Socialist TD urges condemnation of Iraq war
The Government is backing US president George Bush’s war machine by facilitating the stopover of US troops at Shannon, it was claimed in the Dáil today.
Commenting on the US mid-term elections, Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins called on the Cabinet to condemn the war in Iraq just like American voters have done.
Representing the Taoiseach, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen dismissed Mr Higgins’ ’anti-Americanism’ and said the Government had supported UN resolutions and followed existing foreign policy.
Speaking of the swing by US voters away from the Republican party in the mid-term elections, Mr Higgins said: “It was of course a rejection of swelling numbers of ordinary Americans of the unspeakable barbarities unleashed on the Iraqi people by the imperialist invasion in that country.
“Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children slaughtered and maimed, millions terrified by the actions of the forces that went there to liberate them and not forgetting the thousands of working-class Americans in uniforms also slaughtered.”
He said Mr Cowen was Minister for Foreign Affairs in January 2003 when independent TDs tabled a Dáil motion against the war in Iraq.
He claimed the Government had given credence to the “monstrous lies of Bush and Blair“.
The TD told Mr Cowen: “You minister made crucial facilities available to the US war machine at Shannon Airport and you continued to do so with 250,000 US soldiers on an annual basis.”
“You dismissed with contempt the 100,000 people who marched in Dublin in February 2003 and you defied he views of the majority of Irish people.
“Now the American people have rejected the bloody carnage that Mr Bush and his neo-conservative cabal have inflicted on the people of Iraq.”
He called on the Government to implement the wishes of the Irish people and withdraw support for the US war in Iraq.
Mr Cowen replied to Mr Higgins: “I have no respect for your anti-Americanism whatsoever, never have, never will.“
The minister said the Government continues to support UN resolutions on the issue, which were unanimously adopted.
He added: “Everything else you have to say I don’t agree with and I never will. We’ll just have to disagree on it.”
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