in the Dáil last Friday I set out the principles which have underpinned the approach of the Government to the Gulf crisis from the very beginning. I think it important that I repeat them here. We believe that it is inadmissible to use force to settle disputes between countries. It was unacceptable in 1990, as at any time, that a member state of the United Nations should purport to annex another. We cannot in 1991 tolerate it any more than we could last year. Ireland, like all small countries including Kuwait, must be able to look to the United Nations to maintain a system of order, justice and law between nations. The UN system is essential if we are to have reliable collective security. What has been striking since the Iraqi invasion is the extent to which the world community as a whole recognises this. We were encouraged by the unprecedented solidarity in reaction to the Iraqi invasion. We had hoped that the extent of this solidarity and the unwavering resolve of the international community as expressed in the sanctions imposed would have enabled a political solution to be found in full implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council.

Together with our partners in the Twelve, we have worked tirelessly since 2 August to seek a peaceful solution on the basis of the Security Council resolutions. In the period between the adoption of Resolution 678 and 15 January the Twelve indicated their willingness to meet with the Iraqi Foreign Minister, first in the Presidency capital and later in Algiers, but this offer was not taken up. The Community met with the UN Secretary General on his way to Baghdad in order to express the Twelve's solidarity with his mission. The Secretary General found that the support of the Twelve strengthened his hand. However, this last-minute effort failed too in the face of Iraqi obduracy. It is this spirit of intransigence, which has marked Iraq's approach from the outset, that is the main reason open hostilities are now underway in the Gulf.

As I have said, the Security Council adopted Resolution 678 authorising the use of all necessary means after the deadline of 15 January. This set in place a pause of goodwill during which Iraq could still have complied with its obligations. However once that date had passed, if Iraq failed to comply with the relevant resolutions, the necessary authority had been put in place for the countries involved to apply military action to enforce compliance. The action being undertaken does not constitute military action by the Security Council itself. Accordingly the provisions set out under Articles 42 and 43 of the UN Charter do not apply. Resolution 678 was adopted validly and in due form and the international forces are accordingly — and I wish to emphasise this to all those who are wrongly maintaining that this is a United States action — acting with the express authority of the United Nations.

I now wish to turn to the matter of Ireland's response. Like all members of the United Nations, Ireland has agreed to be bound by the provisions of the Charter. Article 25 of the Charter provides that:

The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.

In paragraph 3 of Resolution 678 the Security Council requests all States to provide appropriate support for actions undertaken in pursuance of its paragraph 2 which authorises certain member states to use all necessary means to oblige Iraq to comply with the terms of its earlier resolutions.

As the Taoiseach made clear in his speech in the Dáil last Friday, Ireland will not become a participant in the Gulf War. The constitutional provisions relating to the declaration of war and participation in war do not, therefore, arise. It is possible that the forces acting with the authority of the UN, particularly the US, would seek landing or refuelling facilities at Shannon Airport. It is the Government view that, given our fundamental commitment to the UN Charter and the specific request incorporated in Resolution 678, the provision of such facilities would come within the terms of "appropriate support". It would, as the Taoiseach said, place an extraordinary strain on ordinary language if the granting of such peripheral facilities could be interpreted as making Ireland a participant in the war. The decision to provide these facilities would, moreover, be a policy decision in the field of external relations in accordance with Articles 28 and 29.4.1 of the Constitution. There can be no question of pleading neutrality in view of our obligations under the UN Charter. As the Minister for Foreign Affairs pointed out last Friday, the Charter cannot be regarded as an a la carte menu for us pick and choose among its provisions as we wish. We accept our obligations under the Charter as do all other members of the United Nations in good standing.

It remains our fervent hope that the conflict now under way in the Gulf will not be prolonged and that efforts will be made to keep casualties to a minimum. I wish to avail of the occasion to condemn the unprovoked Iraqi missile attacks on civilian targets in Israel which have been repeated and unwarranted; Israel is not participating in the military operation against Iraq. These attacks on an innocent civilian population have now resulted in loss and I wish to convey our deep sympathy to the Government and people of Israel at this very difficult, indeed agonising, time for them. I also condemn the Iraqi treatment of POWs in flagrant violation of the Third Geneva Convention. I am sure that all Members of this House join me in conveying their sense of outrage at these developments.

Despite the conflict, diplomatic efforts continue to promote a cessation of hostilities and to secure a peaceful outcome. We very much hope that such efforts will prove successful. It has to be said however, that the success of these efforts depends entirely on Iraq's willingness to accept the provisions of the UN Security Council Resolution and withdraw from Kuwait. Regrettably, the evidence of the last week has testified to an Iraqi determination to widen rather than limit the scope of the war.

The present crisis has brought home to us all the absolute necessity, if we are to be able to organise a world in which we can all live with a minimum of security, that states observe their obligations under the UN Charter and international law. It has had the incidental effect also of drawing attention to other problems of the area. The Government do not accept that the flagrant Iraqi violation of all the norms of international law and of the Charter can be justified by any reference to injustice anywhere else in the world or in the narrower region of the Middle East itself. In fact, the Iraqi violation of Kuwait has been a setback to the prospects of solution of these other problems. For all that, Ireland and the other countries of the European Community have a position of principle on most of these issues of conflict, not least on those in the Middle East itself. These positions have been held for many years and predate the present Gulf crisis. There is no reason not to keep underlining them.

Once the crisis is over it will be essential to make every effort to work for a just and comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Ireland believes that a resolution of this problem can best be sought in the context of an international conference, convened at the appropriate moment, under the auspices of the United Nations. As recently as 17 January the Twelve also reaffirmed their commitment to contribute actively, once international legality has been reestablished, to a future of peace, stability and development in a framework of social justice and solidarity for all the peoples of the region. To reinforce the traditional ties between the Community and Arab countries, the Twelve intend to develop a global approach towards the region through a renewed Mediterranean policy, a relaunched Euro-Arab dialogue and a reinforced co-operation with regional organisations such as the Gulf Co-operation Council and the Arab Maghreb Union as well as with all countries concerned.

I want to emphasise again that these positions are not new, nor are they advanced now as some form of carrot to induce Iraq's compliance with the Security Council resolutions. Withdrawal from Kuwait is not to be conditional on progress in tackling other issues in the region, but that does not mean that we should ignore these other problems completely nor that we should abandon our efforts to seek a solution to them once the crisis has been settled.

I should also give the House an account of the situation of our citizens in the region. Since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the Government have accorded priority to the safety and welfare of our citizens in the Gulf region. We have offered appropriate advice to those concerned about their situation and to those who have been considering travelling to the area. In addition, we have actively assisted those Irish citizens in the area who wished to leave and had difficulties in doing so. Members of the House will recall the particular difficulties which Irish citizens, resident in Iraq and Kuwait, had to face and will share with me the relief that, at this particular time, all those who had been detained against their will in Iraq and Kuwait have been enabled to leave.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, our main concern has been the Irish citizens living in those areas most vulnerable to attack — those are the Eastern Province and the areas of Riyadh and Tabuk. The Irish Embassy in Riyadh has arranged the distribution of gas masks to those Irish citizens who have chosen to remain in those areas. In addition, with the active co-operation of members of the local Irish communities, the Embassy have set up a system of co-ordinators to ensure that the Embassy can maintain contact with our citizens. Contingency plans have also been drawn up regarding evacuation in case that action should become necessary. The co-ordinators will play a key role if it becomes necessary to implement these plans.

In the cases of Bahrain and Qatar, which are also within missile range of Iraq and Kuwait, we have arranged for the British Embassies in those two countries to distribute gas masks to our citizens on our behalf. I wish to place on record my personal appreciation, and that of the Government, for the outstanding co-operation which we have received from all our Community partners and, in particular, Britain, throughout this crisis.

Since the outbreak of hostilities, my Department have been in constant contact with our representatives in the Gulf region and I can assure the House that the Irish citizens who have chosen to remain in the area are safe and well. The Ambassador in Riyadh has assured me that the co-ordination systems which have been established in Saudi Arabia and in Bahrain are working well and the co-ordinators report that the Irish communities remain calm. We are also monitoring the situation in the other countries in the region including in those Gulf States which are out of missile range of Iraq and Kuwait and which are, therefore, less threatened. I am glad to have the opportunity to reassure the House regarding the safety of those citizens and to confirm that the arrangements which we have put in place are working satisfactorily. We will, of course, continue to monitor the situation closely.

As I have said, we hoped and worked for peace but war proved unavoidable. This war, like all wars, is destructive; events in the last week have graphically shown this. On 15 January the UN Secretary General made an appeal in which he urged Saddam Hussein to commence without delay the total withdrawal of forces from Kuwait, assured him on the basis of understandings from governments at the highest level that neither Iraq nor its forces would be attacked by the international forces once this process was well under way, said he would be prepared, with the consent of the parties concerned and the agreement of the Security Council, immediately to deploy UN observers and if necessary UN forces to certify the withdrawal and to ensure that hostilities do not erupt on the ground, announced he would, with compliance of the resolutions, urge the Security Council to review its decisions imposing sanctions against Iraq, and said he would encourage a process whereby foreign forces deployed in the area would be phased out.

In a message to Iraq the UN Secretary General on 22 January appealed most sincerely to the Iraqi authorities to respond positively to his appeal of 15 January so that efforts may be resumed to find a peaceful solution.

I very much fear that the continuation of the war will bring even greater tragedy and grief to the peoples of the region, not least the long suffering Iraqi population themselves. I hope that Iraqi leadership will come to realise that the international community in an unprecedentedly large majority will not countenance its persistance in violation of international law and the UN Charter.

Mr. Manning

Everybody in this House, indeed I think almost everybody in the country, hates war and abhors the waste, suffering, the deaths, the mutilation and the chaos which war brings. There is no war party nor is there any monopoly of compassion or principled concern about the war among any group in this country. It has been sickening in recent times to hear claims by groups on the extreme Left that they have a monopoly of these particular feelings.

In the situation in which we now find ourselves it is vitally important that we are clear why the war is taking place and where we stand on this issue. The sheer volume of media coverage in recent days has perhaps for many of us created a certain confusion as to what is happening rather than giving us a clear picture of events. One of the great difficulties we all have is trying to get a clear picture of what is happening on a day to day basis. It is all the more important then that we get back to first principles as to why this war is taking place and why our response is as it is.

The war is taking place because, for the first time since the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, one United nations country has sought to wipe another United Nations country off the map. That is the simple and sole reason for this war. There was an act of unprovoked premeditated aggression which could not be justified by historic claims to a nineteenth province. Since both Iraq and Kuwait are members of the United Nations that implicitly meant that each accepted the territorial borders of the other. If that reason were to be accepted, there would be no end to wars throughout the world, no aggression could be justified by Kuwait's alleged manipulation of oil prices nor could it be justified by the claims that the political regime in Kuwait was not a particularly desirable, democratic or liberal regime. It was none of these things, but nonetheless if those criteria were adopted then invasions would become an almost everyday occurrence. Of all countries Iraq was not in a position to cast any aspersions on the liberality, civil liberties or democratic content of any other regime.

What we saw was naked brutal aggression followed by the systematic plunder and rape of an entire country. Nothing can change that fact. The hostile reaction was almost universal, and the United Nations' reaction reflected a universality of condemnation on an unprecedented scale. The Security Council Resolution reflected both urgency and the need to ensure the maintenance and enforcement of an international system of collective security.

The most dispiriting and depressing sequel to the United Nations' resolution and the almost universal condemnation of Iraq's aggression which it contained was the total failure of diplomatic efforts, a failure which must be laid fairly and squarely at the door of Saddam Hussein. We all watched and hoped as group after group sought to speak to the president to persuade him to withdraw from Kuwait and engage in meaningful dialogue which might allow him to save face and yet prevent war. The Arab States, including Egypt, Jordan and Syria, pleaded with him, in the name of Arab brotherhood, to change his mind. The EC states, separately and together, pleaded with the Iraqis. The United Nations, reflecting this wide volume of world opinion, also pleaded with him. Indeed, some nonaligned states sought to persuade him to change his mind, and even individual parliamentarians with different degrees of motivation sought to do likewise. He not just refused but made a mockery of the entire process making it clear that he had no intention of withdrawing and was prepared to be deceitful, untruthful and to use every trick to gain time and sow confusion among those seeking, in the interests of international peace, to get him to withdraw. Not only that, he widened the entire scope of the issue.

He did not mention the Palestinians when he invaded Kuwait. The plight of the Palestinians was not given as a reason for the invasion of Kuwait, nor has there been any evidence of consistent concern during the years on the part of this man for the plight of the Palestinians; but now that the war has started, suddenly the plight of the Palestinians has become central to what the war is all about. It is now to be a holy war and he is to be the champion of the Palestinians.

If one good consequence of this entire evil adventure is that the plight of the Palestinians and the need for an international conference under the aegis of the United Nations to try to sort out the extraordinarily complicated problems of that troubled region are given greater urgency and priority, then at least that will be one small gain from this sorry episode, but that was not the intention of Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait. It has become a very useful issue which cloaks his real intentions.

We also saw naked aggression against Israel with one simple intention to provoke Israel into the war so that the coalition of Arab states against Hussein would be broken. We must all admire the restraint the Israelis have shown during the past couple of days in the face of this unprovoked and utterly unjustified aggression.

On the "Questions and Answers" programme the other evening, on which Deputy Ben Briscoe performed extremely well, what seemed to emerge from sections of the audience was an enormous sense of anti-semitism, something I found profoundly disturbing.

As a small peace loving country, one of the key questions for us must be whether we want to see an international order in which the sovereignty, the independence and the territorial integrity of small states are protected. We should be out front trying to ensure that we have an effective United Nations, one which can enforce its will throughout the world. If one United Nation member can wipe another off the map, then there is international chaos. That is the key issue for us as a small country.

We believe that Ireland's interests are best served by support for a worldwide United Nations' enforced system of collective security. If the United Nations cannot act in the face of aggressive acquisition of the most blatant and naked kind, then the United Nations may as well not exist as international law will lose all meaning and we will be back to the worst scenario of the ineffectiveness of the various attempts at international government in the thirties. We do not want that; the world cannot afford it. For this reason it is in our interests to see that the United Nations action is effective. There is no other way. As far as we are concerned, we either believe in worldwide collective security and act accordingly or we do not. We cannot be neutral between Iraq and the United Nations. We are not neutral between Iraq and the United Nations in this instance because if we are, we abandon any attempt at securing the principle of worldwide collective security.

A question has been raised during the past day or so whether the EC and this country may be liable for payment towards the cost of the United Nations operation. It is my belief that such a question is entirely outside the scope of the treaties of the European Community and that the EC is not in a position to ask member states, or to levy member states, for part of the cost of the operation in the Gulf. Either we believe in the UN or we do not; we support what it is doing or we do not. We cannot have it both ways. If the question should arise that Ireland were asked to contribute to the UN operation then we should very seriously and positively look at our obligations and at the fundamental questions underlying our involvement in the UN and act accordingly. The motion before the House today is not sufficiently clear and I had hoped the Minister, arising out of some of the criticisms made last week, would have made the motion that bit more clear. It is fundamental that in this country there should be no ambiguity whatsoever about the reasons we support the UN.

On the question of refuelling aeroplanes at Shannon airport, I suspect that, in rather typical Irish style, we have given the issue a degree of prominence, importance and controversy out of all proportion to the issues involved. There is a certain element of the Skibbereen Eagle in some of the reactions to this issue. I regret to say the Shannon refuelling issue has provided a cloak behind which some of that very disturbing pervasive anti-Americanism which is so much a feature of left-wing politics in this country has been allowed to express itself. It never ceases to amaze me that people who were happy to be seen supporting the regimes of Ceausescu, Honecker and Jaruzelski, who condoned some of the worst excesses in North Korea and who rarely raised their voices against some of the excesses in China, can so quickly and easily degenerate into almost vicious anti-Americanism with no attempt to examine the issues or motivations of those involved.

In any event, the refuelling issue is one on which my party are very clear. From our point of view the refuelling of planes at Shannon is no more or less than providing support for the enforcement of the UN resolution. It is no more an infringement of our neutrality than is membership of the UN itself. Some of my colleagues will deal with that in greater detail later today.

I would have preferred and would still prefer if the Government had been more upfront and open on this matter and if they had published the legal advice they got on it, that what is being done is, as I believe, entirely consonant with Article 28 of the Constitution and is in no sense a breach of our neutrality. I still urge the Minister to have that legal advice made available to the public so that there can be no doubt whatsoever on this matter.

