Iraq, 2001

I am glad to

extend to you, Sir, my congratulations on your election

to the presidency of the General Assembly at this

important session. We are fully confident that you will

guide its work to complete success. I am also pleased

to congratulate the Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan,

on his re-election to a second term of office.

This session of the General Assembly acquires

special importance given that it is being held at a time

when the international family is facing increasingly

serious problems. The deterioration of the international

political and economic environment has reached an

alarming point, threatening the very core of the

individual and collective security of the Member States

and the future of humanity as a whole.

Instability in international relations has increased

as a result of the unilateral management of

international affairs on the basis of the law of brute

force. There has been a proliferation of such

phenomena as the unilateral use of force, infringement

of international law and the Charter, political

blackmail, blockades and violation of peoples’ rights to

determine their own political, economic and social

choices. The suffering of the peoples of developing

countries has increased as a result of the lack of

economic and social development and the widespread

tendencies among wealthy nations to impose their

economic hegemony and technical and scientific

blockades under the guise of globalization. Attempts

are increasing to impose certain cultures on the peoples

of the world, heaping scorn on their religious beliefs,

creeds and political and social choices and preaching

the clash of civilizations and the launching of new

crusades.

It was in these circumstances that the events of 11

September took place in the United States, with all the

ensuing suffering and victims. While we have offered

our sincere condolences to the American people and

the families of the innocent victims of these events,

Iraq has expressed its hope that the United States will

deal with these events in a spirit of wisdom and

responsibility by undertaking a comprehensive review

of its policies towards other peoples and States with a

view to finding ways to ensure security, stability and

peace for the people of the United States and for all the

peoples of the world.

The United States, however, has once again

resorted to the logic of brute force; hence its aggression

against Afghanistan. Then came the use of biological

materials in subversive operations, whose source,

according to American authorities, is most likely to be

found in the United States. All this was accompanied

by Western media campaigns intended to kindle

feelings of rancour, hatred and chauvinism and to stoke

the fires of war and aggression in the world. This

confirms that the present world order is extremely

fragile and that the fires of any conflagration anywhere

could spread to the whole world. Indeed, wide as it is,

the world could be set on fire by a spark coming from

the West. The world needs to save itself from falling

into an abyss, to which it is being pushed by policies

that have their roots in hubris, arrogance, injustice and

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aggression. The world needs justice based on fairness;

it should not use force on the basis of power and

advantage. Perceiving the dangers to which the world

is being exposed, our leader President Saddam Hussein

of the Republic of Iraq has called for acting wisely and

reasonably to spare humanity the scourges of

vengeance, war, rancour and hatred. On 29 October

2001, he launched an initiative calling for the world to

cooperate, on the basis of a global agreement, to rid

itself of the burden and dangers of weapons of mass

destruction, beginning with the huge arsenal of such

weapons stockpiled primarily in the United States and

secondarily in the Zionist entity. In his initiative,

President Saddam Hussein emphasized that,

“When the United States begins to divest itself of

its weapons of mass destruction with the rest of

the world following suit, the United States will

find its way to the paths of wisdom. The world

will treat it with respect and love after sensing the

respect and love coming from it. The world,

including the United States, will then have peace,

rather than stand at the brink of the abyss.”

From this rostrum we call for reason, wisdom and

the rule of law to prevail over impetuosity, recklessness

and the law of brute force. We stress the importance of

proceeding with a comprehensive objective effort to rid

the world of all weapons of mass destruction and to set

up a just and equitable international order in which all

can enjoy peace, security and prosperity. It is now clear

that the current discriminatory theories of non-

proliferation and the mindset of drawing a distinction

between safe and unsafe possession of weapons of

mass destruction will not lead to a lessening of the

dangers to the world, but instead to the exact opposite.

Iraq has suffered and continues to suffer

aggression and terrorism. Its leaders, officials and

nationals have been subjected to numerous terrorist

attempts on their lives. Its towns and villages have

been the targets of many acts of terrorism at the hands

of terrorist infiltrators coming from across the border,

who are sponsored, trained, financed and armed within

the framework of State terrorism.

