- OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada
on Wednesday noticeably hardened its line against the idea of a unilateral
U.S. strike on Iraq, saying Washington had no right to take action that
could destabilize large parts of the world.
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- Ottawa -- whose foreign policy is based on multilateral
diplomacy -- has consistently stressed the Iraq crisis should be handled
through the United Nations and is showing increasing signs of alarm about
the damage the world body could suffer.
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- Foreign Minister Bill Graham said that while the U.N.
charter did, in special circumstances, allow one nation to launch a pre-emptive
strike against another, such an attack could not be justified now.
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- "Article 51 of the U.N. charter allows a state to
take action in self defense. It doesn't allow you to invade somebody just
because you want to invade them," he told CBC radio.
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- "Canada does not want to see war. We do not believe
we have a right to invade. However much we may detest Saddam Hussein we
have a strong belief in the integrity of the international community that
we have created, and there are certain rules and we want to continue to
obey those rules...we are there to enforce the rules, not to enforce something
else."
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- U.S. President George W. Bush is pressing the U.N. Security
Council to produce a tough new resolution on the return of arms inspectors
to Iraq and has made it clear Washington would act alone if necessary to
destroy the weapons of mass destruction it says Baghdad is stockpiling.
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- Graham said a unilateral strike would not be justified
because it was generally felt that Baghdad did not have the capacity or
ability to produce such weapons.
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- "So then you move the argument one (step) further
back: Well, what if he gets them? Then he might...," he said.
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- "The further you move the argument away from an
actual direct threat to a suggestion that, well perhaps, one day maybe...
then of course you are opening the door to a basic destruction of the world
order as we presently know it."
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- Graham -- who said on Tuesday that a unilateral U.S.
attack could destabilize large parts of the world -- dismissed the idea
that a strike would have limited after-effects.
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- "People who want to attack Iraq say 'Well it's just
Iraq, it's just all about Saddam Hussein'. It isn't just about Iraq, it
isn't just about Saddam Hussein, it's about the world order we've constructed
over the last 50 years," he said vehemently.
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- "You can't talk about Iraq in isolation. That's
the whole point. That's why we are having these huge debates because Iraq
is a litmus test of where the world is going to go for (its) future peace
and security."
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- Graham insisted that Saddam had to allow the inspectors
back in but added that Baghdad should only be deprived of its arms of mass
destruction.
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- "I don't think we'd want to go to the point where
Iraq would be weakened to the point where it would then start to disintegrate,"
he said, adding that this could destabilize the entire Middle East.
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- Another advantage of acting through the U.N. would be
that the Iraqis would have nothing to fear if the inspectors gave the country
a clean bill of health, Graham told CBC.
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- "That also puts an end to discussions about something
else called regime change... You can't then say 'Oh by the way we got all
we wanted on that, now let's move for a regime change'," he said.
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- "We don't want the United Nations to be accused
of being the tool of any one country, however powerful it may be, because
that in turn also undermines the integrity of the system."
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- Graham later said U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix
had requested four Canadians be part of a team to go to Iraq. He also played
down the idea that Ottawa would quickly be in a position to send troops
to the region.
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- "We would have to look at the circumstances but
clearly our approach to any such request would be very different if it
was coming from the (U.N.) Secretary-General and the Security Council than
if it was coming from just one side," he said.
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