NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY. ....................................................... ................. PANORAMA THE CASE AGAINST WAR RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 8:12:02 ....................................................... ................. STEVE BRADSHAW: We’ve examined the case against Saddam. Tonight we assess the case against going to war with Saddam. PATRICK CORDINGLEY: My troops led the armoured attack into Iraq. At the moment I don’t believe the case has been made for another war against Iraq. HAIFA ZANAGAN: Even though I was imprisoned by the regime, I was tortured by the regime. I would love to see this regime changed, but still I am against the war. BISHOP HARRIES: I’ve supported every war that this county has been engaged in over the last 20 years, but on the evidence at present available to us I can’t support a military action against Iraq. BRADSHAW: The inspectors are still searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. The west is pouring over the dossier Saddam has handed to the UN as America prepares for war. It could be the last chance to consider the arguments for peace. Tonight the case against war through the stories of seven people you might not expect to hear making it. If there’s one man who might be surprised to hear himself making the case against war it’s the man who led British Armour into Iraq back in 1991. The GENERAL Major General Patrick Cordingley is on his way to Westminster Abbey for Remembrance Sunday. For the General who retired two years ago it’s time to contemplate the cost of war, including another war against Iraq. Maj Gen PATRICK CORDINGLEY Commander, 7th Armoured Brigade 1988-91 My reservations are all to do with the numbers of Iraqis that might be killed, you could argue, unnecessarily. Saudi Arabia, 1991 CORDINGLEY: [addressing the troops] I’m absolutely certain that his morale is taking a hammering… BRADSHAW: The general knows all too easily how combat can turn to slaughter. Eleven years ago he led Britain’s Seventh Armoured Brigade, “The Desert Rats” against Saddam’s conscript packed army. CORDINGLEY: [addressing the troops] …and there’s good evidence to show that even the Republican Guard is not that happy, and if that’s the case, that’s very good news for us. BRADSHAW: Less than 200 British and American soldiers died in combat in the last Gulf War. The Iraqis lost tens of thousands. Eleven years on the Americans estimate Iraq’s land forces, weakened by sanctions, are at half strength, while the allies have even more sophisticated weapons than those which so hideously devastated the Iraqi forces. CORDINGLEY: People don’t understand what it means to send a modern British division to war today. How much fire power is available to it and how massive that will be, and the effects on the enemy will be remarkable. I do think that there is an inevitability about this. The Americans have geared themselves up now, or are gearing themselves up now. I think that they think the only way of resolving this problem is by going in on the ground and finishing the matter off. BRADSHAW: Like any prime minister, moved by the Remembrance service, Tony Blair would be offended by suggestions he’d lead us into a war of unnecessary slaughter. He says the reasons for fighting would be disarming Saddam, not getting rid of his tyrannical regime. 8th November 2002 TONY BLAIR: I may find this regime abhorrent, any normal person would. But the survival of it is in his hands. Conflict is not inevitable but disarmament is. BRADSHAW: It’s a day to think of the ordinary soldier. Before General Cordingley would see any more go to Iraq he’d want another Security Council resolution explicitly calling for military action against Iraq, not just serious consequences like the last resolution. Otherwise the general would be seriously concerned about what the troops would think, a concern he knows to be shared by some top serving commanders. Maj Gen PATRICK CORDINGLEY Commander, 7th Armoured Brigade 1988-91 If we go – and this is critical – if we go into this war unilaterally with America and some other allies without the United Nations resolution, I think there would be doubt in the minds of the British soldiers the justness of this cause, and I think it is a great shame if you get a situation where they’re being used in a way that the British public are not easy with. BRADSHAW: You say: “A great shame” I mean.. tough some people might say. CORDINGLEY: Yes, but I mean I’m not going to dispute that and they will do their job and get on with it. But I, if I was a commander out there, would feel sad that we were being used in a way that.. and uneasy too, being used in a way that did not have the support of the nation. Whitehall, London BRADSHAW: On the wall in her London