The Iraqi nuclear reactor devoted to peaceful

purposes was the target of a terrorist attack by

warplanes of the Zionist entity in 1981. Iraq’s towns

and villages and economic, scientific and cultural

facilities were also systematically targeted and

destroyed in the course of the aggression launched by

the United States and the United Kingdom and their

allies in 1991 and in the five large-scale attacks that

followed in 1993, 1996, 1998 and 2001. Furthermore,

for 11 years now Iraq has suffered comprehensive

sanctions that have deprived its people and that have so

far claimed the lives of 1.6 million civilians, the

majority of whom are children and the elderly. Both the

aggression and the comprehensive sanctions constitute

systematic State terrorism directed against an entire

people.

The daily aggression launched by aircraft of the

United States and the United Kingdom against Iraqi

towns and villages within the so-called no-fly zones

imposed by these two States on the basis of a unilateral

and illegal decision taken in flagrant violation of the

Charter of the United Nations and international law is

also State terrorism. We must also mention the

explosions carried out in certain Iraqi border areas by

elements of mercenary infiltrators, who are financed,

armed and harboured by certain States, including the

United States, which openly spends tens of millions of

dollars on mercenary bands for the purpose of carrying

out terrorist operations in Iraq under the so-called Iraq

Liberation Act. The term “terrorism” also applies to the

use by the United States and the United Kingdom of

more than 300 tons of depleted uranium ammunition

against the people of Iraq in 1991. Through the ensuing

toxic radiological effects, this has led to an increase in

the number of embryonic deformities, a tenfold

increase in cancer cases and pollution of the

environment of the region for many generations to

come.

All these and other acts that violate the principles

of international law are acts of terrorism. In the face of

these acts of terrorism and aggression, Iraq has made

many sacrifices in defence of its sovereignty,

independence, dignity and national choices. The brave

people of Iraq are more determined today than at any

time in the past. They take pride in and cherish their

national leadership, holding fast to their sovereignty,

dignity and national and regional interests, defending

their independence and political choices and defying

all the evil intentions that stand behind the aggression

and acts of terrorism directed against them.

The fact that Iraq is a victim of international

terrorism has made it one of the first countries to call

for combating terrorism. Iraqi national legislation

provides for harsher punishment for terrorist acts. Iraq

has signed and ratified most international conventions

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in force against terrorism. Iraq believes that, in order to

confront international terrorism, including State

terrorism, it is necessary to initiate, under the umbrella

of the United Nations, an international effort to reach

agreement on a definition of terrorism and on ways to

combat it, in accordance with international law and the

Charter of the United Nations.

Iraq is prepared to participate actively in such an

international effort to combat terrorism in all its forms,

whether perpetrated by individuals, groups or States.

Here, it is necessary to emphasize the natural,

inalienable right of all peoples to defend their

sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, as

well as to struggle against all forms of terrorism,

including foreign occupation, colonialist control and

aggression in all its military and economic forms,

intervention in the internal affairs of States and the

instigation and financing of ethnic and religious

conflicts among peoples of the world. All these rights

are embodied in the Charter of the United Nations and

international law.

In discussing the question of reforming the

current unsound state of international relations, we

must point out the need to reform international

mechanisms, foremost among which is the Security

Council, to which the Member States of the United

Nations have entrusted the primary responsibility of

maintaining international peace and security.

The practices of the Security Council, especially

in the last 11 years, have made it clear that the Council

is no longer true to its role as specified by the Charter;

that it has become a tool for implementing the policies

of one single State; and that it now stands as a glaring

model practitioner of double standards. Suffice it to

cite, as just one example among many, the fact that the

comprehensive sanctions imposed by the Council on

Iraq constitute a flagrant violation of the Charter and

the mandate of the Council. This was admitted by the

United Nations itself, as stated in the report entitled

“The right to food”, submitted under cover of the

Secretary-General’s note of 23 July 2001, in which the

Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human

Rights on the right to food said:

“There can be little doubt that subjecting the Iraqi

people to a harsh economic embargo since 1991

has placed the United Nations in a clear violation

of the obligation to respect the right to food of

people in Iraq.” (A/56/210, para. 56)

Likewise, the expert of the Subcommission on the

Promotion and Protection of Human Rights had this to

say on the subject in a report dated 21 June 2000:

“The sanctions regime against Iraq is

unequivocally illegal under existing international

humanitarian law and human rights law. Some

would go as far as making a charge of genocide.”

