SEANAD REPORT: The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt, stressed that the Iraqi people must be central to the future of Iraq.
"I fully concur that Iraq cannot become an oil well for the West," he said, in a special debate on the humanitarian consequences of the war.
Mr Kitt began his address to the House by informing members about reports of the bombing of a maternity hospital.
He said that over the last few days he had looked with growing concern at the scenes of food being thrown off the back of military trucks. "This seems to me to be an object lesson in how not to deliver humanitarian assistance. It has been said that a military truck does not become a humanitarian truck because it hands out food. I agree."
Throwing out bags of wheat from the back of a truck was no substitute for the painstaking efforts of NGOs and UN agencies in determining those who were most in need and delivering assistance on that basis.
The leader of the House, Mrs Mary O'Rourke, said what the Minister told them of the reported bombing of the maternity facility was something that they needed to reflect on. "Women giving new life, and the life being stripped away from them as soon as they give it."
On the need for humanitarian aid in Iraq, Mrs O'Rourke said she found it obscene that military lorries were bringing both death and food at the same time. "They are throwing out stuff as if they were the lord protectors."
Mr David Norris (Ind) said the current war was a "filthy" affair. Referring to the reported bombing of the maternity hospital, he asked: "Are we going to be told now that the babies in their incubators bombed themselves?" That was the kind of thing the Americans had been saying. Those who had brought war to Iraq had spoken of freeing its people. "Can you liberated against your will? It's a complete and utter nonsense. This is a rape. Let us spell it out as it is."
Mr Paul Bradford (FG) said they must demand that the resources of Iraq be used for the benefit of its people and that it would not be just an oil well for the West at the end of the hostilities.
Mr Brendan Ryan (Lab) said that if the Government was genuinely concerned about humanitarian issues, it should make clear its view that the best way to alleviate the suffering was to have the war stopped now.
Dr Mary Henry (Ind) said that unless anthrax agents were found in Iraq by the ton, she would not believe that they had been there.
Mr John Minihan (PD) said that the allied forces had shown restraint. If they were to unleash all the power that was available to them there would be far more casualties and the war would be over far more quickly.