home, the fading memory of another city. She is one of many exiles with a personal reason to hate Saddam’s regime. When she was 25 Haifa was arrested by Saddam’s secret police at her old home in Baghdad. The treatment she faced was already becoming an horrific hallmark of Saddam’s regime. The EXILE HAIFA ZANGANA Iraqi exile I was too frightened to speak even. I was frozen totally. They thought I was courageous at that time so they started bunching and kicking. I lost conscious. I was naked. BRADSHAW: Three friends arrested with her, also involved with the anti- Moscow wing of the communist party were executed. HAIFA: They moved me to a room next to the torture room and I had to spend about three weeks there listening to the screams of people while they’re being tortured. It was a howling, not screams. It wasn’t human voices at all. They were begging, asking, and in many languages, Arabic, Kurdish… BRADSHAW: After all that, don’t you want a war to get rid of Saddam? HAIFA: I want to get rid of Saddam but not by war. I don’t want the war. I was imprisoned, I was tortured, I witnessed the suffering of many Iraqi people. I know the suffering of Iraqi people in exile yet I don’t want Iraq to be led to another war. BRADSHAW: Haifa watched the bombardment of Baghdad at the start of the Gulf War in 1991 from exile in London. HAIFA: The night of that bombardment I was listening to one commentator saying this is like Christmas tree, and was crying because it’s not a Christmas tree – it’s Baghdad, my city, burning until the morning. I felt angry, I felt dead worried about my family. Baghdad, 1991 BRADSHAW: Back in ’91 it seemed bombing military targets in Baghdad by so- called ‘smart bombs’ could be a relatively casualty free exercise, until the destruction of the al-Ameryah shelter showed the reality of the carnage on and under the ground. Some estimates suggest the total civilian death toll in Baghdad was between one and two thousand. If American and British troops try to occupy the city the death toll could be much worse. HAIFA: I worry about my family and the rest of the population. People are frightened. They have kids, they have old people. BRADSHAW: But you say some people in Britain will say look, this guy is a menace to world peace, to his neighbours. You’ve tried but you haven’t got rid of him so now we’ll have a go. HAIFA ZANGANA Iraqi exile I don’t think he’s a threat to the world peace, he’s not a threat to the world. He’s definitely not a threat to America or Britain. The real threat was, and still is, to his own people. So why don’t we let his own people to deal with him. Baghdad, 1917 BRADSHAW: Britain’s armed forces first marched into Baghdad in the First World War, and didn’t leave. In the 20s the British installed a client king and bombed rebels into submission, staying on after full independence in the 30s. Iraq, 1934 The number 55 Bomber Squadron stationed at Hinaida, near Baghdad, exercising with an armoured car section over 250 miles from any civilised habitation. BRADSHAW: Aerial bombardment, regime change imposed by the west, to Iraqis it’s nothing new, and to Iraqis the reason for our continuing interest has been clear from the start. [News footage] There was oil seepage to the surface, more than a hint of what lay beneath. So the west invested in the east, bringing it’s knowledge and skill to bear upon the desert. Iraq, 1958 BRADSHAW: Although more and more regions outside the Middle East are meeting the west’s demand for oil, the Iraqis know the strategic value of their reserves. HAIFA: Iraq could be the largest reserve oil country in the world after Saudi Arabia and Britain is fighting to gain access to that, to have a share in the spoil of the war. The British involvement at the moment in Iraq, or trying to involve in this war, is definitely will be looked upon by the Iraqis as another colonisation of Iraq, something which they fought very hard during the whole last century to get rid of. BRADSHAW: Now Iraqis fear their natural resources are being coveted by a new imperial power. As the US builds up its forces in the Gulf, Haifa fears the world’s solo superpower is starting to behave like Britain before it with the arrogance of empire. HAIFA: Iraq is only the beginning I think. There was Afghanistan of course, I mean this is Iraq here, and probably Iran or Syria next. What else? I mean is there an end to it? This is real expansion of power. There is one power in the world nowadays and it is the US, and the US wants that area. Maj Gen PATRICK CORDINGLEY Commander, 7th Armoured Brigade 1988-91 Isn’t it a throwback to days of empire, back to the last century when armed force was used whenever we wanted to around the world for particular foreign policy aims. Surely we’ve moved on from that now. US Embassy, London [Peace