IT is true that the Pope did not want armed aggression against Iraq, but what David Young (CL 15/8/04) fails to mention is that he also urged Saddam Hussein to comply with the UN resolutions against him and his activities.
It was his failure to comply with those resolutions which resulted in armed aggression against him and his nation. Resolution 1441 and two others before it were what are known as Chapter 7 Resolutions, which authorise members of the Security Council to take appropriate action, including the armed variety. The Coalition of the Willing were simply doing what the United Nations, as a body, would not.
It is interesting to note that those voices in America advocating the United Nations as the sole legitimate authority for bringing true liberty to Iraq have largely fallen silent since more information became, and is still becoming available about the Oil for Food Scandal, which has revealed at best, gross mismanagement of this fund, and, at worst, outright corruption.
It is no wonder that Saddam continually thumbed his nose at the United Nations and its resolutions, secure in the knowledge of his massive bribes, paid most notably to citizens and officials of those countries most vocal against military action, namely Russia, France and Germany.
When I think of the thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women and children being killed and maimed, I think of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, in which 750,000 people lost their lives, and what is going on in the Sudan now.
What has happened in Iraq since March 2003, does not even begin to come close, but the mass graves found in Iraq since then, with at least 300,000 bodies recovered certainly does. But this was the work of Saddam and his minions, not the Coalition of the Willing.
And what was the United Nations doing all this time? Just stood back and let it happen. Hardly a record to inspire confidence in it as having ‘the power to bring true liberty to the Iraqi people’, Mr Young.
K.M. BOX
Wolvi, Qld
