London, Tuesday 6 April 2004
Prime Minister:
Good afternoon everyone. This is just a brief doorstep. We will take some questions. I’m delighted to see the Iraqi Foreign Minister here with me in Downing Street this afternoon, and if I can just say a few words initially about the current situation in Iraq and then I’ll ask you, sir, to say a few words as well.
This time last year of course Saddam Hussein was still in power, if only just. He’s now in jail awaiting trial for his crimes. This time last year Iraqi Shias were excluded from political life, now Shias are actually the majority on the Iraqi Governing Council. Shia councils are running Shia towns. This time last year religious celebrations were banned, the streets of the holy cities, Najaf and Kerbala were the haunt of the intelligence services of Saddam. Now they are actually thronged with pilgrims. So big challenges remain in Iraq, of that there is no doubt, as events in the recent days show. Iraq has been a deeply damaged country, and going from totalitarianism to freedom was always bound to be difficult. A few groups are abusing these new freedoms in Iraq. There are sympathisers of Saddam Hussein, there are some outside terrorists and then, as we have seen recently, there are people who want to subvert the path of Iraq towards a proper democracy. Moqtada al-Sadr does not represent, however, the vast majority of Iraq’s Shias. He doesn’t represent any of the values of the new Iraq. He represents a small band of extremists, he surrounds himself with an armed militia, and there’s absolutely no place for armed militias in the new Iraq. Iraq should be governed by democracy, not by militias or by demagoguery.
So before we hand over authority to an Iraqi government, which we shall do on the timetable we have set out, we will of course face more challenges. It always was going to be a difficult task, but as the few words that we have just had now when we have been talking together indicate, the vast majority of Iraqis want to see Iraq make that progress towards stability, towards democracy and towards prosperity and we - the Americans, the British, the other countries there in Iraq at the present time - and the Iraqi people have a common interest. We both of us want the extremists to fail and the moderate majority to succeed, and I’m sure eventually we will.
Mr Zebari:
I was very honoured to meet the Prime Minister on this day as a year on since this war of liberation of Iraq started by the United States and Britain. I think the Prime Minister took a very courageous decision, and an honourable decision. We, the people of Iraq, will recall that with pride, and our history will record that this decision was justified, was honourable and for the liberation of an entire people from years of tyranny, of dictatorship, of killing at random. All these mass graves are a testimony to the cruelty, to the brutality we in Iraq have suffered, and we had a very good exchange with the Prime Minister, exchange of the situation as it is in Iraq. All our concerns about the challenges to the security of the people of Iraq from whoever. We think that recent disturbances does not mean that Iraq is descending into chaos. I think we have the institutions, the processes in place that we will be able to manage this situation and already we are working with the Coalition Provisional Authority to calm down the situation on the one hand and to deal firmly also with all those elements who are trying to challenge the law and order and the security of the Iraqi people. But the important thing in fact, we have a political process now we have the United Nations back in Iraq who are helping us to legitimise the process of the handover of authority, of sovereignty to a new Iraqi Government by the end of 30 June 2004. I have discussed with the Prime Minister the need in fact from our point of view, as Iraqis, for a new Security Council Resolution to legitimise this, to end the status of occupation in Iraq which I think everybody supports and agrees that the Iraqis at the end of the day should be in charge of their country, of their affairs and we also expressed our gratitude really to the British forces for the job they are doing. We are very proud of them, and the British people also should be very proud of them.
Question:
Could I ask you a question both to the Prime Minister and Mr Zebari whether, given what you have said, you think that the situation would be made better or worse if Moqtada al-Sadr was actually arrested, and whether there is a danger that the violence that we are seeing is in fact descending into chaos and whether that could put back the deadline for the handover?
Prime Minister:
Well, certainly as far as I am concerned, the decisions about what to do about the particular individual, Moqtada al-Sadr, should be taken by the people on the ground. But let me just say a word about this idea that the whole of Iraq is descending into chaos. What is happening in Iraq is very, very obvious. We are moving to a situation where at the end of June sovereignty is going to return to the Iraqi people on a path towards democracy. Now some people don’t want democracy in Iraq. Some people want Saddam back - a tiny little minority. Some people are outside terrorists, pouring into Iraq in order to engage in the types of acts of terrorism that they are actually trying to engage in elsewhere in the world, and then you have got this particular cleric who is an extremist and a fanatic, who doesn’t want what the majority of Shias, never mind the majority of Iraqis want, which is a democratic Iraq. So this is going to happen, and our response to this should not be to run away in fright or hide away or think that we have got it all wrong. Our response on the contrary should be to hold firm because that’s what the majority of Iraqi people actually want. They are the people who want Iraq to be democratically governed, and the way of dealing with this is to recognise that in the end the interests that we have in common - the Iraqi people, and the Americans and the British - is essentially the same, that of a democratic stable, prosperous Iraq. And these other people, the extremists of whatever sort, they want to stop us. It’s a simple equation in my view.
Mr Zebari:
I just would like to add one thing. We are going through critical times in our history, and these coming months are very important, especially the handover of power and sovereignty will take place, and we anticipate as we get closer to that date, in fact those challenges will increase whether on the security front, whether by some fringe groups that want to challenge the … like Moqtada al-Sadr and so on. I think we here need to deal with these incidents firmly but also our attitude is really to calm down tension and to try to resolve this issue by whatever means in order not to derail the main process that we are trying to get to. And we have the process also, I mean these people their interests are better served, they want recognition, there is a way forward. For elections for them to be recognised or to be represented. The new Iraq will be inclusive and belongs to all, not only to one group or one minority. In fact everybody can find his place in the new country.