I hope also that, arising out of the events of the past number of days and, indeed, the rapid move towards European union, we can at last have a full, open and honest debate on the whole question of Irish neutrality. Events have moved very rapidly in recent times. They have moved at a speed and with an intensity few people could have anticipated. If we are to have a policy of neutrality we should at least be clear as to its content and the basis upon which we hold it. I urge the Government at some stage in the near future to publish a White Paper on Irish neutrlaity and the implications for our neutrality especially of developments within the EC.

The Minister spoke at some length on the post-war peace settlement. This is a matter to which we as a country should be giving our full attention. There will have to be a peace settlement after this war, and the main content of that settlement should be worked out at this stage. We have a small contribution to make there. We have a range of expertise in the Department of Foreign Affairs which could make a contribution to the shaping of an ultimate peace settlement. We have good bilateral relations with many of the Arab states and I think that, without over-exaggerating our importance, it is essential that the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Minister and the Government seek to play the most constructive part possible on behalf of this country in any moves towards a peace settlement after this war.

On the question of our energy supplies, there is a very disturbing report in today's Irish Independent from a very respected political correspondent, Mr. Chris Glennon, which states that there are serious worries about whether the Government have told the country the full truth about our reserves of oil. One oil industry source said, and I quote: “There were no emergency stocks stored in this country” and that the Minister was referring to “entire working stocks”. He said: “The tanks at Whiddy were 78 per cent empty”. Another industry source, adamant that stocks of petrol and diesel were “overstated”, declared that two terminals owned by oil companies “ran empty” within the last two weeks. These are extremely disturbing allegations and I ask the Minister in his summing up today in reply to the debate either to confirm or deny, or at least let us know the facts in relation to these allegations about our oil supplies.

On a point I made on the Order of Business today, while all this is happening, while this great tragedy is unfolding before our eyes, another tragedy is taking place in the Baltic states. For that reason I ask this morning that as soon as possible we have an opportunity to debate the events in the Baltic states. What is happening there is almost of equal consequence for the development of Europe and for peace and stability on a global scale as what is happening in the Middle East. I was reassured to hear from the Minister the news he had to tell us about Irish citizens in the affected areas. It is right that the Minister put on the record and that we in this House show our appreciation of the steps taken by the UK diplomatic service to look after the welfare of Irish citizens in areas where we do not have our own diplomatic outposts. It is easy to get into Brit bashing. It is important that when there is an act of humanitarian goodwill of the sort described by the Minister to the benefit of our citizens we put our appreciation on the record.

I will conclude by reiterating what I and my party see as a central issue in this extraordinarily complex and complicated issue. Anybody reading the huge numbers of reports in the newspapers over the past weeks and trying to analyse the complexity can realise that there are no simple solutions, answers or analysis on what is happening. However, getting behind all the detail, from our point of view there is one simple issue at stake here, which is the collective security of small nations. As far as we are concerned, world peace depends on a strong UN and the strength of the UN arises from the moral courage of its members to support its resolutions. Weakness, which allows US resolutions to be flouted, undermines the authority of the UN. Collective security then ebbs away, and we are then, all of us and especially small nations, subjected to chaos. Until Iraq withdraws from Kuwait, until the peace process can be set in place, until the genuine complaints and grievances of the Arab world are addressed at a properly convened international conference, we are going to remain in this situation of grave global danger.

Mr. Lanigan

The debate here today takes place at a time of unprecedented international tension when in different parts of the world conflicts are occurring which some months ago would not have been expected to take place at all. Over many months we came into this House complimenting the people of Eastern Europe on the changes that had taken place in their areas and on their return to democratic principles. We complimented the USSR on their attempts to change their system of government. When we spoke about the Middle East we were concerned mainly about the conflict between Iran and Iraq, the expansionist policies of Israel, the plight of the Palestinians and the trauma of Lebanon. It was expected that Eastern Europe would become a place of peace whose citizens could attempt to achieve a reasonable standard of living compatible with their major assets in terms of their people and resources.

We did not expect to witness the break-up of the monolithic USSR. We did not expect to witness the generals of the USSR taking over and attempting to break-up the small Baltic states. That takeover by the generals in the USSR is just as much a cause of worry for the world in general as is the war now being waged in Iraq, Kuwait, possibly in Jordan, Turkey, Israel and the numerous countries in that region.

We must collectively and individually, totally condemn the policies of President Saddam Hussein. We must condemn absolutely his invasion of the small country of Kuwait. We must also totally condemn his statement that Kuwait is no longer a state on the world map but is now the 19th province of Iraq. I wonder how, historically, he can produce this concept of the 19th province of Iraq. The country of Iraq did not exist before 1922; there was no country there which could be called Iraq. The British decided to draw a couple of lines on the map and produce the State of Iraq as they produced other statelets in the area. There is no historic backing for this statement of Saddam Hussein that Kuwait is now the 19th province of Iraq.

The history of the area is one of conflict. At all times the people of the area attempted to settle their problems in a peaceful manner. Of course the intrusion of outside forces has always been one of the major controversial issues in that area.

Prior to the beginning of the 20th century and the break-up of the Ottoman empire we saw the intrusion by countries who had no interest in the area other than to ensure that other power bases could not be set up there and who at various stages decided to carve up this whole area. There was the Sykes-Picot Agreement between the English and the French; there were the intrusions of Winston Churchill throughout that era, the intrusions of Lloyd George what became justice brandise in the United States, President Wilson, the Germans and Russians involved. They forgot about the people of the area. It could be said that an attempt was made to set up European-style statelets in that area. European principles of statehood, based on boundaries, on interests — not on the basis of religion or on nationhood in terms of what the Arabs would consider to be ideal states in that area. The historic problems of that area have bedevilled world politics throughout the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties and now into the nineties. There is no point in blaming history for what happened between Iraq and Kuwait. In particular the blatant aggression of Saddam Hussein was an attempt to expand his interests into another part of the area. We do not know whether he would have continued with his expansionist theories into Saudi Arabia and possibly attempted to take over the whole of the Gulf area.

Mr. Norris

I do not want to interrupt the Senator but, on a point of order, could I just ask if further copies of the Minister's speech will be made available. I asked about 25 minutes ago and I was told that they were on their way.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Naughten)

The Chair has no control over that, Senator Norris.

Mr. Lanigan

The United Nations made every attempt to get Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait. The Arab League and the Arab Interparliamentary Union made every attempt to get him to withdraw. Individual Governments worldwide did likewise. Up to the very last minute diplomatic attempts were being made to avert this horrific invasion. We must compliment our Minister for Foreign Affairs and his Minister of State on their efforts towards peace right up to 16 January 1991. Other countries appeared to be dead set on heading into a war from 2 August last. Were it not for the tremendous diplomacy that took place at every level, here and abroad, war would have been attempted earlier by certain states outside the area.

We must compliment people in the area, such as King Hussein of Jordan, who did everything possible, living in a state which is under constant threat from both sides in this conflict. I say both sides because there is the threat that Jordan will be invaded by Iraq but equally Jordan is located between Iraq and Israel. If, as Israel say, they retaliate for the intrusion into their territory, King Hussein of Jordan and his people can be drawn very easily into this conflict.

In a sense it is a peculiar war for people outside the area, one being fought on television and in the media. Initially one might be forgiven for thinking it was a video war game, with what I would consider to be military gung-ho war lords showing us — what I see my children play on television — the taking-out, as they call it, of various targets in Iraq. Of course their attitude has changed in the last few days. They have seen that this conflict is not just a video war game but a horrific war in which many people are being killed and maimed.

We have seen media experts called on to pontificate on the possibilities, the game plans, as they are called, the different possibilities that might arise. They appear to be able to call in experts on every aspect of the war except how to get Saddam Hussein to back down. The news station, CNN, appear to have a monopoly of access to what happens in Iraq, broadcasting from a hotel well known to many people in Ireland because our nurses and the doctors who went out there under the auspices of PARC initially stayed for about two years in the Ar-Ashid Hotel in Baghdad and would know exactly the scenario obtaining outside that hotel. We witnessed the three CNN reporters tell us what was happening outside. I cannot understand how CNN have this seeming monopoly when there was a huge controversy over 18 months ago about CNN and the allegation that it was very much a pawn of the CIA based in the United States. Now they have got respectability, even from the Iraqis.

We can speak about the various aspects of this horrific war that is being waged and the attempt by Saddam Hussein to bring the Palestinian issue to the fore by linking withdrawal from Kuwait to the setting up of an international conference on the question of Palestine. As was said this morning, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait he did not mention the Palestinians. I am afraid he is attempting to use them as pawns once again. The Palestinians, of course, have been the pawns in many wars in the Middle East over the past number of years.

In various Arab countries the Palestinians are taking to the streets proclaiming their support for Saddam Hussein. Visiting Jordan, Syria and the Lebanon within the last fortnight one could see that the people were supporting Saddam Hussein's attempt to link the Palestinian cause to his invasion of Kuwait. This was not for Saddam Hussein's invasion but a genuine demonstration of the frustration they have felt for many years because of the nonintervention of the United Nations in their problem. The resolutions passed by the United Nations vis-a-vis the Palestinians have never been acted upon, but once Kuwait was invaded the United Nations resolutions were immediately acted on. Of course, they feel a sense of frustration. It is not a support for the invasion of Kuwait. It is an indication of the frustration of these people who have not had anything done for them. The linkage would be very dangerous if Saddam Hussein was allowed to stay in Kuwait. The situation economically for the Palestinians would be absolutely disastrous because the Kuwait currency alone was about 15 times more valuable than the Iraqi currency. Therefore, there would be a huge drop in the value of investments the Palestinians had in Kuwait.

If one were to support the linkage it would mean the Israelis would have every right to go into the West Bank and Gaza. If we do not condemn the invasion of Kuwait we cannot condemn the invasion of the West Bank and Gaza. Not under any circumstances should this linkage be allowed.

It has been said that the resolution of the Palestinian problem may have been bought a little closer, because it has been mentioned and because of suggestions that there has to be an overall peace settlement in the Middle East. I would hate to think that the invasion of Kuwait would be the catalyst for the resolution of the Palestinian problem. The Palestinian problem is not associated with anything else. It has to be addressed as an independent item by the United Nations.

The United Nations has at last shown the teeth it should have shown over the past number of years. We sincerely hope that resolutions passed by the United Nations in the future will be acted upon and that a new era for the United Nations will emerge from the problems associated with this conflict.

The invasion of Kuwait should be absolutely and unreservedly condemned. The attempts by Saddam Hussein to draw Israel into this conflict have to be equally condemned. Much has been made of the restraint of the Israelis at this time. There is talk that the United Nations, or the allied forces, might give a corridor to the Israelis so that they can retaliate against Iraq without involving the other countries in the region. That is a reprehensible suggestion. Neither the United Nations or the allied troops should allow a corridor to be given to anybody to attack or retaliate against anybody else. I condemn the fact that Israeli citizens have been killed and wounded due to the aggression of Saddam Hussein, but the Israelis will have to take into account their own involvement in the problems in the region up to now. I will not dwell on this, because I do not want to appear to give Saddam Hussein any credibility.

The threats by Saddam Hussein against targets outside the area of immediate involvement are reprehensible. His attempts to get terrorist attacks going on sites outside of the Middle East have to be condemned. The Turks were the first to withstand this threat. Turkey is to be complimented on the very strong attitude they have taken in support of the United Nations resolutions.

What is happening is just another episode in the appalling history of Middle East politics. The West, in general, has been responsible for much of the conflict that has taken place there. Therefore, the West must look to the future. Now is the time to think about a resolution of the many conflicts in the area. There is not any point suggesting that we put off a resolution of the Palestinian problem until every problem in Iraq and in the Middle East has been solved. I have absolutely no doubt that this conflict will not go away overnight.

In the First World War Lord Kitchener made a mistake when he took a decision to go against Gallipoli in that he assumed the soldiers were not well trained or firmly entrenched in their positions in Gallipoli. To this day we hear that great song of peace "Waltzing Matilda", and we know that in the countries that made up Anzac there are memories of Gallipoli which will not be forgotten for centuries to come. They are part of their history and folklore. I am afraid that in the next few days or weeks we may see another Gallipoli developing. Even though war is being waged in the area, every attempt must be made on the diplomatic front to get Saddam Hussein to agree to unconditionally withdraw from Kuwait immediately. Negotiations can then take place about the future of that area.

Initially, we heard that Saddam Hussein was not a target of the allies. That has now changed. Spokespersons on television are saying that Saddam Hussein is now a target for elimination. I would prefer Saddam Hussein to live and be brought before a court of international justice who would decide his fate.

The position adopted by Ireland has been very well stated by the Minister, the Minister of State and the Taoiseach. There has been no prevarication in the statements made of our total support for the United Nations resolutions. I do not think anybody in Ireland could or should object to a request by America to refuel its planes here. War and its consequences are horrific. We are not being pro-war when we state that we must abide by the resolutions of the United Nations.

It was brought home to me last Monday just how horrific war can be when for the first time since 1976 a group of us went to see the central part of Beirut which was the green line for many years and a no-go area from 1978 until January of this year. We stood with members of the Lebanese Parliament, members of the press and ordinary people who had not been able to go into that area since 1978 and watched their tears flow when they saw the depredation that had occurred in that once marvellous city. There was an eerie feeling of death and destruction in that utterly devastated area. We saw the results of the bombing and looting and grass growing in the middle of the streets. Of course, it was an indication to us that no empire lasts forever and that things change. In the middle of the rubble we saw columns which had survived the war which has been going on in that country since 1978. These are Roman pillars which have been there since the time of the Roman Empire and have withstood the barrage that has taken place in Lebanon. The Roman Empire did not last forever and the inevitability of change can be seen when one looks at the damage caused by recent bombings and the remains of some of the glories of empires of the past.

The empire building process Saddam Hussein has embarked upon has to be stopped if peace is to be established in that area. We in the West must also take cognisance of the fact that the Muslim religion is predominant in that area and is a binding force among the people there. We do not regard European countries as countries with the same religion; we consider 90% of them as countries with boundaries which were set up by war and without the binding force of a religion which is a living religion for a huge number of people in the Middle East. We cannot forget that the Muslim religion is the fastest spreading religion in the world. At present there are over 2 million Muslims in Great Britain and some areas of Paris have been taken over by Muslims — when I say taken over I mean they were invited in by the French to work as cheap labour. Some electoral areas in Brussels are totally Muslim. In the Far East, the Philippines, Afghanistan, Russia or America this binding force of religion is there. We have to consider that these people may be drawn together in the future, perhaps not by a person as aggressive as Saddam Hussein but by somebody of a more peaceful nature. The consequences of a coming together of a militant or non-militant Islam have to be taken into account when we talk about the resolution of the problems in the Middle East.

The Palestinian problem will also have to be resolved and Kuwait has to reappear on the map of the world as an independent political entity. What happens in Kuwait after the war has to be a matter for the Kuwaitis. Changes will have to take place in Kuwait as well as in other states in the Gulf area. I believe that prior to the invasion of Kuwait there was an inherent instability in the Gulf states which would have erupted sooner or later and did not need the involvement of Saddam Hussein.

The demographic situation in the Gulf area is totally out of kilter. In some cases very small numbers of indigenous populations are ruling huge numbers of emigrants who do not have democratic or even human rights, as was shown by the plight of some of the houseworkers who left the Gulf area and went into Jordan over the past number of months. One could say that the people from the Far East have virtually been slaves in that area. The inherent instability in that area has to be addressed if there is to be peace there.

I compliment the Government on their response to the United Nations resolutions. I believe they have taken every step possible to ensure that peace will ensue in the Gulf area. I ask the Minister and the Minister of State to continue to work for peace not alone in that area but in every area of the world. I would not like to leave the House today without paying a special compliment to our diplomatic corps in areas of conflict and also in the United Nations. There is no doubt that in the talks which have taken place with people in the Middle East Irish officials have done everything possible in the pursuit of peace in the area. Not alone have they done that but they have also attempted to help in every way the Irish citizens in the area.

Nothing could be said about this war that has not been said over and over already, 24 hours a day, by people who are experts and those who are not so expert. The message we should send from this House today is that enough lives have been lost in this conflict and that peace must be ensured. I am not too sure if Saddam Hussein will listen to us but we can only plead with him to get out of Kuwait and allow a peaceful resolution of the many conflicts in that area. He would not lose anything by doing this. I hope the United Nations forces do not have to remain there for much longer, but I want to see a force there with the blue berets of the United Nations and not with the individual uniforms of the countries which are involved. If we are acting according to a United Nations resolution, the United Nations uniform should be the uniform of the conflict and the conflict should be led by military personnel in United Nations uniform rather than in the uniforms of the individual forces that are involved.