Marchers] WOMAN: The Americans who are behind all this evil warmongering and I am against it. MAN: Bush uses the term “The war on terrorism” but for me that’s just a smoke screen. It’s just a smoke screen to give the Americans the right to invade any country and any regime they don’t want. BRADSHAW: As an agent for the CIA, America’s central intelligence agency, he was once suspected by the FBI of trying to murder Saddam Hussein. The SPY Robert Baer was a top CIA agent, then the FBI investigated him for allegedly trying to kill Saddam. That would have defied a presidential order on assassinations and been a potential crime under ‘murder for hire’ laws. ROBERT BAER CIA Agent, 1976-97 I was detained, and my team, by the FBI. Had we been guilty and tried, we could have all been executed. BRADSHAW: In the United States? BAER: In the United States, so it’s stupidity but… BRADSHAW: For trying to murder Saddam? BAER: Murdering Saddam Hussein. BRADSHAW: Baer hadn’t tried to kill Saddam and hadn’t broken any US laws. But he had become involved in a plot by Iraqi dissidents to unseat Saddam. He’d done so on the Clinton administration’s orders, until a nervous Washington pulled the plug. Given that you were there and you were the man on the ground trying to get rid of Saddam, you must presumably be pleased that President Bush is now going to try and do it for real? BAER: No, because what we’re inviting is World War Three in the Middle East. It’s too late to invade Iraq a second time. BRADSHAW: In 1991 the allies have the support of Arab nations like Saudi Arabia for invading Iraq. After all, Saddam had just invaded another Arab country – Kuwait. Try to invade now though, Baer argues, there’d be no such support for war. Any government helping the west would fear a fundamentalist backlash. BAER: I talked to people in the CIA and they’re worried about the stability of the region. BRADSHAW: And privately people in the CIA say to you.. BAER: War is a bad idea, it’s going to cause my terrorism. Cooperation, local governance is going to end. BRADSHAW: Baer believes war with Saddam is being sold to President Bush by right-wing hawks, so-called neo-conservatives who started promoting war against Iraq long before the 11th September last year. Four years ago a group calling themselves Project for the New American Century wrote to President Clinton urging the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Using military action to disarm him and to protect our vital interests in the Gulf, including oil. Most of those who signed it now serve the Bush Administration including defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. BAER: Today they have the chance to do something about it and they want to prove themselves right. They say we were right in the 90s and we’re going to show you today. Just watch. BRADSHAW: Watch while we…. ? BAER: (laughs) While we set the place afire. BRADSHAW: Alarmist? Maybe not. These are the kind of images that make some of Washington’s neoconservatives hope war against Saddam will destabilise much of the Middle East. What such American hardliners hope is Saddam’s fall will be followed by the collapse of what they call other terrorist states, countries like Iran and Syria which they say are backing terrorists. One neoconservative even advocated turning the Middle East into a cauldron. In Washington President Bush has distanced himself from the more extreme neoconservatives. But they do have old allies in the Pentagon where the Department of Defence has rebuilt its offices and is now strengthening its Washington powerbase. Pentagon 13th September 2001 When I came around that corner, you could see pieces, way up there at the far end of the airplane.. BRADSHAW: What critics like Baer allege is the Pentagon has been trying to skew the evidence to support war against Saddam in the process, sidelining the CIA. ROBERT BAER CIA Agent, 1976-97 Well I think all power in Washington has sort of gravitated toward the Pentagon which has set up its own intelligence units which is reinterpreting intelligence to ensure the outcome they want. BRADSHAW: Some top democrats in Congress shared Baer’s fears about this so- called politicisation of intelligence. The old CIA hands accusations are strongly denied in the Pentagon, but Baer believes many neoconservatives are set on war. BAER: Today a land war or massive air war against an Arab country is going to cause several governments in the Middle East to fall, among them Saudi Arabia, Jordan, possibly Egypt. BRADSHAW: Some on the right would say that’s a good thing. BAER: I think people in Washington are so hurt, so damaged by the attacks on September 11th that they want to take revenge, and Saddam happens to be the vehicle. BRADSHAW: It’s not revenge, surely it’s a precaution. BAER: Well, I mean how do