United Kingdom, 2003

I begin by paying a tribute to Dr.

Akila Al-Hashimi, a senior member of the Iraqi

Governing Council, who died earlier today.

I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Al-Hashimi

earlier this year in London and later in Baghdad, and I

was struck by her courage and her dedication to the

Iraqi people. Dr. Al-Hashimi was murdered by those

who would deny the Iraqi people the democratic,

prosperous future they so richly deserve. The best

service that we can render her memory is to defeat the

terrorists and to ensure that her vision of a peaceful,

free Iraq prevails.

Of course, we owe this service to all those who

have fallen in the cause of peace in Iraq. Sergio Vieira

de Mello and the United Nations personnel who were

killed or injured in the blast in Baghdad on 19 August

were committed to bringing the ideals of the United

Nations to the people of Iraq. They paid the ultimate

sacrifice for their dedication. We mourn their loss, but

we will not weaken in our resolve to help the Iraqi

people rebuild their country on the principles of justice

and security.

What, I think, makes Iraq so important was the

way in which it tested the role and purpose of this

institution over more than a dozen years. Throughout

that period, the international community remained in

agreement that the regime of Saddam Hussein posed a

Chapter VII threat to international peace and security

by its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

programmes and its unparalleled defiance of the will of

the United Nations. Yet, earlier this year, sadly, we

divided on when and what action was necessary to deal

with the Iraqi threat.

Of course, I acknowledge the controversy over

the military action which the United Kingdom, the

United States and others took and the heavy

responsibilities we now bear, but I firmly believe that

the decisions we took were the right ones. The

authority of the United Nations was at stake. Having

given Saddam Hussein’s regime a final opportunity to

comply with the United Nations, what would have

happened if we had simply turned away? Would the

world be a safer place today? Would Iraq be a better

place today? Would the United Nations be a stronger

institution today? The answer to each of those

questions is no. Saddam Hussein would have been

emboldened by our failure to act; every dictator would

have been encouraged to follow his example; and the

authority of this United Nations would have been

gravely weakened.

Yet, whatever the arguments of the spring, we

have now to come together again for a common

purpose. As the Security Council has recognized in its

three resolutions 1472 (2003), 1483 (2003) and 1500

(2003), we have a shared interest in helping Iraqi

citizens to embrace the rights and freedoms which they

have been denied so long and for which this institution

was founded. Yes, the security situation does present

formidable challenges. Terrorists who despise freedom

are seeking to plunge Iraq into chaos. They have

inflicted terrible blows on the Iraqi people, coalition

soldiers and international aid workers, but ultimately

they will fail.

And let us also not lose sight of what has been

achieved and what is taking shape. Saddam Hussein’s

reign of terror is over. The apparatus of torture and

oppression which claimed hundreds of thousands of

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lives is at an end. Instead, we have the beginnings of a

representative Government run by Iraqis for Iraqis;

new ministries providing daily services to the people; a

free press; the freedom for members of all religious

communities to worship as they wish; hospitals and

schools in operation; bustling traffic on the streets and

highways; and a start to real economic regeneration.

We shall stay in Iraq as long, but only as long, as

it is necessary to meet our clear responsibilities and to

restore sovereignty to the Iraqi people as quickly as we

can in an orderly manner. I hope very much that we can

agree a new Security Council resolution to strengthen

the United Nations role in Iraq. In managing this

transition, we should be guided by three central

principles: first, the transfer of powers must reflect

realities on the ground in Iraq, particularly the need to

ensure security; secondly, the Iraqi institutions must be

sufficiently robust to take on increasing responsibilities;

and thirdly, the exercise of executive powers and

responsibilities must be based on good governance,

involving representative Iraqi authorities and coherent

constitutional arrangements. In other words, the timetable

should be driven by the needs of the Iraqi people and their

capacity progressively to assume democratic control,

rather than by fixing arbitrary deadlines.

Iraq is, sadly, not the only territory in the Middle

East where the international community faces great

challenges. Three months ago, we all had high hopes

about the work of the Quartet of the United Nations,

the European Union, the Russian Federation and the

United States in Israel and the occupied territories. It is

tragic that these hopes were blown apart on 19 August

by the terrorist atrocity in Jerusalem, which came only

a few hours after the terrorist atrocity against the

United Nations in Baghdad, but the international

community has to stay united on both the means and

the ends in the Middle East. There are no alternatives

to the road map and there can be no alternatives to the

outcome the entire world wishes to see — two States,

Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and

security. This can be the only fitting memorial to the

thousands who have died on both sides since the

beginning of this appalling conflict.

The breadth of the issues being tackled by the

United Nations and its agencies demonstrates the

continued relevance of this institution. The Counter-

Terrorism Committee has given the United Nations a

focus for its work following September two years

ago, but we must now build upon that work, giving the

Committee the expertise and the remit to reinforce the

capacity of Member States to tackle and to overcome

terrorism.

We also know that proliferation is one of the

greatest threats we face alongside terrorism. Much

good work on proliferation is being done by United

Nations agencies, particularly the International Atomic

Energy Agency, but it is extraordinary that the Security

Council itself has not addressed the issue of

proliferation for over 10 years. In our judgement, it is

time that it did.

Problems of internal conflict, on the other hand,

are regularly on the Security Council’s agenda. The

United Nations has unrivalled expertise and experience

in this area and has achieved great things in countries

as far apart as East Timor and Sierra Leone, but nation-

building is a collaborative effort, requiring the

resources and commitment of Member States if the

United Nations peace-building is to be effective. We

therefore need new mechanisms to help prevent

conflicts and then to help States before they collapse.

We must also make a real success of the

Millennium Declaration. We have to overcome the

setback of Cancún and secure a positive outcome to the

Doha Round.

These and other shared problems require

collective responses, as our Secretary-General so

eloquently said here in his speech on Tuesday. A key to

this is to ensure that the United Nations itself remains

an effective global forum capable of delivering results.

The Secretary-General posed some difficult questions

two days ago. I welcome his initiative to seek the

advice of a distinguished group to make proposals on

reform. I welcome, too, his parallel commitment to

modernizing the United Nations and its agencies.

For our part, the United Kingdom is committed to

making the Security Council more representative. The

issue is not whether but how to do this. A bigger and

more representative Council, however, will not of itself

make it easier to make the tough choices which it has

to face so often. The most important ingredient is the

political will and determination of the members of the

Council to take effective action.

The most important part of the Secretary-

General’s speech on Tuesday was about the choices

now confronting the United Nations. He was right

about those. We have indeed come to a fork in the road.

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Down one route lies a world in which the United

Nations strengthens its role as the collective instrument

for protecting our peace and security; down the other

route lies a world in which collective action becomes a

synonym for “inaction”. We must not take this second

route. The Secretary-General’s speech was a challenge

to all of us. We all share a world in which international

terrorists strike down the innocent, regardless of faith

or nationality, and we are all less secure when weapons

of mass destruction are in reckless hands. We do not

have the luxury simply of rejecting unilateralism, while

proposing no multilateral means of confronting and

dealing with these threats.

The British Government is profoundly

committed, as it always has been, to the ideals of the

United Nations. To us, the importance of this

Organization has always been its ability to put those

high ideals into effect. We will work wholeheartedly

with the Secretary-General and the international

community to ensure that the United Nations retains

and strengthens both its idealism and its effectiveness.