There was a conference at the end of the First World War at which Allenby said that we had a war to end all wars. He suggested that because of the factors associated with the peaceful resolution, they had a peace to end all peace. I sincerely hope that after this war peace of a genuine nature with full human rights for all individuals will ensue.

Acting Chairman (Professor Conroy)

I understand that Senator Ross and Senator Ryan are sharing their time.

Mr. Ross

First of all I would like to congratulate the Government and the Minister for their stand on this issue and for the speech which the Minister has given to the House. I do not believe that on this issue there is very much room for people to equivocate or to be ambivalent. I do not believe you can say that Saddam Hussein was wrong to invade Kuwait, but neither can you say that he should not be forcibly moved from Kuwait at this stage. I do not believe it is an issue on which we can remain on the sidelines either morally or physically. It is time that Ireland took a stand on an issue like this. Those who are urging other action than the one that is being taken by this Government at the moment are suspect in their motives.

I would like to thank the Minister for his speech. It is appropriate, because of disquiet which existed in the Jewish community here, that he should have condemned the attacks on Israel. It is so obvious to me and to others that the restraint being shown by Israel in the last days in the face of attack is absolutely superhuman. I do not think any other country could be expected to be so sensitive to the difficulties in the region as not to retaliate when its people are being attacked. I also think the Minister is right to condemn the Iraqi treatment of the prisoners of war.

If there is any criticism to be levelled against the Government on this issue, maybe they were a little slow to commit themselves particularly on the issue of using Shannon as a place for the United Nations aeroplanes to refuel. It seems there was never any question of whether Shannon could or should be used. It was wrong that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Government did not, at the initial stages when they were asked about this, say that it would be used. It seemed to imply a feeling of guilt that Ireland should offer Shannon. There was no room for that feeling of guilt. Initially it was right that we should have said that Shannon should be used and it is right that we are allowing it to be used at the moment.

I want to speak for a few moments about the attitude of certain groups to US involvement in the Gulf. I speak as one who has been to Nicaragua and Chile with a parliamentary delegation. I was very happy, having spent some time in Nicaragua, to condemn without any equivocation the activities of the United States in that country. I remain equally happy, having been to Chile for the plebiscite there in 1988, to condemn without any equivocation the activities of the United States in that country, and to condemn any Governments who do not take that attitude. That does not mean I am instinctively or automatically anti-American in all the actions which they take in regard to their foreign policy around the world. Having condemned their foreign policy in Central and South America, this must be regarded as a totally separate issue. Whereas the word "linkage" is used so often in this conflict, it is wrong and intellectually dishonest for people to link the activities of the United States in these other places with the activities of the United Nations of which the United States comprises a large part in the Gulf at present. It seems that what was happening then was wrong and utterly dishonourable but what is happening now is a completely separate issue.

There has revived in the last few weeks in Dublin and in other countries in Europe what I would regard as a purely anti-United States coalition. There are people hijacking a peace movement and using it to take a stand against the United States on this issue, using the goodwill or strength which they derived from other issues like Chile and Nicaragua. Those issues should not be mentioned or revived. Many of the people who are now ranting on about United States involvment are the same people who, as Senator Manning said, were silent on Honecker, Ceausescu and on many other tyrants in the world. There is an inconsistency there which is intolerable.

I would prefer the people who called a demonstration at the United States Embassy last Saturday to explain why they did not march on the French, Egyptian, Turkish, Syrian, Italian, Japanese or USSR embassies. All those countries to various degrees, in various forms and with different forms of commitment are behind the United Nations effort in the Gulf. The United States does not particularly wish to be the main sufferer in this war. The United States does not relish the fact that it will be in the main United States soldiers, airforce men and sailors who will lose their lives in this war. Whereas of course they appear to be leading the particular commitment because this have sent such a large number of forces, they will also be the principal sufferers in this campaign. It is after all as close to what is known as a just war in terms of the nations of the earth as we have ever come across.

Instead of attacking the United States we should think that to some extent we are very lucky that the United Nations has not exercised its right to ask Ireland to produce troops and to send them out to the Gulf. In purely human terms we should be very grateful for that and for the fact that our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters are not going to die in the Gulf. We should be grateful that it is principally the United States who is carrying that can. I echo the words of Senator Manning when he said that nobody in this war has a monopoly on compassion or on anti-war sentiments. I have not heard anybody in any speech here during this crisis maintaining that they want war. We are all in favour of peace, it is simply a matter of what price peace is bought and how we achieve that peace.

The attempts to maintain that in some way this is not a true United Nations force are very unconvincing. The attempts to say that the United States has in some way hoodwinked and fooled all the nations of the world is also totally unconvincing. France, Germany, the USSR and even China, who abstained, will not be led down a road like this by the United States against their will because, undoubtedly, we are seeing a new world order. The end of the Cold War has shaken things up so much that it has also revolutionised the United Nations. What we saw before was a United Nations emasculated because it was unable to take action on the moral issues in which it became involved because there was a veto exercised on action by one big power or the other. The fact that in this conflict the USSR and the United States are on the same side means that the new order of things gives the United Nations teeth which hitherto it had not enjoyed. That is inconvenient for those who oppose the United States per se, but it is a very encouraging sign for the international community and for the order of things to come. If this war is a just war, it is because it will set down guidelines against future aggression for the nations of the world, it is the greatest powers in the world saying to any other power that they will not tolerate military aggression or the infringement of international borders. It is correct, as a result of that, to say that the United Nations is a military alliance. That is, after all, what it is and we are part of that military alliance whether we like it or not. Whether that offends our neutrality is a completely different and a much more complicated issue.

The United Nations is a military alliance and we are part of that military alliance. That is something which should be encouraged. There is a genuine and sincere argument being made by those who are now complaining about the course of the war that sanctions should have been given longer to work. I do not believe that argument has a great deal of strength but there is a great deal of sincerity behind it. Those of us who wanted to see peace believed somehow that if sanctions continued for another few months maybe they would have brought Saddam Hussein to his knees. I suggest they would not. The experience of sanctions in other countries been an unfortunate and ineffective one. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that the experience of sanctions in Iraq would have been any more effective. Indeed, there were signs that, if anything, it was making the people of Iraq more militant behind their leader and making their leader even more intransigent. That is a matter which could be debated until Kingdom come but it is one which is now over and there is now a war.

There is confusion in people's minds on the issue of our neutrality. Neutrality surely is not facifism. It does not mean that we do not take up arms at any cost for any cause. We have an army and the Army may be to defend us but it is also involved in peacekeeping, and in an honourable role of peacekeeping, for the United Nations abroad. If we had been a pacifist nation or a purely and strictly neutral nation, we would not have joined the United Nations in the first place because the Charter is quite explicit about its commitment to military activity and the right of the United Nations to call on its member states to provide troops.

Switzerland is not — and was not — a member of the United Nations. Switzerland quite clearly chose not to be a member of the United Nations because it saw itself in possible difficulties in the future about its role. If we had been strictly neutral in a military sense in that we were not prepared to take up arms at all or to support military activity around the world we would not have joined the United Nations, nor would we have been willing——

Acting Chairman

The Senator has agreed to share his line with Senator Ryan.

Mr. Ross

In the proportion of 15 minutes to five. I should have said that. I would like to ask a further question based on some evidence of the behaviour of Saddam Hussein. If the international community had not reacted in the way it did to his invasion of Kuwait what would have happened? I do not know and nobody else knows but, on past behaviour, he is prone to invade countries that he does not like very much. There is no reason to believe that he would not have invaded Saudi Arabia. He had a much stronger army. There is no reason to believe that he would not have gone into other Arab countries.

It is worth noting that his concern for human life has been conspicuously absent in the past. In other words we may, as a result of this war, save human lives in terms of numbers. Saddam Hussein murdered more than 100,000 Kurds, his own people, with gas. He, in a cavalier and ruthless way, invaded Iran, leading to a war in which one million lives were sacrificed and which no side appears to have achieved anything.

If the United Nations troops had not gone into Saudi Arabia there is no telling how many more lives would have been lost. It may well be that this horrific war going on at the moment may be the lesser of two evils. It is right that we look at the record of this man.

If there is a lesson for Ireland in this unhappy crisis it is that we should look again at our relationships with unsavoury regimes overseas. We were happily trading with Iraq up to the time of the invasion of Kuwait for commercial reasons and were profiting greatly from some of that. We did not raise our voices about the genocide against the Kurds during that period.

Mr. Norris

Hear, hear.

Mr. Ross

We did not raise our voices about the horrific findings of the Amnesty International report on Iraq for the simple reason that we were trading with Iraq and at the same time we were taking strong moral postures about the evils of other regimes who were not involved in quite such appalling activities as Saddam. The same should apply and we should look very carefully at our relationship with Iran and at some of the internal activities in terms of infringement of human rights which are totally unacceptable to the civilised world.

In the past we should have looked at our relationship with Libya with whom we enjoyed diplomatic relations at a time when they were smuggling arms to the IRA. While I fully support what the Government are doing today in this motion and support them fully in promoting support for the United Nations forces activities in this war and crisis we should learn our lesson from it and keep it in mind in our diplomatic relations with other countries in the future.

Acting Chairman

I now call on Senator Ryan, regrettably, as he knows, for a brief intervention.

Mr. B. Ryan

I am grateful to my colleagues, Senator Ross, for allowing me to have what he described as a rant against the war. This will be a brief and, I hope, restrained contribution.

The first thing which needs to be said is that Saddam Hussein is a brutal and savage man, a creation of the United States and the western powers who put him in power, armed and used him for their own reasons. He is savage just like Pinochet, the elderly tyrants in Beijing, the United States puppets in E1 Salvador, President Ceausescu in eastern Europe who was the hero of the western powers for so long, Pol Pot from whom the western powers still cannot detach themselves for reasons of global strategy and President Assad of Syria who has invaded Lebanon with impunity and who is widely held to be at least indirectly responsible for the appalling tragedy of Lockerbie. Regrettably, there is no shortage of tyrants in the world whom the world would be well rid of.

The problem in this case is the selection of a target and the decision to have a war. The first thing that should be said about this war is that it is of dubious legality. Professor Richard Falk, who is Professor of International Law at Princeton University and a consultant on occasion to the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was quoted in The Irish Times of last Thursday as saying:

The quality of UN authorisation in this case is extremely weak and, indeed, it does more to demonstrate the weakness of the United Nations in relation to its own Charter than it adds to the US claim that the threat and use of force has been properly justified as the way to resolve the Gulf crisis.

That at the very least raises a very fundamental doubt about the legality of this war.

I would now like to quote a very eminent person who is often quoted with the approval of many people in this House, John Pilger, a well-known international journalist, who stated in an article in the Irish Independent of last Saturday — I do not think he will be asked to write in the Irish Independent very often because of what he wrote then — that the vote in the United Nations was the most spectacular act of bribery in history. Quoting the United States magazine, The Nation, he wrote that the sheikhs offered the Soviet Union $4 billion in aid in return for their acceptance of the war. The United States wiped out $14 billion of debts owed by the Egyptians to the United States and they offered $1 billion worth of arms to Syria in return for their support. Let me remind the House again that Syria currently occupies part of Lebanon and perhaps some time in the next ten years will become the next problem after Saddam Hussein has been disposed of when we will have the same thing all over again, when Assad will be demonised again and we will have another war, or will we?

As I said, the war is of dubious legality. It is of dubious legality because some of the governments involved lied to their own people. They told their own people and led them to believe that it would be short, swift and painless. However, it was revealed in The Irish Times today that one of the most senior officers in the United States army received a briefing from the Army War Colleges Strategic Studies Institute last August in which it was made clear that the possibility of a short, brief and painless war, conducted mainly by way of air strikes, was extremely remote. They knew this last August; yet, for the past six months they have led their people to believe the opposite. That was a deliberate deception and it raises fundamental questions about the legality of the decision to go to war.

I emphasise that even if the war is of dubious legality the fundamental morality of this war is called into question. It is further called into question by the deceit being perpetrated on the nations of the west. There has been talk about high technology precision bombing while the B-52s, which are incapable of precision bombing, are allowed to operate without any coverage or reporting. One could read again what John Pilger had to say on what the B-52s did in Vietnam.

Acting Chairman

I regret to have to interrupt the Senator. He is putting forward a very specific point of view but, unfortunately, I have to ask him to draw his remarks to a conclusion.

Mr. B. Ryan

I was about to conclude. I ask the Minister of State to inform the House if the report carried in the Irish Independent of last Monday that the Government fully support the use of force in the Gulf is a precise representation of Government policy.

In conclusion, I said in my first public statement on this war that this is a war of colonialism. I stand over that not because of the injustice that is being opposed but because of the selectivity of the decision to use force to oppose injustice. The west has chosen to enforce an acceptable form of justice by an unacceptable method in a country of the west's choosing which happens to be a Third World country. That selectivity makes a war like this colonial in instinct and in attitude. It is therefore, fundamentally, a war of colonialism.

Mr. Fallon

The dreaded conflict in the Gulf has now been with us for seven days and following the initial euphoria about the successes of the United States and its allies the realisation is dawning on even the most enthusiastic proponents of the war that it will probably be a long and bloody struggle to be followed by a period of confusion in the region.

The ferocity of the allies opening attacks on Iraq seems to have taken many people by surprise. I do not think it should have because if there is not to be a very long drawn-out war the coalition forces must do serious damage to the Iraqi defences before engaging in a ground force battle. It is in this phase of the hostilities that the Iraqis would seem to be the strongest. We know that from their eight year war with Iran and that Saddam Hussein has a battle-hardened and large army which will be difficult to defeat.

Most right-thinking people in the world have prayed and hoped that this war would not come to pass. Its consequences are so diverse and all-embracing as to be almost impossible to contemplate. The impact on all our lives for years to come will be immense but now that the war is with us and has begun in earnest we must hope that it will be short-lived and that the coalition forces succeed in their objective of running Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The dictator of Iraq has been given ample chances or opportunities not only to get out but to get out with some dignity. However, he displayed nothing but contempt to those who were trying to help him, most notably the Secretary General of the United Nations and indeed even France, the western nation which is probably closest to Baghdad, were treated with disdain. It became clear that what Saddam Hussein wanted was to go down in history as the Arab leader who took on the world. I do not think that either he or his people could complain if his people suffer dreadfully. Nobody wants to see human life lost but the blame for it, if it continues, lies with this man who has refused to see reason.

The euphemisms about surgical strikes against strategic targets which we have all been told about and seen on television cannot hide the grim reality of a city which is being reduced to ruin without water, power and sanitation and the mounting injuries and civilian casualties. The dilemma for the allied forces, as it has been throughout history, is how to punish a dictator without raining death and destruction on an unfortunate population who have had no say in the decisions that brought about this conflict.

Saddam Hussein demonstrated his contempt for human life long before this crisis developed with his long, personal, ruthless elimination of all domestic opposition and his use of poison gas against the Kurds. As we all know, his crimes have been criticised and well documented by important agencies like Amnesty International. Now, as the world reels in revulsion at the bombing of his cities, he responds in a typically vicious fashion by firing missiles at centres of civilian population in Israel in a desperate attempt to extend the conflict. As honest-to-God people march across the world to plead for peace and an end to the killings he shouts defiance in the face of the mass destruction of his country and calls for all his Arabic friends to launch a holy war.

Last week the Dáil debated this matter and the Irish position was made quite clear by both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It indicated support for the action taken by the US and its allies to enforce UN Security Council resolutions. It all comes from a very simple and central issue. For the first time since 1945 when the UN Charter was adopted as an international code of law to govern relations between states, one member state of the UN has simply swallowed another by force and brought its people to subjection. It is true to say that at all times we accept and acknowledge the cultural and historical complexities and the problems of this whole region. We accept, understand and appreciate that there have been arbitrary interventions of Western powers in the past, but these problems and complexities must not detract from the very central fact that the UN must uphold the rule of law in international affairs. This type of approach offers the most significant hope for the defence of small countries such as Ireland. Commitment to the UN involves a commitment to measures to protect collective security. Those who have argued that such a course would represent an abandonment of neutrality for this country possibly should think again and define their approach and their terms.