you fight a billion people. I’m not sure. Is this another crusade? It looks like that to Arabs. Florence [Stop the war coalition marchers] BRADSHAW: You might at least think all the men who helped shape Tony Blair’s Middle East policy would back the war. But meet our old Ambassador in Saudi Arabia and Syria. The AMBASSADOR August 1991 BRADSHAW: When the three British hostages were freed in Beirut after five years of captivity, Sir Andrew Green welcomed them back into the world. GREEN: I shall never forget it. I was the Ambassador in Syria when they were released and they were released to me. John McCarthy bounced into the room, shook us all by the hand and I sat him down, briefed him. But it was a huge relief, so that was quite a moment. BRADSHAW: For 35 years Sir Andrew Green advised British governments, including Tony Blair’s. Now he’s in no doubt the Prime Minister is making a big mistake. Sir ANDREW GREEN Ambassador to Syria, 1991-94 And Saudi Arabia, 1996-2000 I think this talk about Saddam being a threat to the west frankly is largely manufactured. I think the policy is misguided and misconceived. I think any attack on Iraq will be a huge bonus to Osama bin Laden, it will destabilise the Gulf and we’ll have consequences that cannot be foreseen or indeed predicted. BRADSHAW: You’re putting it very strongly. GREEN: Yes, I think we’ve gone off the rails. I think American policy has changed. Indeed it clearly has changed in this determination to achieve what they call regime change, and I think that the British government have effectively fallen into line and I think that’s a serious mistake. BRADSHAW: Back in 1996 a group of American neoconservatives helped write a report called: “A Clean Break”. It was published by a think tank based in Israel. They hoped their ideas might be taken up by incoming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu They included removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq which they called an important Israeli strategic objective. The paper never became official policy but was widely read. GREEN: I think it’s very interesting. I think there has always been a group in Israel that has wanted to knock out Iraq – Iraq being the main remaining strategic threat to Israel. Now if that has the effect of creating chaos in the Middle East and hostility towards America, why should they worry? It’s we who should worry. If we’re going to march to war to an Israeli drum, then that would be a very foolish thing to do. BRADSHAW: And eight strong group behind the paper was chaired by Richard Perle, now the Pentagon’s top civilian advisor. Two other members of the group [Douglas Feith – David Wurmser] now have official posts in President Bush’s administration. GREEN: There’s certainly a group of people at the top of the American administration who have a great deal of sympathy with Israeli aims in the region. BRADSHAW: And who therefore..? GREEN: And who, therefore, are open to suggestions that removing Saddam Hussein is a good thing to do. BRADSHAW: The policy of disarming and maybe removing Saddam, the US administration says, is most certainly not the result of pro-Israeli pressure. After all, the American President didn’t campaign on action against Saddam. He only decided to act after 9/11. He could be taking a huge political gamble. Surely he simply wants to do it because he doesn’t want another 9/11. GREEN: Well there’s no connection between Saddam and 9/11 so removing Saddam is not going to prevent another 9/11. BRADSHAW: And this isn’t an Arabist in the Foreign Office’s conspiracy theory or paranoid or…? GREEN: Well of course they would say that, wouldn't they. But perhaps someone else can explain why this has suddenly come forward as a policy option. New York LARRY HOLMES US Anti-War Coalition If Bush goes into Iraq again, invades it, slaughters people, as if they hadn’t done enough already over the past ten years, occupies it, you know what that’s going to do. That’s going to create thousands of people who are willing to martyr themselves, fly a plane into a building or drop something….. (applause) BRADSHAW: Few people have tried so hard to warn about weapons of mass destruction they’ve inspired a Hollywood movie. The PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER In the 90s Jessica Stern was an advisor to President Clinton. She once warned that terrorists could nuke the Empire State building and to alert people for the dangers of so-called hyper-terrorism she helped make the Hollywood movie: “The Peacemaker” she was the model for the Nicole Kidman character who saves New York from a nuclear suitcase bomb. The former presidential adviser now lectures on public policy and religious terrorism at Harvard University. JESSICA STERN National Security Council, 1994-95 There are compelling reasons