Blair:
"Just Ponder This"
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Prime
Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria
Aznar met recently to discuss the UN inspections in Iraq.
Spanish authorities have implemented an aggressive terror
prevention program to protect the nation’s people. In January,
after a 16 month investigation, Spanish police arrested
several al Qaeda suspects during early morning raids near
Barcelona.
Sergio Perez / Reuters
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"As you
watch your TV pictures of the march, just ponder this: If there
are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of
people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for," said
Prime Minister Tony Blair in a speech Saturday to Britain’s Labor
Party in the midst of worldwide protests.
"If there
are one million, that is still less than the number of people
who died in the wars he started.
"Let
me read from an e-mail that was sent by a member of the family
of one of those four million Iraqi exiles. It is interesting because
she is fiercely and I think wrongly critical of America. But in
a sense for that reason, it is worth reading.
"She
addresses it to the anti-war movement.
"In one
part, she says:
"’You
may feel that America is trying to blind you from seeing the truth
about their real reasons for an invasion. I must argue that in
fact, you are still blind to the bigger truths in Iraq.
"’Saddam
has murdered more than a million Iraqis over the past 30 years,
are you willing to allow him to kill another million Iraqis?
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Spanish
Police photo
The
BBC reported on Spanish police anti-terror busts in January
2003:
"Spanish
Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar says police have thwarted
a ‘major terrorist attack’, following the arrest of 16 suspected
al-Qaeda militants in the north-eastern Catalonia region.
"The dismantled network has connections with terrorists
arrested recently in France and Britain who were preparing
to carry out attacks, using explosives and chemical materials"
Read
Jan. NYJT Article on Terrorist Cell Busts in Spain,
Italy and the UK |
"’Saddam
rules Iraq using fear – he regularly imprisons, executes and tortures
the mass population for no reason whatsoever – this may be hard
to believe and you may not even
appreciate the extent of such barbaric acts, but believe me you
will be hard pressed to find a family in Iraq who have not had a
son, father, brother killed, imprisoned, tortured and/or "disappeared"
due to Saddam’s regime.
"’Why
it is now that you deem it appropriate to voice your disillusions
with America’s policy in Iraq, when it is right now that the Iraqi
people are being given real hope, however slight and however precarious,
that they can live in an Iraq that is free of its horrors?’"
As a million
Britons joined the worldwide protests, writer, Jacques More, engaged
in counter protest. From Croydon, south London, More held up a
placard outside the Iraqi section of the Jordanian embassy in
central London in support of war efforts. Mr. More acknowledged
the protesters saying that they "have lots of good intentions,
they don’t want the horrors of war but neither do I. The military
don’t want to hurt the innocent but it’s sometimes necessary to
go in and stop a murderer." Jacques said that war should
not be pushed aside, but is rather "a last resort and it’s
a necessary resort when evil dictators rule and murder their own
people."
On Tuesday,
Blair gave a press conference, taking questions from reporters
after reiterating key points made to the Labor party. During the
question and answer phase, Blair scolded some for trying to drive
a wedge between the United States and Europe, calling it "dangerous".
"…people
who want to pull Europe and America apart are playing the most
dangerous game of international politics I know." "If
Europe and America stand together we can sort the problems of
the world. If you set up these rival polls of power where people
are being pulled one way or another way between the two, between
Europe and America, I sincerely believe that is so dangerous for
the security of our world. What we have got to do is have the
right dialogue, that is why I said a few weeks ago, we who are
the allies of America also want America, as I said, to listen
back. Well they have listened back, they went through the UN,
we aren’t actually at war today."
Blair also
continued to clarify questions about UN inspections and Saddam.
"Saddam
is a threat. That is why for 12 years the United Nations has been
trying to get him to disarm Iraq peacefully of chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons. He is not the only dictator in the world,
he is not the only tyrant. Iraq is not the only power with chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons, but he is the only leader who has
used them, he is the only one with 23 outstanding United Nations
resolutions in respect of them, he is the only leader still in
power that has twice declared war on his neighbours and fired
missiles at no fewer than 5 different countries."
"What
is more," said Blair, "we live today in a world
beset by international terrorism, whose groups are desperate
to acquire ever more dangerous weapons, and who are already using
chemical and biological poisons. Thanks to the hard work of intelligence
services, we have seen arrests of suspected terrorists around
the world and across Europe – in France, in
Spain, in
Italy, in Germany, as well as here in the UK.
To
read the full transcript of Prime Minister Blair’s speech to the
Labor Party,
Click Here
–"September
11th didn’t just kill thousands of innocent people. It was meant
to bring down the Western economy. It did not do so. But we live
with the effects of it even today in economic confidence. It was
meant to divide Muslim and Christian, Arab and Western nations,
and to provoke us to hate each other. It didn’t succeed but that
is what it was trying to do."
To
read the full transcript of Prime Minister Blair’s February 18th
press conference,
Click Here
–"I
feel that it is my duty as Prime Minister to also ask people to
listen to the other side of the argument, and that is all I ask
people to do.."