Irish neutrality in its present form had its birth in the Second World War and since then has kept us from joining the super-power blocs, but the insistence that now a tradition of military neutrality demands that Ireland should not act in support of the UN resolutions is to confuse pacifism and non-alignment. It is conceivable that in the future the UN might not merely commit its members to participate in a war as in this case but further ask its members to participate in the interests of collective security. If this were the case military neutrality as we understand it might well demand Ireland's departure from the UN. To my mind it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest in any way that assisting in the implementation of the UN resolution means we are forfeiting our neutrality.

We as a nation must play our small part in helping to prevent Saddam Hussein taking over Kuwait even if this means the use of Shannon for refuelling. We must not forget that the world is against the Iraqi leader. The world has worked tirelessly since 2 August to seek a peaceful solution on the basis of Security Council resolutions. It is to be hoped this crisis will be over sooner rather than later. Obviously, a major international peace conference will then be needed under the auspices, I presume, of the United Nations, to bring about a solution, a just and comprehensive settlement to this problem. If the war continues it is obvious that more tragedy and more grief will pile on the Iraqi people. It falls at the feet of Saddam Hussein to end this crisis. The world wants peace more than anything else, but if the UN fails in the Gulf the future for peace in the world will be very bleak indeed.

Dr. Upton

This war in the Gulf has been signalled quite clearly for a long time. The background really dates to the arming of Iraq, and many of the people who now want to destroy and disarm Iraq are the very people who built it up to the present level of military capacity. The US and the European countries have all made very significant contributions to developing the military capacity of that country. Indeed, the fact that it has developed to the point where it can now create the awesome problem it is creating is a tremendous failure in foreign policy of the countries that allowed that development to take place; it is the failure to look to the long term, to the distant future, in relation to foreign policy positions taken by those countries.

I do not want to suggest these countries were alone in developing the capacity of Iraq. We, in this country, also made our own contribution in a curious way inasmuch as we dealt with it commercially in a number of different fields. We were prepared to sell them beef. We were prepared to build a big hospital out there. Those developments and those sales took place when some appalling atrocities were being carried out by the regime which was in power in Iraq. We are all to some extent involved in those mistakes. Of course, it is easy now to be critical. I do not want to be particularly critical but if you stand back and take decisions riot to deal with countries, then there is an economic cost involved. When you get down to the politics of being prepared to pay that economic cost, then that becomes very difficult and the choices can be quite stark. Unfortunately, most of the time those choices are determined by short term rather than long term considerations.

The war is now on. The invasion of Kuwait took place and the Palestinians are now pawns in this war arising from the strategies of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Hussein seems to have adopted a strategy of trying to drag anybody he can into this war to help his efforts. I think the Palestinians are badly misled in supporting Saddam Hussein, but if we are to be honest about it, we also might recognise that their attitudes towards Saddam Hussein is not without precedent. In the thirties and early forties, but particularly the thirties, when Adolf Hitler started to rise to power in Europe there were people in this country who thought he had a great deal of merit and were prepared to support him at that time. The behaviour of the Palestinians in supporting Saddam Hussein is not without precedent, but the Palestinians, with friends like Saddam Hussein, will not be short of enemies.

There has been a certain amount of debate in relation to the use of sanctions. The point of view has been expressed that the world community should have persisted with sanctions for a longer period. I share that view. Sanctions should have been used for a longer period. In saying that I also want to acknowledge that I am not certain they would work. I do not think that anybody could be certain they would work, just as nobody can be certain that what is being done now is the best possible course. There is a great deal of uncertainty and ignorance abroad. I find it disturbing that most of the positions taken by people in this country in relation to this war are taken from a high moral position, with a great degree of certainty whereas certainty is non-existent and it is foolish and naive to pretend it exists.

I am disturbed the sanctions have not been persisted with and that the war started. It runs counter to advice of two British statesmen, namely Denis Healey and Ted Heath, who spent a tremendous amount of energy trying to understand world affairs and contribute to world peace. They are a curious coalition of senior statesmen on both sides of the political scene in the United Kingdom. It is a pity their advice did not receive more attention. The war is now on. We are now beginning, as it were, to work our way through the differing phases of war. We had the initial euphoria; we had war on television — World Cup-type spectaculars, action replays, analyses, panels and so on. The knock-on effect has been the abuse of language and appalling propaganda which is disgusting and very upsetting.

What we are talking about here are people's lives, people being killed, being blown to bits, described in terms that would be more appropriate to what takes place at football matches. Over the past few days we have had the absolutely nauseating sight of British and American prisoners of war being paraded on television to speak out their lines to the world in the hope that it will gain some bit of propaganda advantage for the regime in Iraq. That has to be denounced absolutely. It is shocking and disgusting. In addition, we have had the unjustified, unscrupulous and appalling attack on Israel over the past few days — a desperate attempt on the part of Saddam Hussein to widen the conflict and lean on any crutch on which he can get his hands in an endeavour to advance his position.

We have had the propaganda, the disinformation, in relation to casualties. All one can say now with any confidence is that one just does not know what is the level of casualties in this war to date. There can be no doubt but that, as the war develops, the numbers of casualties will increase and when the land battle takes place the casualties will be enormous. That is absolutely shocking. It raises another curious point, that is the interest with which western countries treat those people in the Third World who die each day of malnutrition — an estimated 40,000 — without being too bothered. Yet we are very concerned, and rightly so, about the casualties of the Gulf War. It is a curious sense of values in that, on the one hand we can see an enormous number of people in the Third World die daily and apparently not be concerned and, on the other hand, rightly be worried about the casualties of this war.

There was a statistic quoted on one television programme I remember seeing — that was that for one person killed in a war, four are injured. It was said also that apparently of those, two combatants suffer from psychiatric disorders of such a dimension that they have to be withdrawn from battle. Those are chilling statistics. The long term effects of war on the people who participate in it are dreadful but do not manifest themselves for many years. The safety of the Irish troops now serving with UN peace-keeping forces in the Middle East is of concern to us all in this House and elsewhere. Their safety must be our first priority.

Of necessity Irish influence on this war will be minimal. We should not lose sight of that reality but there are one or two things we can do. We can offer help by way of medical treatment to those injured in the war. We can offer help also and support to those who become refugees as a result of the war, while they may be small contributions at least they are something.

I regret we have given permission for the refuelling of planes at Shannon Airport. Having said that, I believe that that decision will not have a fundamental influence on the outcome of the war. Its impact on the war will be minimal; I would go so far as to say it will be trivial. Nonetheless it has raised important questions in relation to our neutrality which has been compromised by that decision. Debate on neutrality has not taken place and that is a great pity. We need to consider very carefully what we mean by neutrality. Many of us here are quite happy to accept the pleasant easy aspect of neutrality without paying much attention or giving any real consideration to its cost and the amount we will have to pay to maintain ourselves as a neutral nation. It is a pity debate had not taken place before we took a decision which amounts to a de facto compromise of our neutrality.

The threat to world peace occasioned by this war is obvious. In addition, there are enormous potential threats to the environment. There is the question of the damage arising from smoke and oil pollution as a result of the bombing of Kuwait, the mining and destruction of the oil wells there which the Iraqis appear to be prepared to perpetrate. There is the destructive effect of the bombs which have been dropped, their knock-on ecological impact which is not understood. There is the effect of the war on energy prices here and how that will work its way through our economy. We have had relatively little debate on that, scarce hard data on what will be those effects in differing contingencies. Of course there is also the effect of all this on the Third World, the appalling prospect that this war will make life in the Third World more dreadful than at present for many of the people there whose existence is constantly under threat.

Some people here have adopted a high moral tone in relation to this war. In the circumstances, the adoption of such positions is not appropriate. It is not easy to come down clearly and with certainty on one side or the other. High moral positions do not help the Irish people or Government in trying best how to devise or work towards a solution. That is where our efforts should be directed.

We should direct all our attention on devising some sort of solution to this problem. We must think in terms of the prospects of a peace conference dealing with the Middle East. We must begin to ascertain how peace in the region can be achieved. We must learn from the fact that our attention to foreign policy over the years has been minimal, with a few honourable exceptions, for example, my colleague, Deputy Michael D. Higgins, and some other people representative of all parties who have taken an interest in foreign policy. In general most Irish politicians have taken little interest in foreign policy. Irish politics do not lend themselves to taking an interest in foreign policy. That is a pity and we should endeavour to rectify that. We must begin to think in terms of the future, what will be the world order in the region after this conflict, how best we can organise and contribute to a situation in which after hostilities has ceased, long term peace can be established, a sustained and enduring peace which certainly will not be formulated out of rhetoric and out of the adoption of high moral tones.

Mr. Cullen

To begin my contribution to this debate I would like to emphasise my enormous regret and the regret of the vast majority of people in this country at the outbreak of war in the Gulf. It is tragic that at the closing stage of the twentieth century we find ourselves once again having recourse to the crude, barbaric instrument of war to resolve our disputes. This is particularly tragic given the genuine optimism which emerged from the post-cold war era and the hope this held out for the future conduct of international relations. The tragic reality of war having emerged, this country must be acutely aware of its responsibilities. While our primary responsibility must be to assist in every way possible the search for a peaceful solution, our membership of the United Nations and the European Community places certain responsibilities and obligations upon us from which we must not budge.

Over the last week there has been a concerted effort, particularly by representatives of the left in this country to suggest that we have no obligations under the UN Charter. This is morally and factually incorrect. Article 43 of the United Nations Charter clearly allows that the Security Council may seek the provision of facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for purposes of ensuring peace and security. Those who suggest that we can or should ignore this obligation, really suggest that we can withdraw from our role as full and active members of the United Nations.

Our factual obligations are clear, but in this crisis our obligations are moral as much as factual. The war which has now engulfed us is no simple wanton act of terrorism by the United States against the Arab world as some would like to suggest. The origins of this war go directly back to the naked aggression of Saddam Hussein against the independent State of Kuwait. Since that initial act of terror, the international community, with unprecedented unanimity, has made strong and continuous attempts to force Hussein out of Kuwait. One by one, those attempts have been spurned to a point where it almost seemed that Hussein was seeking military confrontation. Given this man's record, that should not be too surprising. A man who can wage war for eight years and inflict horrific suffering on his people without any apparent unease, who can launch chemical warfare against his own people without regret and who enjoys his position based on fear and tyranny, is capable of virtually anything.

I would take issue with those who suggest that we can be neutral against a tyrant like this and against his terrorism on Kuwait. They remind me of those people who took pride in our neutrality against Hitler which saw us sitting safely on the sidelines as he butchered and pillaged his way across Europe and systematically planned and carried out the murder of six million Jews in Europe. There can be no moral neutrality against such tyrants. If we cannot help fight them militarily, we would make no bones about where our interests lie.

I welcome the clear and unambiguous indication given by the Government last week that they would facilitate requests by the allied forces for refuelling facilities at Shannon Airport, but I would urge them to go further. Even after the carnage of the last week I am convinced that we have not yet seen anything approaching the real scale of casualties on both sides from the conflict. I would urge that this country should be prepared to follow the example of neutral Sweden and send out medical teams to help deal with the injuries on both sides if necessary. Such a gesture would clearly indicate our solidarity with the wounded and our commitment to a peaceful solution. I would also urge that the Government indicate our willingness to become involved in any suggested post-war UN peace-keeping forces in the region. I say this because, as a country which is not directly militarily involved in the search for post-war peace, which will be very difficult following the tragic escalation of such a very difficult war, we could have an important role to play in finding a peaceful solution.

We would be perceived, I suspect, by the Arab world at large as a country which is not a superpower, or which is not militarily strong, but whose interest lies at all times in finding a peaceful formula, in looking for peaceful solutions. The Arab world is divided at present, with some Arab countries on the side of the allies and others on the Iraqi side. It is going to be extremely difficult for trust and bridges to be built in that arena. I am convinced that countries like Ireland have a very definite role to play in that regard. I would urge the Government to consider the possibility of that type of an outcome, and what role we should play in that outcome.

To turn to the issue of Israel and the naked aggression by Saddam Hussein, in trying to force Israel into this war, if any country has a mandate from its people — and practically from the rest of the world — to defend themselves, it is Israel. Their restraint following the unprecedented attacks by Saddam Hussein has shown great statesmanship. How long they will be able to restrain themselves is purely a matter for Israel, but nobody can doubt their right to defend themselves and to take out any country that shows naked aggression towards them. However, they have realised the difficulties and complexities of the politicial implications of their involvement, and the need for a cohesive and continuing strength within the alliance, and they have taken great care to show their concern and regard in this area. What is the purpose of Saddam Hussein's aggression in Israel? Obviously he hoped that by launching missile attacks on the Israeli people, not just on military or strategic targets, but attacks on innocent people, by launching missiles into densely populated areas in the hope of not maiming or injuring but killing and murdering as many people as possible, this would bring Israel into the war and break the alliance. Israel's response has been superb. I would go further and say that the response of Arab countries like Egypt and Syria, who have since indicated that they respect the right of Israel to retaliate, and have shown that their commitment to the destruction of Saddam Hussein and his regime in Baghdad will not be hindered if Israel takes what is termed "strategic types of retaliation" has also been superb. One can only hope that if this does occur, it will be confined to that area.

I find it difficult to stand in the beautiful surroundings of Seanad Éireann and talk about this war in the abstract. None of us here can feel the pain, hurt, the terror those people must be suffering, not just the citizens of the countries involved, but I am sure of the military people involved.

There is a huge amount of technology involved in war. I see on television most evenings computer screens dictating the course of the war. One can only hope that the success of that type of technology in taking out military and strategic targets and preventing the mass killing of civilians will continue. War by its very nature kills people. I cannot find any other simple description of it. There will be casualties in this war and if there is a land war — the indications are that this is likely — the casualties on both sides will be enormous. This is why we must strengthen our resolve to try to restore world order.

The allied forces recognise that the motivation for their actions is to uphold the legitimacy of the United Nations. If the United Nations is not capable of ensuring and maintaining world peace and world order where can small nations like this country turn to for protection and the upholding of international law? Whatever means are needed to uphold the law must be adopted.

It is extremely unfair to suggest that this war is a United States of America war. The allied forces are made up of 28 nations. This shows the unbelievable unanimity which exists among countries in their condemnation of the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. The war machine was assembled by Saddam Hussein for a clear purpose; to take over as much of the Arab world in the Middle East as possible. I do not believe that his strategic attack on Kuwait was simply to annex Kuwait. I have no doubt that if the United Nations and the allied forces had not acted as quickly as they did Saddam Hussein's army would have marched into Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or wherever they could have gone. That is the reality and that is why the allied forces are arraigned in such great numbers in the Middle East today.

Even at this early stage it is possible to look to a brighter future as a result of this conflict. I hold out the hope that when the conflict is over — I have no doubt that Saddam Hussein will be defeated and Kuwait will be freed — the integrity of the United Nations will have been seen to have been maintained and that countries will think twice before adopting an aggressive stance or invading another country. This war may be the price that has to be paid for a new world order. I regret that it has to be a major war but one can only hope that out of this will come the order referred to by many leaders around the world when the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended. This may be the inevitable followon which will lead to the peace and stability which we all dearly want to see, particularly in areas like the Middle East.

This area has a huge impact on the economies of all countries. The oil reserves there fuel the wheels of all economies in the western world. The western world cannot stand by and see these assets in the Middle East, which are necessary to the world as a whole, fall into the hands of someone who will use them for his own means and cripple world economies. This is one of the reasons we must take a firm stance on this issue.

Previous speakers have raised the question of Ireland's position as a neutral country. I have never believed that Ireland is neutral in a historical or mythological sense, an argument we like to put forward at times. That argument does not hold water with me. We are neutral from a military point of view but only because we do not have the capacity or finance to create a massive army. However, in political and ideological terms Ireland is not a neutral country.

We are a full member of the European Community and the evolving role of the Community will put stresses and strains on us until such time as the parties in both Houses of the Oireachtas face up to the question of our neutrality and our role in the new world order. We cannot adopt a simplistic neutral view. As the Minister said in his speech, we want to pick out the bits we like in terms of our commitment to the European Community or the United Nations and run with those but when we have a difficulty we simply walk away, if you like, from it. That is not being part of the world order. Neither I nor my party regard that as an acceptable way forward for this country. Under no circumstances would we view this as the way forward.

Calls have been made by this party, and indeed many others over the years, for the formation of a foreign affairs committee. Surely there is now more than ever a need for the Government to address this very serious problem? The issues raised by this was, in particular, the long term issues in regard to future developments, point out the importance of establishing a foreign affairs committee who will have real powers. I am not talking about a Mickey Mouse optical committee who will simply be a talking shop and have no ability to deliver on their deliberations. This important committee must be given some weight and statutory backing so that they will have some influence on how this country evolves. Ireland is too small for us to behave in any other way. No one party have all the answers but if we work collectively there will be a way forward.

