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Government's opportunistic "propaganda" ridiculed

01 November 2002

At the beginning of December, six days before the deadline for Iraq to release details of its weapons of mass destruction to UN weapons inspectors, the British government published its graphic dossier on crimes and human rights abuses in Iraq. Described by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as a reminder to "the world that the abuses of the Iraqi regime extend far beyond its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction" the document has been widely condemned as "opportunistic" and "propaganda" by civil liberties groups. Within the Labour party, MP Tam Dalyell described it as a "highly unusual, indeed unprecedented publication [that] is cranking up for war."
In order to bolster the "human rights" angle the dossier cites Amnesty International at great length, prompting the organisation to respond by warning the government that "The human rights situation in Iraq or elsewhere should not be used selectively." The organisation points towards another human rights catastrophe that is unfolding (and about which the British and American governments are unlikely to be so forthcoming): "As the debate on whether to use military force against Iraq escalates, the human rights of the Iraqi people, as a direct consequence of any potential military action, is sorely missing from the equation."
The idea that the planned invasion of Iraq is based on human rights considerations is a proposal about as convincing as the argument that the US attacked Afghanistan to liberate the nation's oppressed women. As in Afghanistan, the numbers killed or information about the dead (civilian or otherwise) is unlikely to be considered worthy of attention.
Saddam Hussein: Crimes and Human Rights Abuses. A Report on the human costs of Saddam's policies by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Available on the FCO website