SPEECH BY BARHAM SALIH THE COUNCIL OF THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL MADRID, FEBRUARY 7TH, 2004

Mr. President,

Ladies and Gentlemen

Many thanks for your message of solidarity. The terrorist outrage in Irbil was not only an attack on the people of Kurdistan, but on all humanity. However, the terrorists will fail— and we are more determined than ever in pursuit of our values for peace and democracy in Iraq.

I was in Rome a year ago addressing you on the situation in Iraq.

I advocated then the imperative of liberating the people of Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. The debate rages on.

However, I submit to you, the present debate on the reasons leading to the recent war in Iraq should not detract attention from the real task ahead in promoting a democratic peaceful Iraq.

Removal of Saddam tyranny was a seminal event in the history of the Iraq, and the Middle East. Most Iraqis see the moral and political imperative for the war of liberation as overwhelming. For Many of us inside Iraq, who experienced first hand Saddam’s WMDs, the debate about lack of evidence of WMDS is difficult to understand.

1. years ago much the world doubted the evil of Saddam and refused to act in face of his weapons of mass destruction. I urge those who are seriously interested in evidence of Saddams WMDs to visit Halabja to witness the proof firsthand.

For us in Iraq, weapons of mass destruction are not about dry accounting; they have been conventional tools of repression by Saddam. Chemical weapons have been used against us more than 200 times.

Ethnic cleansing began in Iraq in 1963, when the Baath Party seized power . Around a million people have been displaced, mostly Kurds but also Turcoman and Assyrian Christians. The fascist regime of Saddam has cost the lives of at least two million Iraqis. Four million more have been forced to become refugees. So far more than 170 mass graves have been uncovered throughout Iraq. These mass graves should vindicate the morality of this war of liberation in Iraq.

I as a Kurd and as an Iraqi, I know, perhaps more than others, that war is devastating and should be questioned. However, for us, this war was to end the brutal war that has been waged against the people of Iraq. It was a war to bring us the opportunity of peace and freedom. And I will tell you unequivocally we are grateful to the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, Italy and So many other nations that have come from a far to deliver us from tyranny and fascism. Moreover, being here in Spain I must offer our profound gratitude to the Spaniards who have come to help in our hour of need, and paid with their lives for freedom and justice.

Friends,

Despite images on western television screens depicting Iraq as a violent calamity, most Iraqis, who have known nothing but the murder and mayhem of Saddam’s rule, the last ten months have seen astonishing progress towards the creation of a free society.

This is the first time in their history, possibly in the entire history of the Islamic Middle East, a people are able engage in wide ranging political debate over the future of their country. Free press is flourishing at an amazing pace in Baghdad and else where throughout Iraq.

No doubt, this political process, like any other democratic process, is at time confusing and messy. The certainty of terror has been replaced by the uncertainties of people searching and debating solution affecting of people searching and debating solution affecting their future. This is a remarkable success that must be recognized and appreciated.

With political progress, the terrorists’ onslaught intensifies. Irbil was targeted for what it represents: a model of stability and openness, and democracy. This has been painful blow, but it only hardened resolve to root out the terrorist. Terrorism is in many ways a reaction to the political progress that is transforming Iraq toward a democratic society. The terrorists know that there is no room for them or their reactionary ideas, of nationalism or fundamentalism, in our nascent democracy.

Some in the west see in the terrorist onslaught as a yet another reason to question the legitimacy of the war. This is morally and politically wrong.

The terrorist have failed to disused many Iraqis to join in the fight for the future of their country. Fully aware of the risks, many thousands of Iraqis have come forward to join the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps, and the New Iraqi Army. The contrast between the forced conscription that characterized Ba’athist rule and the willing engagement of so many Iraqis in the defence of their nascent democracy is striking and moving.

Away from the conflict, which is limited for the most part to a compact geographic area, the success of the new Iraq can be seen in its economy. Public pay has increased significantly for teachers, health workers and other public service sectors. Iraqi Kurdistan has seen in the last six months a construction boom, which is anticipated to be replicated across Iraq with consequences to the dire problem of unemployment.

But we have to assess the task of rebuilding Iraq and transforming it into a democracy in the context of its history, and the political culture of the Middle East-and recognize will be an arduous undertaking. We know there will be no easy answers in our attempt to fashion a democracy from the broken clay of the Iraqi state.

Many are concerned about the unity of Iraq. The danger to Iraq as a single state is often thought to be the Kurds. Our desire for self-government is often portrayed as a preparation for secession, an attempt to assert ethnic rights under the cover of federalism. Yet the Kurds’ desire for a federal democracy is not only morally and politically justified, given their past suffering, it is also a protection for Iraq’s nascent democracy. Many Kurds accept a geographically based, federal relationship with Iraq to protect them from the suffering inflicted upon them during the last 83 years of the Iraqi state . For the Kurds, Iraq has meant nothing but persecution, displacement, exile and, finally, genocide and chemical weapons attacks. Ten months since liberation, the best ten months in Iraq’s history, cannot erase memories of decades of repression that began long before Saddam Hussein seized power.

During the last 13 years, the Kurds have demonstrated that Iraqis are capable of building a democratic culture. Free of Saddam’s rule, Iraqis Kurdistan showed that it could govern itself, despite serious mistakes. With little international support, but under the cover of American and British airpower, facilitated by Turkey, the Kurds have built up a vibrant civil society where women’s rights and freedom of press and political activity are increasingly respected.

The irony is that federalism, not just for the Kurds but for all of Iraq, is the best way to reconstitute the Iraqi state and to promote Iraqi democracy. By promoting federalism, Iraqis democrats have developed a formula that will prevent another centralizing dictatorship and thwart any attempt to resurrect tyranny. Only a federal, democratic arrangement can ensure peaceful coexistence among the communities comprising Iraqi society. Those who promote theocracy or autocracy must be forced to realize that they are pursuing a lasting division of Iraq.

Friends,

Other nightmare of Saddam Hussein fascist tyranny is over. The world should have acted sooner to end the killing fields and stop mass graves in Iraq.

Good Social Democrats should be making the moral argument that the war of liberation in Iraq came too late for so many innocent victims of Saddam’s fascist tyranny. And the lesson for the international community should it must be prepared to act in time and pre-empt terrible tragedies to happen again anywhere else in the world.

I call upon your help to Iraqi democrats in this critical juncture of the history of the Middle East. To help us transform our country from the land of mass graves and aggression, to the land of peace, justice and democracy. I can see an Iraq that is democratic, that is an anchor for peace in this troubled part of the world and a partner to civilizes nations in pursuit of the universal values of human rights and justice.

Thank you.

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