The economic implications of the war for this country could become a lot more serious in the months ahead. The Minister for Finance has already indicated that strains may be put on this year's budget. One can only hope that those strains will not be too great. It is in everybodys interest that this war is brought to an end as quickly as possible, otherwise we will suffer greatly.

We all know Saddam Hussein has linked the Palestinian question in with this war not because he has any huge love for the Palestinian people but purely because it is a way for him to give vent to his aggession. When this war is over a conference, attended by representatives of all countries in the area, should be held on the Middle East to look at all the problems there. If such a procedure is adopted we should encourage it. It is essential that we do not allow the Palestinian question to simply drift away. It must be faced up to as an issue in itself at the end of this war after the liberation of Kuwait and the destruction of Saddam Hussein's huge military machine.

Like other speakers I too hope Saddam Hussein will not remain in power in Iraq. I do not think that would be acceptable. I sincerely hope that his days are numbered and that he will be brought down by a coup in his country or meet his end during the war.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. McDonald

I support this motion. I do not agree with Senator Brendan Ryan's description of the war. As I see it, this war is about keeping the peace. No one can ride roughshod over any small nation or sack, and pillage any other country; and rape innocent citizens. From the inception of this State successive leaders — such as W.T. Cosgrave, Eamon de Valera, at the League of Nations, Liam Cosgrave, Frank Aiken, Seán McBride, Deputy Garret FitzGerald and all the Foreign Ministers up to the present Minister, Deputy Collins, have fully supported the United Nations resolve to defend the rights of small nations. I believe the vast majority of our citizens support that policy.

I cringe when I see on television bellicose rent-a-crowd meetings, whether in Ballsbridge or in Shannon. The loony left would have one believe that this country should be neutrally supporting the Iraqi dictator. Five or six years ago, during the time of the Iran-Iraq war, a highly qualified medical doctor approached me in his effort to get Irish citizenship. The case he put forward was that because he was in his final year he did not go back to take part in the war against Iran, and if he showed up in Iraq at that time, he would be despatched at the airport without trial or formality.

The excesses of the Saddam Hussein regime are not new. His treatment of even minorities in his own country is not acceptable in western society. We must condemn in the strongest possible fashion this aggression against Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The bombing of Israel clearly indicates the intolerable pressure the small country of Israel has been subjected to for decades. I hope the Government of Israel will realise that the Iraqis are endeavouring to pull them into the war. I hope they will accept the views and the support of the 28 nation coalition who are at present engaged in this war on behalf of the United Nations and the Security Council.

This matter poses the question: should one be a pacifist to win peace? According to a Jordanian MP who spoke after Iraq launched its first attack on Israel with SCUD missiles, public pressure manifesting itself through peace demonstrations will undermine western democracy. This confirms the fact that Iraqi pacifist activity is an effective weapon to win or at least to stop the war, to divide the allies and force them to negotiate before they reach the United Nations Security Council objective of liberating Kuwait.

The Labour Party, Deputy De Rossa, the McAliskeys, the McCanns et al, many of them late converts to the democratic process, parade for neutrality but it would appear they are so neutral that they would give equal facilities to Saddam Hussein. Mr. McCann in a speech on Saturday last said he hoped the Iraqis would win this conflict. Even if our parading heroes were completely disinterested in the rights of nations or of minorities to exist in independence and peace, I pose the question: what nation has made a greater effort to secure peace and prosperity in this country?

I listened to the Mayor of Galway's tirade against the United States. Are the 470,000 US tourists who visited our country over the last number of years welcome in the west, or does the loony left not favour US planes landing in Shannon? We cannot just have selective policies on different issues. We should be consistent. When we join an international organisation such as the United Nations we should be there not just in the good times but through thick and thin. We are a small neutral nation but even if we were a raving warlike nation, we do not have the facilities or the resources to stand against any aggressor. Those newly converted democrats in Northern Ireland, the McAliskeys and the McCanns, can campaign for the success of the Iraqi dictator, but obviously the $150 million in grants from the United States to the Ireland Fund is the United States contribution to reconciliation and peace between the communities in Northern Ireland and assists the economic development projects on both sides of the Border. But obviously this counts for nothing because terrorism in any corner of the world is, for some people, preferable to peace and harmony.

Traditionally the United States has stretched out the hand of welcome to Irish emigrants. They have always been there when we needed them. There have been recent changes in the United States allocations of visas to this country. For instance, in the last five or six years, 70,000 new emigrant visas have been made available to our young Irish emigrants. On the economic side, there are 360 American companies in this country who have invested over $6.5 billion providing almost 45,000 jobs. Is that of no consequence to the people in the Labour Party or to those who want to take a grandiose stance in their eccentric tirades against the wishes of the international community?

We all know that there must be over 1,000 Irish third level students in American universities, many of whom are on more generous grants than our Department of Education can afford to provide to students in our own country. The dozens of informal institutional, cultural and educational exchange programmes which have complemented the extensive ties of family, friendship and tradition between Ireland and the United States, especially over the last 160 to 170 years, cannot be easily brushed to one side. Since this is a war with extensive satellite television coverage, in case anyone looking in might be misled by the parades that take place, I would like on behalf of many Irish people to express appreciation for the sacrifice in both blood and money that the United States are prepared to make defending the freedom and the rights of small nations to live in peace.

Extensive diplomatic efforts have been made over the past five and a half months to persuade Iraq to comply with the will of the international community, the Arab League, the European Community, the United Nations Secretary General and a number of individual Arab and European states. They all tried to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis but all efforts were rebuffed by President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Government. The United Nations Security Council, since the invasion on 2 August last, have passed no fewer than 12 resolutions. The first one, which was adopted on 2 August, Resolution No. 660, condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and demanded the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Resolution No. 661 adopted on 6 August, with a vote of 13 for and two abstentions, called on all states to prevent the import or export of all commodities and products between themselves, Iraq and Kuwait.

On 9 August, Resolution No. 662 was unanimously adopted which declared the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait null and void. On 18 August, Resolution No. 664 was again unanimously adopted which demanded that Iraq permit and facilitate the immediate departure of Third World nationals from Iraq and Kuwait. That unanimously adopted resolution was one with which we were all familiar. There are very many people throughout the country who had a neighbour, friend or relation held as hostage to the regime in Iraq. The resolution was as a result of the representations and the pressure exerted by Ireland and other United Nations countries.

On 25 August the Security Council adopted Resolution No. 665 with a vote of 13 for and two abstentions which gave authority to member states to use measures commensurate with specific circumstances to ensure that sanctions against Iraq were implemented. On 13 September, Resolution No. 666 was adopted which established a procedure for determining the extent of humanitarian needs for food supplies among the civilian population in both Iraq and Kuwait. On 16 September, Resolution No. 667 was unanimously adopted by the 15 members of the Security Council which condemned Iraqi violation of the diplomatic premises in Kuwait. On 24 September, Resolution No. 669 was unanimously adopted which entrusted the Sanctions Committee with reviewing requests for assistance from countries economically hard hit by the UN embargo on Iraq and Kuwait.

On 25 September, Resolution No. 670 stated that air transport was included in the embargo against Iraq and occupied Kuwait. On 29 October, Resolution No. 674 with a vote of 13 for and two abstentions, called on states to collect evidence of Iraqi human rights abuses and of financial losses caused by the invasion. On 28 November, by a unanimous vote, Resolution No. 677 was adopted which agreed that the United Nations should keep Kuwait's population records. Finally on 29 November, Resolution No. 678 was adopted which set a "pause for peace" allowing Iraq one final opportunity to withdraw from Kuwait and to restore Kuwait's legitimate government by 15 January 1991, after which all necessary means may be used to force Iraqi compliance with the United Nations resolutions.

There has been an extraordinary amount of diplomatic time and effort spent on this matter; our Minister certainly did not spare his energy and the Department of Foreign Affairs played their role in the interests of the rights of individual nations to live in peace. Indeed, in the entire lead-up to this war, there has been more diplomatic activity, greater efforts and greater understanding of the problem than in relation to any other problem in history.

This war is about peace. On the other hand those who want peace must now consider the problems raised by the use in this conflict of new destructive weapons, in order to prevent tragic wars in the future. This must be an issue similar to that raised by nuclear weapons which resulted in the signing of the non-proliferation treaty on nuclear weapons or in measures banning chemical or biological weapons. Mankind needs reassurances once again. This supreme responsibility will have to be taken by a world authority. Ireland, I am happy to recall, played a not insignificant role in the lead-up to the signing of the non-proliferation treaty and I am confident the Minister and the Department will continue that noble tradition.

Professor Conroy

War is war and let us not try to duck that fact. It is appalling, it is brutal, it is calamitous and the fact of the matter is that this war has been entered into, initiated by Saddam Hussein's invasion and annexation of an independent state, Kuwait. Now the step has been taken to remove Saddam Hussein by using the ultimate sanction of war. It behoves us to look at that simple, stark fact and to realise and perhaps appreciate the utter horror of it. The fact is that innocent — and I repeat the word innocent — men, women and children are being slaughtered in their tens, in their hundreds and in their thousands. It does not matter what heroic efforts many of these pilots are making, often at risk to their own lives and safety, to avoid or reduce the numbers of civilians who are killed. It is, unfortunately, an inevitable consequence, an inevitable happening, and there is no way that the Iraqi people or any other people deserve the brutalities of war.

The war has now been further extended to innocent people, again civilians, in Israel. Sometimes, in this House and elsewhere and indeed in this country, we have been perhaps inclined, maybe for very good reasons, to take a somewhat moral attitude towards Israel and the problems which have faced Israel and the Israeli people. I have the greatest sympathy with the people of Israel. One of the worst crimes of history and indeed of war was the deliberate attempt to exterminate millions of people because they happened to be of a particular religion. The gas chambers will go down forever in history as one of man's greatest infamies towards other men. We should have the greatest sympathy with the people of Israel for the trials and difficulties they have gone through and the fears of their civilian population at the possibility that, of all things, gas would once again be used to kill Jewish men, women and children.

Sometimes in this country we are a little sensitive, with some justice, to comments from people who come here for a weekend or on two or three visits and then give us lectures on what we should do to tackle our problems. The problems of the Middle East, however, are infinitely more complicated. Our Government, in extremely difficult circumstances and all things considered, have followed the best available course taking into account moral principles and Ireland's particular circumstances, its physical position and relationships with the European Community and the United Nations. That does not mean that I in any sense feel comfortable with the decision that has been taken to launch a war. It is very easy to launch a war but, as Saddam Hussein is now discovering, it is a very different matter to finish one. No matter how brief, surgical or exact a war may be many innocent people get killed.

A war has been started in that area which is little understood by most of us. I have already referred to our lack of understanding of the Israeli position and although I have visited the area I do not claim to understand the various shades of opinion and factors among the various Arab nations and groups. Whether we like it or not and whether it is right or not, the impression I have been given by the many Arab and Muslim people is that it is viewed as one more appalling episode of Western and, if I may say so regrettably, Christian attitude towards Muslims and the developing world. I know we do not see it that way and that that is not our intention, but it is our great regret that war should have been necessary.

I agree with Senator McDonald who referred to the League of Nations which failed when sanctions were not applied to the Japanese. A former leader of our country, Eamon de Valera — as well as others on both sides of the House — made a particularly significant speech on the Japanese invasion of China and on the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and his words came true not long after. He also made a number of speeches on neutrality. Neutrality can be very difficult for a small nation. The current crisis must make us all think about what we mean by neutrality. Is it neutrality as in the case of Switzerland or do we mean something else?

I believe the steps we have taken are the correct ones but I am not sure if we have fully thought through all the implications. As members of the United Nations and the European Community, whether we like it or not, we have obligations as well as returns from our membership of those organisations. There was a slight reluctance on my part to join both groups because of the inevitable consequences which would follow sooner or later. I am not sure if we have really considered them but what I am sure about is that relatively little serious thought has been given to what will happen when the war is won. A decision has been taken, perhaps an inevitable decision — but there are many misunderstandings about this — and there is the impression that somehow the war could be over in a day, or fairly quickly and with modern weapons we could spare civilian casualties, but it never works out that way because it is the ordinary civilians and the foot soldiers who get killed.

I get worried when I watch television or read news reports that the leaders of the alliance, no matter how right they were in deciding to enter into a war in order to remove the Iraqis from Kuwait, are now talking about bringing the leader of Iraq to justice. While that may be a very justifiable aim, it is not one which was decided upon by the United Nations. Indeed, countries agreeing to the United Nations resolution did not face up to the fact that they were declaring war. There were subterfuges in the wording.

What is going to happen? Where is it all going to end? Where is it all going to lead? War is horrible. Many people have already been killed and many more will be killed. If the intention is to remove the leader of Iraq, no matter how horrible a man he may be, this will inevitably result in further bloodshed.

There have been many reports from newsmen, some of whom have been very brave, giving accounts of the war but one news person really brought home to me what was happening was Maggie O'Kane, a reporter for The Irish Times whom I have never met. In an interview she referred to the fact that the people of Kuwait did not want a war, did not expect a war and suggested strongly that they had the greatest reservations about Saddam Hussein, which is not surprising. However, once the bombs began to fall, as any group or nation will, they immediately began to rally round their government and felt intensely antagonistic towards those who were killing their fellow citizens. I am quite sure we would do the same in similar circumstances.

I can understand those who feel that Saddam Hussein should be taken out. His record of brutality, murderous attacks on his own people and killing and poisoning with gas Kurdish children speaks for itself but as someone said, there were very few protests from the West when this happened. Indeed, when he invaded his neighbour, Iran, there were precious little protests. In face he was armed by the very people who are now belatedly but rightly, condemning him.

Some of us know from our parents or from our memories as children of the decision of unconditional surrender in the Second World War, again a very understandable decision where one had a dictator as wicked as Hitler but the effect of that decision was to prolong the war, probably to rally round not Hitler but the German state, as it then was, decent German people, who would otherwise have made even braver efforts — many Germans gave their lives trying to overthrow Hitler — to get rid of that man, but the policy was, no negotiation, unconditional surrender. That led to the loss of many extra millions of people, soldiers and civilians. Some of the participants in that righteous war against Hitler were themselves somewhat unsavoury.

I would like to join with the Pope — about whom we have heard very little even in this country — in placing himself with the people of Israel and the people of Iraq, the people who are suffering, and to pray that we will have peace as soon as possible.

Acting Chairman (Mr. R. Kiely)

I now call on Senator Norris who, I understand, is anxious to share his time. I would appreciate if you would indicate how you propose to share your time.

Mr. Norris

I am yielding the first five minutes of the time allocated to me to Senator Murphy.

Professor Murphy

I thank Senator Norris for his generosity. I am aware of his concern about what is happening particularly in Israel and I appreciate very much his gesture. I find this not only a matter of concern but of agonising indecision. I am torn between what I might call my traditional track record, which is support for maximum Irish independence in foreign affairs which is mostly what I understand by Irish neutrality, and support for peace movements such as the CND and, above all, perhaps, support for the United Nations. Indeed, my very first venture into public controversy was to support the United Nations in the matter of the Congo in 1960, 30 years ago. The UN has always excited my enthusiasm much more than the EC, for example. I am torn then between my support for peace and the abhorrence which Senator Conroy has expressed for war and for the dubious nature of much of this operation on the one hand and, as I say, my support for a peace-enforcing operation on the other.

I am a realist, I hope, and I realise that, whatever way the world goes, there has to be a world security body not only maintaining but enforcing peace. A number of people here seem to have difficulty about that. They are all admiration for our peace-keeping contingents, the Blue Berets and so on, but the idea of actually using violence to enforce peace is more than they can swallow, but this is to be totally escapist and unrealistic, I suggest. Much though we may regret it, there will be in the future many occasions in which there will be other Saddam Husseins who pose threats to various regions, whose likely possession of nuclear capability will be a threat to the world at large, and a world security body will have to deal with them. These are the facts of international life, and we have a duty to contribute to that process. Indeed, not only have we a duty, but in our own enlightened self interest we must contribute to that process. No matter how distasteful we find a regime like Kuwait and how contrary and repugnant to our democratic principles and so on, it is a member state of the UN and uniquely it has been taken over by another member state, and this threatens us all in a manner of speaking.

As Senator Conroy said, Eamon de Valera, I am glad to say, in the international context anyway whatever we think about his domestic politics, rides again in Leinster House this month, and I take some pleasure in reflecting on the irony that it was Deputy John Bruton who quoted de Valera's contention that small states above all have the greatest vested interest in collective security. Really that is the essence of much of what is at stake.