(E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/33, para. 71)

We therefore call for a comprehensive reform of

the Security Council that would lead to the expansion

of its membership and to the reform of its methods of

work, with specific reference to its decision-making

process, so as to ensure full respect by the Council for

the purposes and principles of the Charter and the

principle of democracy in international relations.

It has also become necessary to establish a

mechanism for judicial review that would rule on the

legality and constitutionality of Security Council

resolutions in order to ensure that they are consistent

with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the

United Nations and with international law. We believe

that Member States should be able to resort to the

International Court of Justice to appeal resolutions of

the Security Council which these States consider as

involving infringement on the principles of the Charter

and international law.

Thus we will be able to remedy this flagrant

deviation from all democratic, judicial and legal norms

and principles in the work and mandate of the Security

Council.

Pending the completion of the process of

reforming the Security Council and of ensuring that it

plays its role in conformity with the Charter, States

Members of the United Nations should reconsider their

authorization to the Council to act on their behalf in the

maintenance of international peace and security, since

the Council has abused that authorization. There is no

more obvious case in this regard than that of the

comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iraq. No just-

thinking State can afford to remain a spectator when it

sees the authorization it granted to the Security Council

being used to annihilate the people of Iraq.

It is the legal and moral obligation of all States

that respect international law and the Charter of the

United Nations to declare that they are not parties to

this crime and that they did not authorize the Security

Council to kill the children of Iraq in their name. The

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comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iraq have

inflicted enormous damage on the interests of a

considerable number of the countries of the world, and

these countries are called upon to put a stop to these

illegal acts and to restore their trade relations with Iraq,

in implementation of Article 50 of the Charter.

The organized terrorism to which the people of

Palestine are being subjected by the Zionist entity, the

founder and primary source of terrorism, can be seen in

the bombing of towns, villages, camps and Islamic and

Christian houses of worship, as well as in political

assassinations, imposition of collective punishments,

occupation of Muslim holy sites, use of depleted

uranium ammunitions and poison gases, bulldozing of

farms and confiscation of lands.

This organized terrorism calls for a reaction on

the part of the international community that is

commensurate with the gravity of these genocidal

practices against a whole people. Similarly, the

systematic destruction to which the Afghan people are

being subjected at the hands of the American military

machine is an illegal unilateral use of force and should

come to an end. I should like to refer here to the

Secretary-General’s 1999 annual report on the work of

the Organization, in which he stated that

“enforcement actions without Security Council

authorization threaten the very core of the

international security system founded on the

Charter of the United Nations” (A/54/1, para. 66).

We demand an end to this interference in the

internal affairs of Afghanistan. The Afghan people

should be able to make their own political choices, in

conformity with their national interests and without

any external interference, under whatever pretext.

The United Nations was founded for the purpose

of achieving security, peace and stability, so that social

and economic progress for all peoples might be

promoted by a number of means, including avoidance

of wars and conflicts. But today two thirds of the

population of the world suffer from underdevelopment

and live in misery, while the few live in prosperity.

What is required is to reactivate the role of the United

Nations in the search for a balanced international

economic policy that will lead to greater equality

among peoples and States, lessen the intensity of

political conflicts and feelings of frustration, engage all

as partners in building the world economy, promote

human rights and fundamental freedoms, and bring

about a better life for peoples.

Efforts to reform the international political

environment will not meet with success if they are not

accompanied by efforts to reform the economic

environment with a view to extending prosperity to all

humankind. We must remember that the vast resources

with which God Almighty has favoured our planet

Earth are sufficient to enable us to achieve prosperity,

security and stability for all. What we need is the

conviction that all human beings are equal in terms of

their worth, and we must work hard to avert, and put an

end to, all policies and actions that violate this truth

and cause upheavals in international relations.