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Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead): If my hon. Friend's argument is that Saddam Hussein is so hostile to his own people that he wants to see them die, why are our western Governments helping him to achieve that aim?
Mr. Lloyd: The aim of the west is to help the Iraqi people through the oil for food programme. That programme is there if Saddam chooses to use it. We know that Saddam prostitutes that programme. We know, for example, that he sought to buy equipment that is totally irrelevant; indeed, it has been blocked by the sanctions committee of the UN because it is irrelevant to the needs of his people. He does not choose to prioritise the poor, or the malnourished children, whose plight my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow has rightly raised, and whom the oil for food programme aims to help.
It is certainly true that Britain has led consideration of the debate--a debate that still continues--as to how we make the programme more effective, but the choices that lie behind the programme are the choices made by Saddam Hussein--choices where he chooses to punish his own people, not to give and offer them the assistance that is available under the programme.
Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway):
I do not know who wrote the Minister's brief, but will he not answer the main thrust of the point that is made: sanctions are a political weapon? They are not designed to hurt, or to destroy the people in a country. They are designed to destabilise the Government against whom they are made. There is no evidence whatever to suggest that sanctions have done that in the case of Iraq--quite the reverse. Sanctions are being relentlessly used as an alibi for Saddam Hussein's regime.
We who support the moves need no lectures on the iniquity of that regime--quite the reverse. We are the first people to condemn it, but will my hon. Friend not understand the point and thrust of the argument? The resolutions have manifestly not only failed to work--that is not a problem--but sustained the very regime that they are designed to bring down. That is the point that we ask him to address: not the iniquity of the regime, not the fact that Saddam is using sanctions as an alibi, but how we in the west are supposed to stop him from doing so.
Mr. Lloyd:
I simply reject what my hon. and learned Friend has said. The same argument was used about sanctions against South Africa. It has been used
It is precisely because there is within the sanctions regime an oil for food programme, which allows food and medicines to be purchased by Iraq, that Saddam chooses not to purchase those. It is Saddam himself who prostitutes the regime to penalise his people and to maintain political pressure on his own people. That is where the fault and injustice lie.
I am conscious that I must deal with an issue of particular importance which my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow has raised: the newspaper allegation, printed, I think, in The Independent on Sunday. He would not expect me to comment on stories about the intelligence services. That policy has been adopted by British Governments over a long period, but I can say--it will deal with the point that he raises and the substance of the newspaper article--that UNSCOM is entitled to seek information and advice from all possible sources in pursuit of its mandate to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability. However, UNSCOM executive chairman Richard Butler has made it clear that he has always insisted on all UNSCOM activity being carried out strictly in pursuit of its disarmament mandate, not to benefit any individual member state.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett), has stated clearly:
Mr. Dalyell:
Will my hon. Friend find out about the role of the name that I have given him?
Mr. Lloyd:
The name that my hon. Friend has given me is of one of the people seconded to UNSCOM, but what I have said generally about British secondees to UNSCOM applies equally to that individual.
"The UK Government has made clear that all information exchanges between the UK and UNSCOM have been strictly in pursuit of UNSCOM's mandate to dismantle Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction capability."
There is no truth in the allegation that British people seconded to UNSCOM were there for the purpose of spying. I hope that that is the reassurance that my hon. Friend wants. It is clear and unequivocal.
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