to go to war against Iraq. Saddam poses a threat to the entire world. However, we need to consider whether the risks of going to war exceed the benefit and I believe they do. BRADSHAW: Last October the CIA made public part of its secret intelligence assessment on Iraq. It said the probability of Saddam initiating an attack without provocation on the United States in the foreseeable future was low. STERN: I think there would be a far more compelling argument for going to Iraq if we had intelligence that Saddam was about to strike the UK or the United States. I don’t believe that any intelligence has been uncovered. BRADSHAW: But the CIA argued that if Saddam was attacked, the chances would then become pretty high that he’d respond with biological or chemical weapons. GREEN: There were rumours that he had been threatening to use chemical agents in perfume bottles several years ago. That’s always a risk. The question is, if we go to war, are we increasing that risk or are we decreasing that risk. There is no question in my mind that we are increasing the risk, that those weapons, chemical or biological agents will be used, possibly in our cities, deployed with relative ease in our cities. BRADSHAW: President Bush believes that’s all the more reason to act now before the threat from Saddam gets even more serious. If we don’t, he says, we may have to face still worse horrors. 7th October 2002 PRESIDENT BUSH: Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraq regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints. BRADSHAW: And the Hawks say there’s an even bigger risk waiting for Saddam to team up with the religious terrorists of Al-Qaeda. The CIA has warned it has solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, but despite the odd appearance of piety there’s no evidence Saddam’s planned terrorist attacks with Al-Qaeda. STERN: At the moment Al-Qaeda and Saddam are mortal enemies. Saddam is a secular ruler. He is an infidel from the perspective of Al-Qaeda. However, if we go to war against Saddam, it seems to me that is the most likely way that those two entities, now enemies, would join forces against a bigger enemy which is the west. BRADSHAW: But isn’t getting tough showing there is a downside to terrorism, the only way of really guaranteeing our security? STERN: I don’t think it is. I think that the United States has bee very slow to recognise that we are really despised around the world. We are despised because our troops are in Saudi Arabia, we are despised because of the sanctions against Iraq. HAIFA ZANGANA Iraqi exile There is no deep understanding of what is going on. There is no understanding of the anger of the people. Go and see any Arab and the ordinary Arab in the street. BRADSHAW: There is already growing anger against American policy in the Middle East in Muslim countries across the world. The fear is anger could turn into support for terrorism if America bombs Iraq. Here in Iran they’re still chanting ‘death to America’. But for George Bush, war against terror is both the war against extremists who turn to violence and against states who back them. JESSICA STERN National Security Council, 1994-95 We are in the middle of a war on terrorism, this is the most important war we have to fight. Right now terrorists pose a far more significant threat to international security than states do. I think that attacking Saddam will increase the appeal, will help the terrorists mobilise disgruntled youth. We, in fact, will be doing Al- Qaeda’s work if we attack Saddam. Cardiff [Stop the war protesters] MAN: I am actually opposing the war because I believe there are so many innocent people would be killed, and thus I think it’s not justified. BRADSHAW: Back in the 60s he fought in the Vietnam War. Now he’s worried we’ll go into Iraq without learning its lessons. The SENATOR Chuck Hagel is not only a Vietnam vet, he’s also a senior and pretty right wing US senator. He’s one of two senators who led the US fight against the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, and he’s in favour of at least preparing for war with Saddam. But even the Senator from Nebraska is having doubts whether the risks of war have really been thought through. Senator CHUCK HAGEL Republican Foreign Relations Committee There’s always risk in action, and there is always risk in war, and we should ask some of the same questions that we did not ask about Vietnam, we should ask those now about Iraq. Vietnam, 1969 BRADSHAW: Chuck Hagel won two purple hearts for his courage in Vietnam. The US was sucked into war in South East Asia without real honest debate, and the Senator wants to be sure that wont happen again. HAGEL: What is the objective? Who are we doing this with? Have we thought through the consequences? What kind of government do we