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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 3555 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

We do not live in a very safe world. In many ways the world is less stable now than it was during the cold war, when there was a so-called balance of terror. We live in a world where there is a great deal of instability. We live in a world where people do not feel safe. Since humankind has roamed this earth, there have been wars and conflicts. Sadly, it seems to be in the very nature of human beings that they should occur.

We are talking about possible military action in Iraq. I think I speak for my colleagues in saying that we hope that that will not be necessary. We hope that at this eleventh hour commonsense or self-preservation will prevail and that Mr Hussein-the man seems to have a very good ability for self-preservation-will back down, that there will be proper weapons inspections as proposed by the United Nations, and that under the auspices of the UN weapons of mass destruction will be destroyed. In other words, I hope he pulls back from the brink. That is not necessarily unlikely. Let us hope that happens.

If it does not, what should occur? Saddam Hussein has a dreadful record. He has used chemical weapons-chemical weapons are weapons of mass destruction-on the Kurds, against dissident Iraqis and against Iranians in the war with Iran in the 1980s. He had no compunction in using them on his own people.

The only reason he did not use them in the Gulf War of 1990-91 was the very real fear that if he went over the top the Americans might respond with nuclear weapons. That is something an American official told me about two years ago.

Hussein does not need to build weapons of mass destruction. He has very strong armed services, even after the Gulf War. He has a standing army of over 400,000, including about 100,000 very competent troops in the Republican Guard. His neighbouring countries do not have anything like that in their armed services. It is not as if he is being threatened by anyone.

Nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction could well be used by a vicious regime like that in Iraq, which has had no compunction about using them against their own people and against the Kurdish minority, or by terrorists.

Saddam Hussein runs a particularly nasty regime. He is a murderer. He was a murderer from a young age. He has personally shot cabinet ministers and generals. His family has done the same. He has executed or caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his own people. He is probably one of the least pleasant individuals in the world, heading one of the least pleasant regimes. But he seems to be able to pull back from the brink. He has done it before. Hopefully, he will do it again.

The strong response from the United Nations, which came about only because of the unity of purpose shown by the Americans, backed up mainly by the British, has put Saddam Hussein into a corner. This strong resolution of the UN might work. It is backed up by military force.

I do not think appeasement is ever the answer. "An appeaser,"said Winston Churchill, "feeds the crocodile in the hope that it will eat him last."In the Nazi era, in 1936, the Germans invaded the Rhineland. They sent in three battalions. I do not know whether they had ammunition for their rifles. They had explicit orders to pull back if the French

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