The big question of course is, is the Gulf war a legitimate UN operation? If I could be satisfied that it was legitimate I would be out there campaigning for it. It is no good bringing up all the business about the hypocrisy and double standards and that the UN did not move on this, that and the other. This is in a sense all largely academic. "What do we do now?" is the question now that war has broken out. I do not know what the answer really is to the question, "Is the operation a legitimate UN operation?". On the one hand we have articles in The Irish Times from someone like Professor Richard Falk of Princeton who says that Resolution 678 in fact gives an unrestricted warranty to the United States to wage war. On the other hand it must not be despised that our own Professor of Law, Professor John O'Connor of University College Cork — I am glad to say The Irish Times gave him almost equal prominence the following day — argues that no matter how irregular, so to speak, some of the attendant circumstances of the operation are, it is still nonetheless a legitimate UN operation; not only that but it also prefigures future operations in which there will be less uncertainty, fewer unpleasant features, in which the UN, hopefully, will evolve into a real world body. The problem is, of course, that the US effectively is the only super power now, and it is very hard therefore not to have situations where it is the sole prop and indeed, almost proprietor of the UN.

I deplore much of the anti-Americanism on the anti-war side and I deplore equally that sense of moral righteousness that is now so common among those who have declared for peace. It is very easy for them, I would suggest. On balance, I would have to support the resolution despite reservations I have about the phrasing and about the operation itself.

Mr. Norris

I also have reservations. I do not believe for one second that there is morality involved in this war. There never has been before, and I take issue with my colleague, Senator Ross, when he said he found that there was no parallel between the operations in Latin America and other instances that were given and what is happening in this latest adventure, because there is, quite clearly. The single motive is not morality. It is the commercial interests of the great powers that are at stake. Let that be placed firmly and clearly on the record. If this was not so there would have been intervention when the village of Halabja was gas bombed by the same Saddam Hussein. The US would disengage itself, as I hope, having now pinned their colours to the moral mast, they will do, from Pol Pot who murdered two million people. If Saddam Hussein is going to be brought before an international war crimes tribunal, then humanity demands that the bluff of the US be called and that Pol Pot who is a far worse criminal be brought before the bar of international public opinion. I believe it behoves all of us to insist on this. There cannot be one law simply for those who threaten our commercial interests with a tissue of hyprocritical blather about morality on the one hand and then on the other we connive and actively support and continue to arm those who are guilty of worse crimes. On this I would like the Minister to tell me if it is intended, subsequent to the conclusion of this war, to investigate those firms who have continued to sell the materials of war to Saddam Hussein. I follow what Professor Conroy said, and it chills me to think of French and German companies supplying Saddam Hussein with the possibilities of manufacturing gas and biological warfare. How are they able to do this? Last weekend I was in Paris at an academic conference. On the way back I had an opportunity to read some English newspapers. In them I discovered an article which dealt with the situation of an electronics firm in England headed by two ex-MI5 employees who had put together a torture chamber costing £1 million which was being exported to one of the Emirates. How is this done? What is the licensing? What is the morality here? I do not believe this is a war that has anything at all to do with morality, except in so far as it is coincidental.

I think this raises questions about the UN, and I believe the UN is defective. It lacks a moral core and I believe the reason it lacks a moral core is that basically it emerged from 19th century concepts of the relationship between nations. We are dealing basically with the balance of power, the balance of terror, and that is held in suspension by an international group like the UN. I feel that the fact that it starts from the relationship between nations is its weakness. It should start from a fundamental understanding of the rights of man and perhaps somewhere out of this we will have at last a universal declaration of the rights of man that will apply to our citizens now. I have to say, although I have respect as religions for all the great religions that are represented in this area, Christianity, Judaism and Islam — they horrify me when they become identified with political systems. They revolt and disgust me when this happens, and I do not wish to see the Moslem law of Sharia implemented in any country because I think human beings deserve a better system than that in which their hands can be chopped off for the theft of a box of matches. I am not ashamed to say that this disgusts me as much as features in our own country here have caused me concern previously because of the coincidence between the religious and the political.

A rather nasty suggestion has been made in the last while about the State of Israel. I speak with some feeling on this because there are people I love there with whom I am in contact all the time, people I may say, who, although Jewish, are strongly Arab identified and feel keenly the discriminations practised against the Arabs. It has been maintained that the Palestinian people were refused gas masks. This is not the case. However, and the Minister might like to comment upon this, my information is that members of the EC refused to supply on a commercial basis gas masks to Israel because they were classified as prohibited war materials, while they were simultaneously supplying machinery to Saddam Hussein. I think we are entitled to some comment on that.

The situation with regard to the provision of gas masks is that every citizen of Israel was provided with a gas mask free of charge. There was a problem and I believe the Israeli's were wrong in that they attempted in the late autumn to make gas masks available to people in the territories on a charge of £10 per item. However, they are a democracy. A Palestinian woman — more power to her — went to court and obtained from the Supreme Court in Israel a ruling that gas masks must be available to all, not just citizens, but every person for whom the Israeli Government are responsible. That is now the position. Let us have no more lies either here or in the media on this subject. It is very offensive — as Senator Conroy said — because of the experience of the Jewish people and the effects of gas on them.

The questions of the United Nations has been raised. It does concern me. Where is Mr. Perez de Cuellar now? Why is it that over the past week we have heard absolutely nothing from him? If this is a United Nations army — I am not so worried about uniforms although this is a symbolic manifestation — who is calling the shots? It is perfectly clear that it is not Perez de Cuellar. I felt compassion for that man when he returned from his last visit to Baghdad; he was worn, exhausted and pathetic; obviously he had tried but he was trying against the odds because the decision had been taken outside the United Nations that sanctions would not be given an opportunity to work. The clear evidence available is that, whereas there were breaches of sanctions — in terms of supplying materials to Iraq — the sanctions against Iraqi exports had been 97 per cent effective. Everybody knew from the beginning and were saying before the war started that sanctions would take eight months to a year to work. It is appalling to think they were not given this opportunity to work. I take no joy in the destruction of Baghdad, of Basra which I imagine has been affected far worse because there were no reporters there. I pay tribute to the international media for being present with those people. I believe their presence saved some of the civilian population of Baghdad. May I make a suggestion here, which may be futile and perhaps too late: one thing that could help to halt this war — if we really believe it should not be allowed get out of hand — would be if representative groups of parliamentarians from every parliament in the world and particularly representative of the non-aligned parliaments were prepared to go to Baghdad, Basra and Tel-Aviv and remain there in solidarity with those people. That would mean that the attention of the world would once more be focussed on them and unlimited, total war could not be unleashed against their populations.

I have spoken about the Israeli people because they are the people I know best although I have also been in Beruit in the middle of a bombardment. I know Cairo and some of the other cities very well. I have the greatest respect for Arab civilisation. There is one thing these two Semitic people — the Arabs and Jews — have in common, that is the root of their language. At the core of their language, in their courtesy and gretings, is the word "Shalom" which they both share —"salaam aleichem”; “shalom aleichem”; it is the same thing, the greeting: “Peace be with you”. That is what I have said I would wish for these people. But are we ever to have a sense of international morality instead of international expediency of cynical Machiavellianism which operates in every single country including our own. I recall very well when we, from these benches, were proposing something with regard to Nicaragua, being asked from the Government benches — I am not accusing any particular party, every party that has been in power has had the same view always — if we could afford what was being proposed. I was told that while what I was proposing might well be the moral thing, we might not be able to afford it. Can we afford not to be moral? Look at the way we have been lick-spittling Saddam Hussein. One thinks immediately of our much vaunted beef deals. We are now £174 million down the tube. Are we ever going to get that back? I very much doubt it. If instead of cynically looking after our own economic self-centered interests we had pursued a moral line we would not now be £174 million worse off.

We are listening to all this talk about war and how terrible it is: of course it is terrible; how expensive it is but, strangely, we can afford it. Why is it that we cannot afford the same to save people also facing death in the most horrible way — death through thirst, starvation, disease and so on? Most of these problems could be wiped out in terms of the Sudan, in terms of air space whether it is famine, disease, neglect, economic exploitation, lives that are now being wiped out in order to provide arms to bring people cynically on side. Those moneys could and should be used to ameliorate these situations. When this war is over, with all the fine words about morality and humanity and so on, we will be watching to ensure there is an attack on global problems of starvation, death and deprivation.

Mr. Lydon

Much has been said about this Gulf war, perhaps too much. All day and all night we have a blow by blow account of what is happening in the area. Nevertheless it is important that we speak about this matter and clearly express how we feel about what is happening.

First, Iraq invaded Kuwait and, by doing so, violated the United Nations Charter and persisted with this invasion and violation in spite of the decision of the United Nations Security Council calling for withdrawal. There was not then nor is there now any justification for the annexation of one member state by another. Kuwait may, or may not, be an artificial State created by the British but the same doubts can be raised about Iraq itself. For example the Kurds do not agree with the boundaries of Iraq as at present constituted. It has been said — by way of excuse for the invasion — that neither Kuwait nor Saudi Arabia are democracies. Of course they are not democracies. But they do not terrorise their population in the way that Iraq has terrorised its population. Israel has occupied Palestinian lands and indeed was created from Palestinian lands but they have not, as yet, used poison gas against Palestinians as Saddam Hussein did against the Kurds. In March 1988 the mixture of mustard and cyanid gas was dropped on the Kurdish town of Halabja. Reporters who visited the scene said that at least several hundred, possibly several thousands of men, women and children died. It was the biggest gas attack the world has seen since Ypres in 1917. It has been said that the US is involved in the Gulf because there is oil in Kuwait. I have no doubt there is truth in that allegation. But let us remember that Iraq has clearly stated that it invaded Kuwait because Kuwait oil was being sold in such large quantities the world price of oil was depressed and Iraqi income consequently reduced.

Let us remember that Iraqi oil income was still sufficient to raise the standard of living of its people to one of the highest in the world. But Saddam Hussein did not want increased oil revenues to raise the standard of living of his people. He wanted those oil revenues to build gas plants, nuclear reactors inside mountains, underground shelters for his aeroplanes, in short to build the fourth largest war machine in the world, all this for a country with the same population as Holland.

Many of us would have wished to have given sanctions longer to take effect but we did not know how close Saddam Hussein was to having nuclear warheads on his missiles. Many of us would have thought that any reasonable man would have taken a way out as offered by President Mitterrand's initiative involving an implied linkage with the problem of the Palestinians. Saddam Hussein's rejection of that initiative is surely a clear sign that he was never seriously concerned about the Palestinian problem. The coalition effort in the Gulf is not just a US operation. I understand some 28 countries are supplying fighting forces, more are contributing money and materials and it has the overwhelming support of the United Nations. We do not give unconditional support to the US in all their overseas operations but the operation in the Gulf, imperfect as it is, is the first real world attempt at collective security the United Nations has been able to mount. I suggest that this is exactly the type of collective operation for which Eamon de Valera pleaded at the League of Nations when Japan invaded Manchuria and when Italy invaded Abyssinia.

With the economic collapse of the USSR the United States is the only country with both the economic and military power capable of stopping a man like Saddam Hussein. As long as the United States remains within the terms of the United Nations resolution we should support them. That includes making available facilities at Shannon. When this war is over — hopefully sooner rather than later — there are one or two issues that must be addressed. First, the Palestinians must have the right to have their own State recognised. With all the talk of adherence to United Nations Resolutions, let us not ever forget Resolution 242. For nearly half a century these people have suffered ignominiously and the suffering of the Palestinian nation must be brought to an end so that the Palestinian and Israeli can live and coexist in peace with one another.

Secondly, the international arms trade must be brought under control. With agreement between the United States and the USSR to reduce strategic nuclear weapons, the world community must now move to control other weapons of large scale destruction. Let us be clear, Saddam Hussein would not be in the position he is in today, if he had not been provided with his arsenal by the USSR and, it must be said, by many of those nations now ranged against him. The most peace-loving of nations sell arms, for example, the Dutch and Swedes. Mrs. Thatcher was famous as a vendor of arms around the world. We ourselves I understand even export an armed personnel vehicle. This hypocrisy must stop. For example, Syria has an appalling record on human rights as have the British here in our country.

Another ally is maintaining its grip on many independent nations annexed to its empire, the most obvious being the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. There is a German expression I always liked —Mein Got vie gross ist sein Tiergarten— My God how big is thy zoo. When I think of the many so-called statements, I get an image of hyaenas scavenging what they can get from the corpses of the innocent. Let us not be found wanting. Let us be loud in our condemnations of wherever we see injustice.

There is one other issue and I do not want to be misinterpreted on it. A world in which the US was the only superpower in both an economic and military sense, could be an unstable world. Some democratic counterbalance to the US power would seem to be desirable. Perhaps it could be found in a united Europe. Perhaps a better alternative is a permanent international United Nations peace-keeping force, a sort of impartial world police force if that could be achieved. I do not want this to be construed to be in any way anti-American. I am old enough to remember parts of the last World War and when the chips were down we called for good old Uncle Sam. Let us not forget, that were it not for the resolve of the United States, we might well have witnessed the greater spread of communism and the enlargement of the Soviet sphere of influence. Many of those who marched outside the US Embassy, and who did not see fit to march outside the British, French or Egyptian embassies, as a Senator said, were the self same people who clamoured to get Donnelly visas to permit them to work and live in the land of opportunity.

Mr. Mooney

Hear, hear.

Mr. Lydon

All I am saying is that the world should not be ruled by any one nation no matter how benign that nation is. In conclusion, I would mention what I feel is the tragic fall-out of this conflict the daily ration of TV and radio bilge which I am afraid will have the terrible effect of inuring people to the tragedy. We sit in front of our TVs in expectation of another hit or another successful bombing mission or another retaliatory gesture. They are only euphemisms for the killing, the maiming of human beings. This is very sad.

I remember when the first person was killed in the Six Counties the whole country was rightly shocked. The other night the horrific murder of an elderly retired part-time policeman merited only a paragraph in a newspaper. I want Senators to imagine the pain of that man's family. If they multiply that pain not one hundred fold, not one thousand fold but one hundred thousand fold and the real horror of war may finally come home to us. My prayer, like those of other Senators is, that this conflict will be short-lived and that the resulting peace will enshe allah return to the area now caught up in the horror of war. I have no trouble in supporting this motion.

Mr. Kennedy

On 25 June 1945 the United Nations was founded in San Francisco. Its primary and fundamental purpose is stated in Article 1 (1) of the Charter to be:

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace and for the suppression of acts of aggression and other breaches of the peace.

The issue before us today, is a fundamental and basic one. Do we, or do we not support international order and collective security in which the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of small nations such as Ireland are protected? We must, and indeed we should, support the United Nations Charter and United Nations Resolutions, and any request for refuelling facilities at Shannon by any member of the international community — but in this case the United States of America — should be granted.

On 2 August 1990 the Iraqi army overran Kuwait and ever since, in the eyes of Iraq Kuwait has ceased to exist. That was the first time since the United Nations was founded in 1945 that a member of the United Nations sought by force to wipe another member off the map. The key issue, therefore, as I see it, in this debate, is, do we believe that Ireland's interests, and the interests of small nations, is served by our support of a worldwide UN enforced system of collective security, or do we believe that the United Nations should not be able to enforce its resolutions and that the defence of small nations should be left to themselves and to whatever other allies they can find?

We should and we must support a UN enforced worldwide collective security. Those who say that we should not support UN resolutions, who favour some sort of neutrality as between the United Nations and Iraq, are abandoning, as the Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Spring, is, the principles of a worldwide collective security. We must never forget that it was the failure, as Senator Conroy and others have mentioned, to maintain a proper system of collective security that led to the Second World War. The League of Nations failed in 1935. The United Nations must not fail in 1991. The new United Nations which was created after the Second World War was specifically designed to be a much stronger body than the League of Nations. It was given a much clearer authority and decision-making power. The imposition of sanctions was not to be left to the discretion of the member states, the cause of the failure of the League of Nations. Thus Article 41 of the UN Charter gives the Security Council the legal authority to order diplomatic and economic sanctions on behalf of all the UN members and Article 42 of the UN Charter gives the Security Council the legal authority to order military sanctions.