want? How long are we going to be there? Have we thought through the cost? Those are things we didn’t ask ourselves in Vietnam and we got into a lot of trouble, and you always get into trouble when you don’t ask yourself the tough questions. BRADSHAW: Etched on Washington’s Vietnam war memorial are over 58,000 names, including some of the Senator’s friends. So of the current administrations, Hawks and Neoconservatives though, have never seen combat and some escaped the draft. HAGEL: I think it is interesting that many of those who have been advocating the world the last few months, actually the last few years, are individuals who have never experienced war. That certainly does not disqualify them from their opinions, because they have other experiences. But I tend to first of all listen to those who have seen, experienced, the horrors of war. Vietnam, 1966 When there’s nothing but horror and suffering and people being killed, a lot of innocent people being killed and our own people being killed, and the other people being killed, then you balance your perspective. BRADSHAW: As America builds up its forces, the Senator is also worried by the economic cost of war. The President’s former economic advisor has estimated the overall cost could be as much as 1-200 billion dollars. In Britain estimates also run into billions of pounds. The Chancellor has already put aside one million pounds for extra military spending alone. HAGEL: Certainly it will be costly if we go to war. Certainly the unknowns of what if those oil fields in Iraq go down? What if we have other surrounding oil producing countries in the Middle East are affected? What if terrorism strikes at some of those countries, some of their oil capacity goes down? That would have a disastrous effect on the world economy. BRADSHAW: But war could mean recession. HAGEL: War could mean a recession, sure. I mean again it’s the unintended consequences, the unknowns, we don’t know. BRADSHAW: With a clear United Nations resolution for military action the senator might be a back wall, but he’d be reluctant to support a decision to go it alone as George Bush and the British Government have indicated they might do if necessary. HAGEL: We don’t want to be there alone. We don’t want to isolate ourselves like we did in Vietnam. BRADSHAW: Coming from the same party as the President, the Senator normally sees eye to eye with George Bush. In principle he has no quarrel with the President’s new defence policy which permits pre-emptive strikes against perceived enemies that haven’t yet attacked. But the Senator is worried how the new policy could be interpreted. Senator CHUCK HAGEL Republican Foreign Relations Committee We’re fighting against a shadowy dark insidious evil called terrorism, so it is tougher. But at the same time we have to be careful here and be responsible as a great power that we don’t overplay that or unintentionally give the world a perception that we are now going to be the bullies of the world and we’ll take it upon ourselves to attack anyone that we believe could harm us. ROBERT BAER CIA Agent, 1976-97 We’re talking about pre-emptive war and that’s very dangerous because once you set those standards for pre-emptive war you have wars all across the world. Westminster, London [Stop the War demonstration] BRADSHAW: Mr Benn, BBC Panorama, we’re making a film about the case against war. I’d just like to ask you why you're here. TONY BENN Former Labour Cabinet Minister Well I’m here because if the war begins, President Bush and the Prime Minister will be taking decisions to kill women and children and thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis and it would be wrong. This is a question of right and wrong. BRADSHAW: Donning his robes for a sermon on weapons of mass destruction, he is perhaps the last senior churchman you would expect to oppose war with Iraq. The BISHOP He is the son of a brigadier and he was educated at the top officers college Sandhurst only to leave the army and join the church. The Bishop of Oxford has had a controversial record – not for opposing war but for backing it. Rt Rev RICHARD HARRIES Bishop of Oxford I’m not a pacifist and with much moral fear and spiritual trembling I even supported a policy of nuclear deterrence at the height of the Cold War. I supported the action to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, I supported the military action in Afghanistan. I do believe that force does have to be used on occasions in order to maintain international stability, order and justice, but on this occasion I can’t support military action on the evidence at present available to us because I simply don’t think the traditional ‘just war’ criteria have been met. BRADSHAW: Just war, the age old Christian tradition, it allows believers to fight with a