Question:
Mr Zebari, I recently had an opportunity a few of the female diplomats who came for training here, and they were so frightened that they didn’t let me publish their names, so I just wanted to ask what measures is your government taking to protect those who are supporting you?
Mr Zebari:
Well these are some of the legacies of Saddam’s tyranny and fear really, people are still not accustomed, let’s say, to this new atmosphere of freedom. It’s a process we are trying to build, but we are most grateful to the Foreign Office, the British Government for allowing our diplomats to come here and to be trained for the first time in many, many years. And we have focused a great deal of our energy on training our new, young diplomats. So far we have sent nearly 250 to 19 countries around the world to help us. I don’t know why they are not giving you their names, but really …
Question:
….. somebody would kill them.
Mr Zebari:
No, I doubt it. They work, they operate, they come to their office every day in Baghdad and nobody has killed them so far.
Question:
Foreign Minister could I ask you, how do you meet the aspirations of the Shia majority in Iraq, short of being very heavy handed if we continue to see the sorts of scenes we have seen in the last few days? And Mr Blair, is it really realistic to stick to this timetable of June given the problems that the British forces have in Basra and the Americans have in the rest of the country. If this was happening tomorrow, it wouldn’t happen, would it? What’s going to get better in the next couple of months?
Mr Zebari:
Well, on the first question I think the mainstream Shia political movement and religious leaders realise that the Shia population have been alienated, have been persecuted over the years by this regime and they have been denied any chance of any place in running this country of whom they make up the majority, and they have lost many opportunities. I don’t think that many of the sensible leaders would squander this opportunity for building and reconstituting a new Iraq on equal citizenship on a democratic basis, so I think a majority of the Shia realise that they should not waste this opportunity, and they should participate in building this new country.
Prime Minister:
The answer to your question, actually I would turn it round the other way and say every time these people try to stop a proper handover to Iraq on its way to stable democracy, every time they try to stop that happening should reinforce our desire to make it happen. Look, in the end, and I really ask you to try and put both sides of the picture here, to people here in this country and elsewhere, the message that you have just heard from the Iraqi Foreign Minister about an Iraq which is based on equality, based on equal status of people whether they are Shias, or they are Sunnis, whatever part of Iraq they come from, men and women. That vision, place that against the vision of the person who is trying to run these local militias in Iraq, who actually wants a fundamentalist, extremist state. Now the Iraqi people would vote for that, they are not going to vote for this extremist. So why is he trying to do what he is trying to do? For the same reason that you’ve got foreign terrorists in there, for the same reason you’ve got the former Saddam sympathisers there. They are trying to stop what is right from happening and therefore for us, we don’t get put off by this, we redouble our efforts because imagine the situation in which what the Iraqi Foreign Minister has said to you today actually represents how Iraq is going. Think of the impact on the whole of the Middle East and on the relations between the Western world and the Middle East. It would be enormous and beneficial, so we shouldn’t be frightened of this.
Question:
We couldn’t pull out tomorrow, could we, and my question really was, what is going to get better in the next couple of months?
Prime Minister:
It’s not a question of pulling out. It’s a question of moving from a situation where as it were the Coalition are there as an occupying force to a situation where the Iraqis govern their own affairs and they recognise that for a time, because of reasons of security, they will need to work with us, and will want to work with us, but it is there as a matter of their sovereign will, rather than as a matter of occupation, that’s what’s important. And you know the other thing that was interesting, I asked the Foreign Minister, and maybe he will say a word or two to you about it, was what is it like for ordinary people in Iraq, because here you get all sorts of different things. People will come back and some will say there is terrorism, problems of security, and other people come back and say things are good, and it seems to me very obvious that what is happening - certainly from what the Foreign Minister is saying but he can put it to you better himself - is that actually for many ordinary people in Iraq, life is getting better, but the problem is this terrorism and security from a small minority.
Mr Zebari:
Now this is the major challenge we challenge we are facing between building a new, democratic Iraq and really you have to start from somewhere and there are certain universal values, you see. We just cannot well the Iraqis are not capable of building their own democratic institutions or running their own country, of managing their own security. This is the point I tried to explain to the Prime Minister. Have faith in the Iraqis, respect the Iraqi people. I think they are capable of running their country and life has improved a great deal. I have been here and watch all the bad news about Iraq. In fact there are so many good stories, so many good things about this terrible incident that happened in Fallujah for instance which was disgusting in many ways and alien to many Islamic or Arabic, let’s say, values. But nobody mentioned the ongoing relations between the Iraqis with the American and British troops on so many other fronts, let’s say, on reconstruction, on building schools and hospitals, and life has improved a great deal for many, many Iraqis. In fact their living conditions have improved, they have more money in their pockets, their salary has gone up so many times, and also the taste of freedoms which they have never enjoyed for many years. To watch satellite, to watch Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabya, to use the Internet, to travel, to move in the country and also to enjoy the freedoms of forming associations, civil societies, organisations, to issue a newspaper. Now, one of the problems we have is this mushrooming of newspapers, of media outlets, over 150 newspapers are published in a country where there were only one or two formal newspapers and limited exposure to information. So all this is happening, but it is not reported.
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