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Mr. Cohen: I will deal with that point as part of my speech, but let us deal with the suffering first, on which I am afraid my hon. Friend and some other hon. Members seem content to turn their back. The House should not turn its back on it.

Margaret Hassan of Care International said:

"There isn't a hospital we go into where we don't see severely malnourished children. It's a spiral of deprivation and this is being manifested through malnourishment."

In the United Nations sanctions committee, the United States has almost singlehandedly blackballed scores of contracts on minor points for no apparent reason. Thirty per cent. of the money in the oil-for-food deal is siphoned off in reparations and goes to pay many exaggerated claims. For example, United States oil companies are greedily claiming millions and Iraq has no option if it wants the food money for its people.

The programme serves the US, as it mutes humanitarian concern while continuing to deny Iraq access to its oil wealth to solve its social and economic problems. However, the United States has blocked real humanitarian improvements to the programme, even those suggested by other Security Council members, the United Nations Secretariat, the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. It has blocked, with the tame accord of our Government, the proposal to double the oil-for-food programme.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will not, in simplistic soundbites, heap all the blame on Saddam Hussein, tyrant that we all know he is. The west also has choices in this matter and it has chosen the cynical game of targeting children and the sick. It may not have intended that initially, but it is now locked into it by American political will. It is morally wrong and our ethical Government should abandon their support for it.

I read to the House one last quotation.

"In the case of Iraq and other repressive regimes . . . it is clear that many of the problems arise from a small elite who hold power within the economic, social and particularly military strata of the country. Therefore, where the international community has expressed disapproval of the actions of these regimes, it is the elite whom sanctions should target. This would improve the sanctions instrument, both for moral and humane reasons--those who are responsible should face the consequences--but also for practical reasons, since elites are able to cushion themselves from the deprivations suffered as a result of blanket sanctions, and the regime is unlikely to change.


My view is therefore that the UN should examine alternative sanctions instruments, such as suspending international air links into and out of the country concerned, freezing assets held in overseas bank accounts and a ban on the granting of visas for overseas travel, study etc. These measures might hit people who are not members of the regime, even perhaps the opposition, but they would not increase the suffering of the millions of innocent citizens as blanket trade and economic sanctions do."

1.46 pm

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): Four years ago, like every other visitor to Baghdad, I was taken to the Amariya and I saw the result of the use of cruise missiles.

21 Jan 1998 : Column 991

1.47 pm

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Derek Fatchett): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) on the way in which he introduced his debate. I fully respect his humanitarian concerns and his long record of achievement in that respect. Therefore, no part of my response will question his personal integrity. However, there was one element that should have been in his speech. Given his concern for justice and equity, which has been so much a part of his political career, I am a little surprised that it was not in his speech.

Whenever we discuss Iraq, we need to recognise the nature of the regime that has existed there in recent years. The regime led by Saddam Hussein is the most brutal dictatorship that has existed. It has turned regularly against its own people. Let us put on record, so that my hon. Friend's speech can be seen in a broader context, some of the events that have been rightly attributed to Saddam Hussein. This is a regime which has used chemical weapons against its own people. It is a unique regime--viciously unique--in that respect. It is a regime which turned against the marsh Arabs seven years ago, literally slaughtering thousands of people. It is a regime which turned against the Kurds in northern Iraq, again slaughtering tens of thousands of people. It is a regime which, as we have seen recently, executed more than 1,000 prisoners simply because they did not wholly and totally support Saddam Hussein. The regime has an abuse of human rights record that is sadly second to none. It attacked without any provocation one of its neighbours, Kuwait, and caused it personal, humanitarian and environmental damage that, again, is without precedent in the middle east.

My hon. Friend's humanitarian concerns are well known, but let us not forget Saddam Hussein's record in his treatment of his own people and of other people in the middle east. It would not be any exaggeration to say that any one part of that record shows Saddam Hussein to be a criminal, who has gone against all known and understood human values. His record is clear.

My hon. Friend argued that sanctions have not worked. I know that that was his argument because he would not argue against sanctions in principle. He and I are long supporters of sanctions in certain circumstances and he had a tremendous record in arguing for sanctions in relation to apartheid in South Africa. I congratulate him on his stand on that issue. The question is one not of principle, but of whether the sanctions have worked to achieve the objectives.

Let us consider the record, in particular that of the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, which was heavily criticised by my hon. Friend. We are dealing with a dictatorship which has not only the record to which I have referred, but is capable of developing weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. One does not have to take more than a cursory glance at the daily Hansard to know that my hon. Friend has rightly fought a strong campaign for the disarmament of all those weapons.

21 Jan 1998 : Column 992

Saddam Hussein had all that capacity: nuclear, biological and chemical. That weaponry was a threat not just to the middle east, but, as we know from the dictator's record, to his own people in Iraq. I do not believe for a moment that my hon. Friend would wish that arsenal to be in the hands of someone so evil and so reckless. UNSCOM's work has been able to rid Iraq of more weapons of mass destruction than the whole of the Gulf war achieved.

I am sure that my hon. Friend does not demur for a moment from that objective--the need to get rid of those weapons. He need only talk to people in the other regimes in the middle east. If UNSCOM were withdrawn and were not allowed to do its job, other regimes and peoples in the middle east would not sleep easily while Saddam Hussein had an arsenal and the capacity and will to use it.

Once a dictator has tasted blood, as Saddam Hussein did in Kuwait and against his own people, the ruthless wish to hold on to and to extend power will come through again and again. Every dictator throughout history has shown that insatiable thirst. The policy of appeasement--saying that UNSCOM is not working and therefore we must withdraw it--is immensely dangerous for the middle east and for the people of Iraq. UNSCOM must be allowed to get on with its work. We have made that abundantly clear and we will continue to do so.

My hon. Friend is a strong advocate of the United Nations and he is right to be because the UN features in the aims of our political party. We share a socialist commitment towards international organisations. If we allow the UN to be undermined by this dictator, we might as well say that that is the end of the objectives that we share with the UN. A defeat on these issues would be a devastating blow to the UN's legitimacy and credibility.

My hon. Friend referred to the end of sanctions. I was surprised by one or two of his arguments. The position is simple: compliance brings the end of sanctions--no more, no less.

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