This country joined the United Nations in July 1946 in the full knowledge of these obligations and with the unanimous support of all the political parties here at that time. The case, indeed, for a system of collective security was stated with absolute clarity by the leaders of the various political parties here in 1946, ably led by the then Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera. It is also interesting to note that Deputy Bill Norton, the Leader of the Labour Party, exactly foresaw the sort of situation that now exists in the Middle East. He said:

If the United Nations organisation hangs together only small wars are possible and they will probably be of short duration in as much as an effective and efficiently operating United Nations organisation would mean that the whole world would take the field against one or two aggressors.

We now see the whole world basically taking the field against President Hussein.

I hope, therefore, that this country in January 1991 will not retreat from the clear vision of collective security which led us to take the unanimous and clear-eyed decision to join the United Nations in July 1946. In the words of Deputy John Bruton, the Leader of Fine Gael:

World peace depends on a strong United Nations. The strength of the UN arises from the moral courage of its members to support its resolutions.

Weakness, allowing UN resolutions and decisions to be flouted, undermines the authority of the UN and collective security then ebbs away. I believe, together with the vast majority of public representatives, and I believe I speak for the people, that Ireland must fully support the UN and its resolutions. It would have been infinitely better if the Government had stated this clearly at an earlier stage. I would like to convey to the American and British Ambassadors my appreciation of what President George Bush and the American administration and Prime Minister John Major and the British Government are doing in defence of free nations and especially in the defence of small nations. We in Ireland, and particularly those of us who live in Limerick and the mid-west region, must never forget that Ireland has so long invested her people and her children in America and that Americans are now coming and investing their capital in Ireland. There are now almost 400 American companies in Ireland providing employment for over 45,000 people with a total investment of $6.5 billion.

Our adherence to the principles of the UN Charter compels us, as has always been the case, to play a full and active role as a member of that organisation. No call has been made on Ireland under Resolution 678 to provide material assistance or support for the actions now being taken in the Gulf. None may be made. It is my view that Ireland should not participate in the Gulf war in terms of troops but that we must and we should honour all our obligations and commitments under the United Nations Charter.

Mr. Dardis

At the outset let me say it is not for us in this House to indulge in exercises of righteous indignation and less so in exercises of semantic debate and moral philosophy. On all sides of the House, we share an abhorrence of war and what is happening in the Gulf. We are passionately concerned about the human dimensions of the war and what it will mean for families and individuals.

We are fortunate that although we have experienced oppression we have not experienced cataclysmic Armageddon which was a feature of both the First and the Second World Wars. We were certainly affected, particularly so in the First World War when many of our countrymen went to fight in the trenches of Flanders and died there and have since been forgotten by this country. Happily we go to the Royal Hospital once a year to commemorate all those who have fallen in war. However, the many thousands who fell in far off fields are not accorded the honour which they should be accorded. I suppose the nearest experience we would have to what war is like was the Famine. Even though that happened well over 100 years ago it still leaves its scars on our society today. We still feel its effects.

There is an important principle involved in this conflict. It is one that we as a small country should be able to identify with very readily, that is, the principle that a small country must be free from aggression, and if there is an act of aggression against it it must be protected from that aggression and that aggression must be resisted. The only hope of achieving that objective is through full participation in the United Nations through full support of the resolutions passed by that body and by participating in the international community. I do not believe the United States is without fault in this matter but I will deal with that later.

I am sure all Members of the House are concerned with those who live in the war area, the ordinary citizens of the region and the Iraeli citizens, but my primary concern as an Irish representative must be with the welfare of Irish citizens in the Gulf region and in the Middle East in general. I will repeat the question I asked the Leader of the House yesterday on the Order of Business, and I hope the Minister will be able to clarify the position. What plans do the Government have to ensure the safety of the more than 700 members of the 58th Batallion of UNIFIL serving in Lebanon in the event of an escalation of the Gulf war? I live in an area where there is a large Army presence and I can tell the Minister, although I am sure he is well aware of it already, that there is deep concern among the families of Army personnel about the welfare of our troops in Lebanon.

I realise fully that Lebanon is quite a distance from the main theatre of war but it is not very far from Israel. Obviously, there has been a calculated policy to provoke Israel to retaliate and in the event of retaliation it is obvious that the war will escalate and would impinge upon our forces in Lebanon. They could then quite easily become targets. In that event we must look to our Government and to the UN authorities to see to it that those who are serving in Lebanon are protected and that they will be evacuated speedily if that is what is required. However, there is an even simpler thing that could be done and that is to facilitate contact by the families with the Army personnel serving in Lebanon. People have made representations to me suggesting that it is quite difficult to maintain contact with their men in Lebanon and it would be a source of consolation to them if they just knew what was going on.

We must admire Israeli restraint in staying out of the conflict in the face of provocation. That has to be commended and I hope it will continue.

My second question relates to the people working for the Masstock organisation and other Irish people in the Gulf region. I have noticed that the Minister in his speech said contingency plans have been drawn up regarding evacuation in the event that such action should become necessary. I would like a little more detail on that. It might not be too extreme to suggest that we may have to airlift some of those people if they wish to get out because from my reading of the press it appears that it has become extremely expensive for them to get out of the area. We have a responsibility to do so. I note the chief executive of Masstock has given guarantees not only to Irish citizens but to others in the area; Masstock should be commended for that.

I think we are fortunate in this House that we can speak from a position of relative detachment. When we watch television every evening and see people dying it is almost as if we were watching some sort of football match. We, as a Parliament are fortunate that we do not have to make the awesome decision to go to war with all the inevitable consequences that entails. Questions arise as to whether sanctions could have been given more time. My view is that every recourse had been taken and it had got to the point where almost the whole international community had spoken to Saddam Hussein but he was not listening. I submit that if sanctions had continued all that would have happened is that we would have had a catalogue of human misery with people starving and still he would have remained unmoved and even more intransigent.

Matters in relation to neutrality and so on have been dealt with by my colleague Senator Cullen. As time is running short I will only refer to them briefly. There is a responsibility on us to show solidarity with out European partners. There is an immensely better chance of exerting international pressure through the European Community than through us as a small nation going our own way. I support fully the question of UN solidarity. In relation to what the US might or might not have done some of us in the country find the tone of the US rhetoric distasteful: it can be very raucous and bellicose to our ears. That does not take away from the reality that the only military power with the capability to implement the resolutions passed by the UN was the US. There was also the USSR but they did not wish to participate; they had their own problems. We might ask ourselves what would have been the situation ten years ago if something similar had happened. We might have been looking then at a major conflict between the USSR and the USA. Thankfully that does not feature here.

Some disquiet was voiced this morning about the level of Irish oil supplies. I am happy to tell the House, on the basis of the information I have received from the Department of Energy, that there is no need for major concern in this area. Every day the Department of Energy issue statistics of the national supply and stocks position. It appears that certain sections of the press are ignoring these figures and are not taking them seriously. Also, they are more prepared to listen to what the office boy in an oil company has to tell them — and to believe what he is saying — than to believe the figures which are emerging from the Department of Energy. The Minister stresses that there is no necessity for consumers to panic or to stock up unnecessarily with home heating oil and he has issued advertisements in the media on methods of using energy wisely during the present Gulf conflict.

The Irish Independent in its issue of 24 January 1991 reported that there is far less petrol and fuel oil in the country than claimed by official government agencies. That is simply not the case. Data issued by the Department containing up-to-date information on crude and product stocks held by various sectors — the large consumers, the oil industry and the Government — are based on information from those sectors. There is a popular misconception in the media that we have only 22 days supply of petrol. That is not correct. The stocks data issued by the Department of Energy reflect accurately the petrol supplies on hand in oil company ownership at Whitegate, in strategic storage, and in the form of crude. On 23 January Whitegate stocks of petrol amounted to 40 days supply. I do not know from what source these figures are coming but on the basis of information I have from the Department of Energy the figures being used are inaccurate. The article also reported that there was a dispute between industry sources and the Department of Energy over a hush-hush part of the deal which resulted in the Department buying Whitegate in 1982. that is utter nonsense. Part of the purchase deal was that the companies would have imputed to them, against their stockholding obligation, a number of days which would exist in crude and processed stocks being held in the refinery. That was a condition of the contract and there is nothing secretive about that element of the deal. It was known and has been referred to many times. It makes eminent good sense, otherwise the volume in question would have to be held at twice that level at undoubted cost to the consumer. I am happy to be able to clear up some of the misconceptions that exist in this area. I am sure all of us in this House are extremely concerned, not just about the war and the welfare of all people in that area but, more particularly, about the welfare and safety of our own citizens within the Gulf area.

Mr. O'Toole

I would like to give five minutes of my time to Senator Costello if the House is in agreement.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. O'Toole

I would like to put a few things on the record. I have listened to many fine words and much confused thinking here today. I would like to make a few proposals and also to examine some of the things that have happened recently. I agree with everything the last speaker said except for one point. I do not think we should denigrate the need to have a philosophy on where we are going on this issue. I would not present myself as being either a moralist or a philosopher but I have learned enough in my life so far to know that one needs to have some philosophy to give some direction. I have never heard such confusion and such double-think as I have heard from many people here today. I speak for peace and as somebody who does not present himself as a pacifist I have always accepted the need for force. I have heard, for instance, here today people who have regularly in this Chamber stood up and condemned the ANC, the PLO, the Sandinistas on one point only, that they resorted to the use of force and arms. Those same people were today proposing and making a case for war. The double-think is interesting. It depends on who is pointing the gun and who is at the other end. I hope I have time to say something about the Palestinian cause before I finish. I would like to state for the record that the Palestinians have found themselves in a most difficult situation because the only ally and support they could get in the Middle East for a long period came from Hussein. They were no different from what we were in 1916 when we looked to Germany and unfortunately found ourselves in an awkward situation internationally at that time. It is a very close analogy. Let us propose something for peace. What I would like to see happening is that we move the position of power. First, I would like to see us exchanging the khaki of the Brits, the green berets of the Yanks, the uniforms of the French and so on for the blue berets of the UN. If people around here think that is what is happening is support for the UN they are very naive indeed. The jingoism, the chauvinism, the power broking, the warmongering, the racism which I have seen nakedly emanating from the so-called allies in the last two weeks is sickening in the extreme and has no place in the UN which I am committed to and to which we are affiliated.

If we are committed to allowing the UN to operate and if we understand that there will be times when the use of force is required, we should move to shift the power from the war room of the Pentagon to the peace room of the UN building because that is the reality. The reality is that the UN did not decide to go to war. The statement in this motion that certain things made the use of military force for this purpose unavoidable is not true at this time. The reality is that those people decided they could no longer wait for sanctions to take their course and would run the so-called weekend war which would solve the problem quickly. These people, who have all the technology in the world, could not surround Iraq to ensure that the sanctions would work. Instead they decided to run the weekend war which will bring with it gore, bloodshed, suffering and misery, which may have been necessary at some stage but it certainly was not necessary at this time.

I should like to refer to neutrality and to address both sides of the argument. There is a very high level of hypocrisy in the debate on neutrality. I want to refer first to what neutrality is not. Previous speakers have referred to Switzerland, Sweden, Austria and other countries. If those are the models they are using for neutrality, then God help us in the future. Switzerland has stood aside like Pontius Pilate and washed its hands of the problems in the world while it has laundered the money and finances of the mafia and many underworld and oppressive regimes. Sweden, the so-called leader in neutrality, has had no qualms about selling arms to both sides in any war anywhere. That is not neutrality: neutrality is a pro-active state where we work for peace.

The best example of neutrality is the work being done by our forces in UNIFIL. I support completely the concerns expressed by the previous speaker, Senator Dardis, on this matter. The duty being performed by these forces is the UN working. I will believe the commitment of the United States when I see it making resources available to the UN and not exploiting, abusing and hijacking the UN, which I believe is what is happening at present. That is my difficulty with this matter. I would say the same thing if the USSR was involved. I do not want to be seen as anti-American but I believe they have grasped and exploited an opportunity and have led us down a sad road which we will regret amach anseo.

As members of the UN our contribution should be to peace as opposed to a contribution to war. Let us look at what is happening in the Gulf and the misery being experienced by people on the both sides. We should start counting the casualties and see what we can do to help them. I believe we could give a strong pro-active response to what has inevitably happened because of the determination of the military leaders to get involved in their war games once again. We could provide resources to treat the injured on both sides. The 4,000 hospital beds which have been closed here should be made available to treat the injured and maimed on both sides of this war. We should show our concern for the people out there and do something for peace by relieving the misery. That would be a positive step by us. I do not have the time now to develop all of my ideas in this area.

I want to lay to rest some of the myths about Kuwait, Suadi Arabia and Iraq. There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein is the most dangerous person to emerge from the Middle East in a long time. There is no doubt that there is oppression and suppression in Iraq which is unacceptable to any fairminded or democratically orientated individual, parliament or state. However, it makes me sick when I hear the "free Kuwait" brigade. I would love to free Kuwaut and I wish the people who are talking about freeing Kuwait would recognise that during the last elections held in that country only 7 per cent of the population had the right to vote. It is an oppressive and suppressive regime and in many ways a regime of terror.

The latest Amnesty International Annual Report contains a fairly lengthy description of incidents which took place in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait which are both democratically and judicially unacceptable. I want to put it on the record that the fair minded Saudi Arabians have also issued a directive that anyone who leaves or deserts a post will be subject to summary decapitation. These are the people who are on "our side" in this war. We are talking about states who still use decapitation, amputation and death sentences to deal with their difficulties. It is not right to say that all the rights are on one side of the fence; there are flaws and faults on both sides.

That is not to take from the point made by all speakers, with which I agree, that the invasion of Kuwait is unacceptable to a democratic world and Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to continue to occupy Kuwait. I would support that view to the bitter end but I do not support the way in which this issue has been dealt with, the way in which we have allowed the UN to be hijacked and the way in which we have put livs at risk, and created misery throughout the world. The point I am making is that war was unnecessary at this stage. Sanctions were imposed on South Africa and other countries. We had to wait to make them work but we did so, supported them and were opposed to war.

I want to refer to invasions which took place at other times. It is not so long ago since we discussed Grenada, Afghanistan and other countries. There was no rush by the western powers at that time to take appropriate action arising from the invasion of a democracy. Democracy is a very fragile flower which is planted, replanted and dug up too many times by many of the protagonists on both sides of this war.

Our contribution should be to peace. We should not allow the wool to be pulled over our eyes by people who are acting on behalf of the UN but who may have a hidden agenda. The ending of the Cold War was the first time in the history of the United Nations that we could have moved as a force to remove the power from the war room of the Pentagon to the peace room of the UN building and move on from there. Just as one cannot run a state without a police force, neither can one run a peaceful world without a world police force. That is the role I saw for the UN and not for any powerful individual member of the UN.

Mr. Costello

I thank Senator O'Toole for sharing his time with me. I reject the motion before us, some parts of which are totally unacceptable. I disagree with the statement in the first paragraph of the motion which says that all member states are carrying out the decisions of the Security Council. What is happening at present does not implement the decision of the Security Council. I believe incorrect procedures have been adopted in relation to this matter.

The second paragraph of the motion states that the declaration of war was unavoidable. I do not believe that the war was unavoidable. There were other options open to us before the war started. The third paragraph of the motion requests all states to provide appropriate support for the actions undertaken. Because I believe the actions taken were incorrect and improper. I do not see any reason why we should agree to a request to provide support for the actions being undertaken.

With regard to the other proposals in the motion, I agree that Iraq has flouted the resolutions of the Security Council. It is run by a brutal dictatorship and I condemn very strongly the abuse of human rights, as catalogued by Amnesty International, taking place there. I hope that eventually there will be a peaceful and diplomatic resolution to this conflict.

I wish this debate had been held earlier in the month. We are more involved in this war than we were in any war which has taken place since the foundation of the State and it is a shame that we are discussing it retrospectively. We should have discussed the issue at the beginning rather than the end of January. We are involved because of our membership of the United Nations. During the war between Britain and the Falklands we were a member of the Security Council. We are involved in the war through our membership of the United Nations. We may be asked to allow American forces to refuel at Shannon Airport. We are also involved because of a request that, as a member of the EC, we take on some of the burden of the cost of the war. We are involved, too, in relation to our reserves of oil and fuel. We are involved to a greater extent than ever before, both directly and indirectly, in what is happening at present.

My view of the United Nations always has been a benign one — perhaps I will have to redress it to some degree. I have always considered that the United Nations played a major role in world disputes between individual nations. That is the direction the world should be going, particularly now with the end to NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The United Nations should be the world policeman and we need it. Our neutrality should be an act of neutrality rather than simply sitting on the fence. I am concerned about what is happening in the context of the Security Council resolutions. We will have to look again at the structures of the United Nations which came into existence after the Second World War, at the permanent membership of the Security Council and the structures in relation to the authority to engage in conflict.