clear conscience. The Bishop has made a special study of ‘just war’. He says it must be fought for a good reason, and the evil it prevents must outweigh the evil it causes. Not every Christian would agree with the Bishop how that applies to Iraq, Tony Blair for one. But the Bishop believes that as things stand, war with Iraq would not be just. HARRIES: In order for a war to count as just, there must be a just cause, and it would be a just cause if the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was immediate and serious, but the threat is not immediate and serious. He is a long-term worry, but the policy of containment and deterrence has worked for the last ten years, nothing new has come on the scene to force us to cross this terrible threshold of a war. BRADSHAW: The Bishop may believe in containment but President Bush says that’s not led to compliance. Iraq is still developing weapons of mass destruction. The Bishop though, points out that most mainstream Christian churches in the US and UK back his view. HARRIES: We have the extraordinary situation that at the moment the national church, the established church, the Church of England, is predominantly opposed to military action, so is the Roman Catholic Church, so are the other churches, and in the United States there’s this unusual coalition of all of us believe that this war is both mistaken and immoral, and that has not happened in my lifetime. BRADSHAW: What the Bishop fears is suffering in Iraq and unrest in Britain. He’s concerned about reaction in other faith communities in Britain, other religions including Islam, the religion of most people in Iraq. HARRIES: I’m certainly concerned about the possibility of communal strike in cities where there are significant Moslem communities, but my concern is also that there could be a much broader division in this country. [News footage] Cairo 1954. Egyptians hear Colonel Nasser speaking of a future Arab Empire. BRADSHAW: Back in the 50s the British faced another Arab leader, Colonel Nasser who nationalised the western owned Suez Canal. Suez Canal, 1956 Britain was divided over plans to recover the canal. Opinion poll showed only a minority, about a third, supported military action. Today less than half support war with Saddam. In Egypt the troops went in anyway but the mission ended in failure and national humiliation. Rt Rev RICHARD HARRIES Bishop of Oxford It was bad enough over Suez all those years ago. I think that if there was military action now the country would be even more divided and I think the cabinet would be divided, Parliament would be divided, the churches would certainly be opposed to it, and I think it would be a very, very serious situation in this country. Edinburgh [Stop the War marchers] BRADSHAW: 168,000 square miles of Iraq to search for deadly weapons labs that could be hidden in a truck. The inspectors showing they can even check Saddam’s cupboards. If these sometimes quixotic seeming inspections fail, or if Saddam’s weapons dossier proves flawed, we could be on the edge of war, and if we are, well it wont be the inspectors who are in a fix but the politicians. The opposition to a war to disarm Saddam is not just coming from the usual suspects. Maj Gen PATRICK CORDINGLEY This is not appeasement. What I’m saying very clearly is that if we go to war a lot of Iraqi soldiers and civilians will probably die. We’ve got to make absolutely certain that it is necessary to do that, that some material breach of the resolution has taken place and there is no other option. JESSICA STERN National Security Council, 1994-95 It’s very important in thinking about whether to go to war to consider the cost and benefits. The benefits seem quite clear, the costs are really frightening. _________ Let us have your thoughts on the pros and cons of going to war. You can watch Panorama’s coverage of Iraq by visiting our website: www.bbc.co.uk/panorama Panorama returns in the New Year. If there are stories or issues you would like us to investigate, send us an email CREDITS Reporter Steve Bradshaw Film Camera Colin Angel Kerry Meyer John Morris Mike Spooner Sound Recordists Ashok Kumar Tony Pasfield VT Editor Boyd Nagle Dubbing Mixer Andrew Sears Production Co-ordinator Rosa Rudnicka Production Assistant Emma Shaw Film Research Kate Redman Research Amanda Vaughan-Barratt Music Adviser Maria Nolan Web Producer Adam Flinter Graphic Design Julie Tritton Key Yip Lam Production Manager Helen Cooper Unit Manager Laura Govett Film Editor Bob Hayward Assistant Producers James Giles Richard Grange Producer Mike Rudin Deputy Editors Andrew Bell Sam Collyns Editor Mike Robinson 15 _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________ Transcribed by 1-Stop Express Services, London W2 1JG Tel: 020 7724 7953 E-mail onestopexpress@hotmail.com