OPINION/Vincent BrowneTrevor McDonald of ITV asked Tony Blair on Monday night what an acceptable level of civilian casualties was in the coming war on Iraq.
Blair avoided the question. It was a riveting confrontation between the Prime Minister and articulate, passionate anti-war women, as had the debate between him and a group of young people on MTV the previous Thursday.
On the MTV programme, Blair confessed not to have heard of the report of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs on the likely effects of a war on Iraq. This is surprising for although the report is confidential it was leaked by a Christian anti-war group in January and has been much commented upon since then. The following direct quotations convey its essence:
An estimated 4.2 million children under five and one million pregnant women are highly vulnerable. In the event of a crisis, 30 per cent of children under five would be at risk of death from malnutrition. (Page 3)
UNHCR estimates that up to 1.45 million refugees and asylum-seekers may try to flee Iraq in the event of military conflict. (Page 9)
Up to 900,000 people may be internally displaced in addition to the 900,000-1,100,000 existing internally displaced. (Page 10)
The World Food Programme estimates that approximately 10 million people, or 40 per cent of the population in the centre and the south, and 34 per cent in the north would be affected as they would be highly food-insecure, displaced or directed affected by military action. (Page 11)
(On page 12 a table states that 5.2 million children and pregnant and lactating women would be "highly vulnerable"; that there could be 500,000 direct and indirect casualties and that over three million people would be in danger of starvation.
A footnote explains: "This figure includes 2.02 million severely and moderately wasted children under five and one million pregnant and lactating women".
(http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/internal.html)
On the ITV programme on Monday night several of the women participants were adamant that Britain needed authorisation from the UN Security Council before going to war. Tony Blair said this was why he was doing everything he could to secure the elusive "second resolution" (or 18th resolution).
But why should it matter? How could the authority of what is manifestly a corrupt institution, in its operation and its constitution, legitimise the visitation on the Iraqi people the appalling consequences envisaged by the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs?
The corruption inherent in the operation of the Security Council is now glaring and was summed up on Monday night by Trevor McDonald when he inquired: "What is the going rate for a vote on the Security Council nowadays"?
Bulgaria is being kept on side by the prospect of NATO membership, up for approval later this month. Guinea and Cameroon are both threatened with losing US aid if they vote against the US. Angola is hugely dependent on US aid ($14 million in 2002), which is threatened if it refuses to comply.
Mexico is perhaps the most vulnerable. It desperately needs a deal on immigration, and its reliance on favourable access to the US economy is enormous. Chile is awaiting the ratification of a free trade agreement with the US and is aware of the consequence of its intransigence (again, remarkably, it has remained steadfast).
Pakistan, already rewarded for its support for the US in its war against Afghanistan, had economic ties renewed, ties which had been cut in 1998 after the resumption of nuclear tests and the military coup in 1999, and the writing-off of a $1 billion debt. A further $1 billion is promised.
The abject status of the council is underlined by the failure even to complain when it emerges that its members have been spied upon by the US and its officials (Hans Blix and his team), given fabricated information on Iraq's efforts to acquire nuclear capacity .
But it is in its composition and constitution that the Security Council defies the conventions of democratic legitimacy. Out of a membership of 15 there are five permanent members, each with a veto, which renders them and their vassal states immune from sanction by the council.
Four of these five permanent members are on the council because they were victors in a war that ended almost 60 years ago. All five possess weapons of mass destruction that they require the rest of the world to abjure.
And the council has no representative status (why should Britain and France be permanent members and India not?) and is indifferent to the body that has some claims to be representative, the General Assembly. The claim that it is the only recognised world order we have, however flawed, is unconvincing (by the same token any dictatorship could claim allegiance).
However a majority is contrived to sanction this coming war, it makes no difference to the scale of the crime war will represent.