Resolution 678 which was passed should have operated on the basis of unanimity but that was not the case because there was a reserved voice, that of China. It is questionable, therefore, whether under international law in the context of our responsibilities in the United Nations, we are operating correctly. I would certainly question that. I would say quite categorically that we have not used all the necessary means to ensure that a war was avoided. We could have continued with the sanctions that were in operation and that we knew were effective. They still can be effective. The Arab countries had a role to play, as had the United Nations itself, other than bringing in one major western imperial nation that has a number of interests in the Middle East.

What is to happen now? Today the five Arab states called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. That Council should meet on a regular basis to review the matter. Why cannot there be a ceasefire at this point? Certainly a message has been delivered. The sanctions should have operated for a greater period of time, and we should continue to operate them.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I will have to ask the Senator to conclude.

Mr. Costello

In the meantime this issue is not the responsibility of Ireland. Ireland has not authorised this war. It is my belief, and it is the considered belief of a number of legal commentators, that engagement in the war at present is not in strict accordance with the United Nations resolution.

Mr. Mooney

I would like to share some of my time with my colleague, Senator McKenna.

An Leas-Cathaoirleach

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Mooney

I would like to state at the outset that I am not a war-monger but I have studied the two great world wars of this century as it is a particular hobby of mine. Down through the years I have visited several of the battle sites in Europe as well as the visual horrors of Dachau, Mauthausen and Auschwitz concentration camps. Therefore, I hope my credentials in this area are above reproach in the context of what I am about to say.

It is my belief that consequent on the occupation of Kuwait the commencement of hostilities was inevitable. For much of the past six months I, too, was in favour of economic sanctions. I believed that a slow but steady twist of the economic screw would bring this man Hussein to the conference table, that surely no leader would permit the slow disintegration of his country, the loss of food, spare parts for industry and all the other necessary accoutrements of a modem society. But then I thought, what evidence is there to support this widely-held view?

President Hussein fought an eight year war with his next-door neighbour, Iran. This followed an unprovoked attack by Hussein subsequent on the fall of the Shah and a perceived weakening of the hitherto military and economic power in that region. During this dirty, nasty war at the end of which there were no winners Saddam Hussein permitted the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. He used chemical and biological weapons on innocent men and women and in Kurdistan on infant children. He brought his naturally oil-rich country to the point of bankruptcy and when he failed to get an increase in oil prices from his fellow-members of OPEC, many of them Arabs like himself, he threatened his small defenceless neighbour, Kuwait.

By no stretch of the imagination is Kuwait a democracy. I agree with the sentiments expressed by many speakers on all sides of this House in the debate today in relation to the lack of democracy in Kuwait. Its rulers have much to answer for, particularly in their treatment of the large immigrant population who have serviced Kuwait industry in the past 20 or 30 years but Kuwait is a member state of the United Nations, sovereign and independent, a state that, ironically, had funded Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran and now finds itself wiped off the face of the earth.

I grew up actively disliking one word in the dictionary —"appeasement". My growing years were peppered with film images of Nevil Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, and his piece of white paper fluttering in the breeze following the Munich summit of 1938. Peace in our time became a by-word for vacillation, hesitation and accommodation. That was an inglorious chapter in recent world history that I thought would never be repeated.

The comparison between Hitler and Hussein are obvious. The decision of Britain and France to go to war with Nazi Germany came only after the German dictator had wiped Czechslovakia off the map of Europe and went ahead with his threat to do a similar job on Poland. The world did not want war then. The world does not want war now. I firmly believe in the old adage that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. Some say that history rarely repeats itself but the comparison between September 1939 and January 1991 is a valid one.

I would ask the House to reflect on the world mood just 12 short months ago. Romania had become the latest eastern bloc country to shake off the yoke of dictatorship; the Baltic states were debating the re-establishment of their independence; Gorbachev was in line for the Nobel Peace Prize; the Cold War was being consigned to the dust-bin of history and world leaders proclaimed that we were on the brink of a new world order. It seems like a generation ago that we watched with growing disbelief the emergence of Hussein's Iraq as a major threat to the establishment of this new world order. Saddam Hussein has seriously miscalculated, like many dictators before him. The world does want peace but, as in 1939, not at the price of another dictator whose ultimate objective is the domination of the Middle East, the control of the world's primary source of energy and the subjugation of millions of people.

Of course I concur with those speakers who have pointed out the lack of democracy throughout the Middle East and particularly in the Emirates as they are known. Of course there are many social inadequacies in their societies. I can find no enthusiasm for the war that has been unleashed, a war that threatens so many of our dreams for a new world order of peace and prosperity and equal rights for all. These are not petty ideals, but peace sometimes must be fought for. I cannot help but reflect on the words of Dr. Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who stated last week that sometimes a just war must be fought to guarantee a greater peace.

Now that hostilities have begun, the search for a lasting peace must be stepped up. Ireland has long been lauded for its refusal to align itself with military alliances. There is a fund of goodwill towards Ireland throughout the Arab world that must be used to seek a ceasefire. The key to a long term solution of this crisis lies within the Arab world and not in London, Paris or Washington. Ireland, through the United Nations peace-keeping role in the Middle and Near East, has created a fund of goodwill by its brave espousal of the Palestinian cause and its contribution to improving the economic life of several Arab countries. All these credits must now be called in.

I do not accept the premise that membership of the European Community prevents us from taking a unilateral initiative. Membership of the European Community did not prevent an Irish Government from taking an independent line on the appalling sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands war. Despite the opprobrium heaped on this country and the Taoiseach at the time, it is often forgotten that Italy took a similar line to Ireland in that regard. Indeed, if one analyses the near panic response of several of our member colleagues of the European Community in the days leading up to the 15 January deadline, to the less than subtle approach adopted by our French colleagues in unilaterally — and some suggests secretly — attempting to develop an initiative independently with Saddam Hussein, and the action taken by Britain which alone among all of the European countries in the EC has a nasty military tradition that I would have thought would long have been excised from its society——

Mr. Costello

There are a few other countries in the EC with nasty traditions.

Mr. Norris

Nastier than Germany?

Mr. Mooney

When one considers the American response following its experiences in Grenada and Panama and put then alongside the traditional peacekeeping role that Ireland has sought and preserved in its world image we should not offer apologies to any of our colleagues in the European Community for taking a unilateral initiative.

Mr. Norris

It is amazing we did not take over the whole world.

Mr. Mooney

I am extremely disappointed, considering the gravity of this debate, to be heckled in this manner by Members on the other side who have had the opportunity to make their contributions.

Mr. Costello

Just little items of accuracy for the record.

Mr. Mooney

I suggest that Ireland seek an immediate meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to establish a United Nations multinational force in Kuwait, that Iraq pulls back to its pre-August second front line and that the coalition forces cease hostilities. I further suggest, in line with the view expressed by many Members on all sides of the House, that, in order to further the image and reality of Ireland's non-aligned role in the world and specifically in relation to this war, the provision of field hospitals would be a benign legacy of the economic contribution made by Irish men and women in the Arab world over the last 20 years. I urge the Government to encourage, for example, the PARC organisation to set up these facilities considering their expertise in this area which of course, would be in line with the peacekeeping traditions of this country. It is an initiative which would be fully supported by the people of this country unlike the war in the Gulf which, sadly, has divided opinion.

I hope on a personal level that the unfortunate prisoners of war of all the coalition forces currently in captivity in Iraq will be treated under the terms of the Geneva Convention so that their families, their fathers and mothers, the sons and daughters they asked for and to whom they sent messages in that appalling television coverage, will at least get some relief from the trauma and horror of this nasty war.

I would like to concede the remainder of my time to Senator McKenna.

Mr. McKenna

I thank Senator Mooney for sharing a few minutes of his time with me to say a few words on this debate. I would prefer the debate not to take place as I would much prefer if this war had not broken out. I speak with a tremendous amount of sadness. It is important to reiterate why this war is taking place. The apathy shown by the general public is amazing. I listened to a programme a few mornings ago where numerous people of all descriptions telephoned to say that they were fed up listening to news of the war. It is an amazing attitude. I suppose war by television is a new approach; it may make great television but the people on the ground have a different view of it.

I reiterate what has been said by a number of people in relation to the Security Council which I agree had no option but to take the decision they did. As the Minister pointed out in his speech, every avenue was explored to try to encourage Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait. He annexed a small neighbouring state and he did it with the intention of overrunning the Middle East and all the Gulf states. That was his sole aim. This individual is a megalomaniac, he saw himself as a super god and he boasted of being able to overthrow all world powers.

There is also a question about the attitude of the Americans. I would not by any means be disposed towards the American regime in terms of some of the things that they did, and I speak on a personal note in relation to the position in Nicaragua, which I visited last year. I was very critical of the American approach in that area. However, on this occasion, the Americans had no option. A small state had been invaded and Saddam Hussein rebuffed all diplomatic approaches made to him, he dismissed them out of hand. He rapped the Secretary General of the United Nations on the knuckles, told him to go home and not to be annoying him. Anyone who saw Perez de Cuellar's face when he came out of that meeting realised how it saddened him to have to deal with that individual.

I have to pay a tremendous tribute to the Israeli Government and the Israeli State on the very restrained stand they took in relation to the tremendous pressure put on them. It was very indivious and an underhand approach to attack this state which had no direct involvement in the war, in order to try to encourage the escalation of the war in the Middle East. I would compare it to our country. If these Scud missiles were directed at this country — and allowing for the fact that we would not have the military capacity to defend ourselves like the Israelis — we would be very hurt and we would use all the means at our disposal to ask someone to help us and to retaliate on our behalf. It is extremely important to recognise that fact. We must recognise the restraint the Israelis have shown in relation to the attack. In my humble way I appeal to them again to continue to exercise restraint and not to fall into the trap Hussein is trying to set for them so that the war will escalate throughout the Middle East.

In relation to the landing rights at Shannon Airport, as a member of the Security Council we would be reneging on our responsibility and our duties——

Mr. Costello

We are not a member of the Security Council.

Mr. McKenna

The United Nations, I am sorry. Thank you for correcting me. We would be failing in our duties as a member of the United Nations if we did not allow landing rights at Shannon for any of our member allies.

Mr. Staunton

I am glad that this debate is taking place today and do not think that this House could discuss a more serious topic. I am aware of what my party's stance on this issue is and where I stand. My views are not in conflict with those of my party.

War is horrible and this war will be catastrophic. Casualties are already extremely high and may be much higher. The effect of the war on the civilian population in Iraq is appalling and may be absymal but, having said that, we have got to get back to some fundamental principles and decide who is to be held accountable for the hostilities taking place at this time. Some spokesmen in this debate, who would be opposed to our support for the United Nations and this conflict, have spoken about two sides as if we were looking at a football game involving Manchester United, Arsenal, Kerry or Dublin and the need to help the two sides get together but what is the reality?

We are dealing with a tyrant in Iraq in the mould of other tyrants down through the centuries, Saddam Hussein. We should examine his history prior to his exploits in Kuwait. We have seen the militarisation of Iraq, the killing within his own country of about 6,000 Kurdish citizens of Iraq and the use of chemical weapons to assassinate thousands of them while the war with Iran resulted in the death of thousands of his troops. A day or two before the deadline of 15 January he is supposed to have told a visiting Islamic leader that he was prepared to sacrifice half of his troops in this war.

More recently we have seen the way he has treated prisoners in breach of the Geneva Convention, his invasion of Kuwait and the way he treated Kuwaiti civilians. Recent reports from Amnesty International list some of the more horrific events which have occurred in Kuwait including the taking and killing of hundreds of premature babies from incubators in maternity hospitals in the city of Kuwait. We have also witnessed his use of Europeans, including I presume Irish people, as human shields in the lead up to this war and he now proposes using prisoners of war in the same way.

Before the outbreak of the war he stated that one of his first acts in the war would be to bomb Israel to extend the conflict in the Middle East in the hope that an Israeli response would in turn wrong foot Islamic countries such as Egypt, Syria and Suadi Arabia who at present support the American and United Nations' forces. Yet, we talk about two sides to the conflict, two football teams, who is injured on the side of the pitch and ask how we can resolve it. I am not saying one who is normally complimentary towards the Israeli Government — I will have a number of negative things to say about them in the course of my contribution — but they are to be admired for the great restraint they have shown n recent days in the face of the most extreme provocation. Had they responded it would have been counterproductive and played into the hands of Saddam Hussein.

Do I like war? I detest it with a passion. I am not a pacifist, neither am I a militarist and do not understand military issues. In my heart I would like to say it would be marvellous if the issue could be resolved without the need for this conflict. I could also argue that we should have allowed the sanctions to work a little longer or put a ring around Iraq. Perhaps I do not know what I am talking about and I am sure logistical reasons, issues such as morale and the seasons have to be considered. The arrival of the hot season in the Middle East no doubt presents logistical and medical problems for those from the western world.

Where then do I look for guidance and why have I decided to support the United States, Britain, Italy, France and the other United Nations forces? I do so for a very simple and fundamental reason and that is that we are a member of the United Nations which has a Charter. It amuses me that those arguing against this conflict and the greatest proponents of Irish neutrality are the very people who today are arguing against our support for this massive action by members of the United Nations with the support of the Security Council. When we see the rape of a small country like Kuwait by a comparative giant such as Iraq, given our history in Europe and as citizens of a small country, which purports to be neutral and which has almost no military resources — if we are not to agree with the unilateral arming of countries where the guns win — we should unquestionably be in favour of collective security and solidarity through an organisation such as the United Nations and back the United Nations, the United States, Britain, Italy and France to the hilt. I am pleased that we are doing so for all those reasons.

I completely support the Government's decision to make available landing and refuelling facilities at Shannon. As the allies would wish to land at the most suitable airport en route I support that policy 100 per cent. Indeed, I would go further and suggest that we should provide similar facilities at Knock Airport for the visiting members of the western alliance. Such a decision would also receive my support as a Mayo man.

Mr. Costello

What about Saddam?

Mr. Staunton

We should not forget either that 28 members of the United Nations are involved in this exercise in the Gulf.

There are also a number of negative aspects to this. While I hope that the conflict will be short this is not to say that there are no problems in the Middle East facing the United States of America. Unfortunately, they have been wrong footed completely in that region for generations. They have treated the Arab-Israeli conflict as a domestic policy matter rather than as a foreign policy issue. In recent months we have seen incredible events on the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the way the Palestinian people have been treated. Given United States support for Israel it is easy to see why the Palestinians have adopted their present stance. I do not share their view but can understand their reasons for adopting it.

While we are not linking the present crisis with the Arab-Israeli conflict it was the view of the French Government, as expressed by President Mitterrand, that they should be linked. While I am not linking them together here I will say that when this conflict is resolved, sooner rather than later the world will have to try to resolve the Palestinian question as there will continue to be a powder keg in the Middle East until that issue is resolved and the prime responsibility for ensuring that such a conference takes place rests with the United States of America for so many reasons. I am glad to see the Minister of State is with us today and I wish the Government well in pursuing a policy on which there is a large measure of consensus here.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The question is: "That the motion be agreed."

Senators

Vótáil.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Will the Senators who are claiming a division please rise?

Five or more Senators stood.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The division will proceed.

Question put.

The Seanad divided: Tá, 30; Níl, 4.

Tá

Byrne, Hugh.
Byrne, Seán.
Conroy, Richard.
Cosgrave, Liam.
Dardis, John.
Doyle, Avril.
Fallon, Sean.
Haughey, Seán F.
Hourigan, Richard V.
Jackman, Mary.
Kennedy, Patrick.
Keogh, Helen.
Kiely, Dan.
Kiely, Rory.
Lanigan, Michael.
McDonald, Charlie.
McKenna, Tony.
McMahon, Larry.
Manning, Maurice.
Mooney, Paschal.
Mullooly, Brian.
Neville, Daniel.
O'Brien, Francis.
Ó Foighil, Pól.
O'Keeffe, Batt.
O'Reilly, Joe.
Ross, Shane P.N.
Ryan, Eoin David.
Staunton, Myles.
Wright, G.V.

Níl

Costello, Joe.
Norris, David.
O'Toole, Joe.
Upton, Pat.

Tellers: Tá, Senators Wright and McKenna; Níl, Senators O'Toole and Costello.

Question declared carried.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Naughten)

When is it proposed that the Seanad will sit again?

Mr. Wright

On 6 February 1991 at 2.30p.m.

Acting Chairman

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 24 Jan 1991