With a George Bush back in the White House, and Saddam Hussein still in power in Baghdad, it is hard to believe that 10 years have passed since the start of the Gulf War. The anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, nevertheless, will undoubtedly prompt a general reappraisal of the relationship between the Western democracies and a regime which, in spite of stiff opposition, probably still deserves to be called the nastiest in the world.
Already, in Ireland, there are signs of a push to re-establish the economic and political links with Iraq which were severed by the invasion of Kuwait and the sudden transformation of a perfectly acceptable trading partner into a pariah. The point of this column is to suggest that, before that happens, a lot of questions need to be answered.
With the passage of time, and the overwhelming evidence of the disastrous effects of UN sanctions on the Iraqi people, there has been a marked shift in public sympathies since the gung-ho days of 1991. Most people now realise that the first and worst victims of the Baghdad regime are the Iraqis themselves. In the face of UN sanctions, moreover, Saddam has taken his people hostage. He is like a thug who puts a gun to the head of a child and says: "Back off or I shoot the kid."
In the light of this terrible failure of policy and morality, it is right and proper that Irish politicians should involve themselves with the plight of the Iraqi people. Fianna Fail, in particular, has been especially active on the Iraqi issue of late, and I have no doubt that in this regard the motivation of senior figures like David Andrews is purely humanitarian. The problem, though, is that these decent impulses have to be disentangled from a web of political and economic interests.
THE plain fact is that there has been, since the late 1970s, an extraordinarily close relationship between Fianna Fail and the Iraqi regime. The relationship is both public and private. At an official level, the State became entangled with Saddam by providing massive support for exports, particularly of beef, to Iraqi state companies. At a private level, and perhaps coincidentally, each of Bertie Ahern's two immediate predecessors as leader of Fianna Fail has had substantial financial connections to the Iraqi state.
We know from the Moriarty tribunal that in October 1979, shortly before he replaced Jack Lynch as Taoiseach, Charles Haughey offered his bankers, Allied Irish Bank, a deposit of £10 million from the Iraqi Rafidain Bank. Rafidain is a commercial bank wholly owned by the Republic of Iraq. The Central Bank of Iraq controls all its transactions and that is controlled by Saddam Hussein.
Albert Reynolds, on the other hand, has made no effort to conceal his entirely legitimate business interests in Iraq. When Mr Reynolds became chairman of oil company Bula Resources, the company pointed out that the ex-Taoiseach's contacts in Libya and Iraq would significantly enhance Bula's position. The extraordinary general meeting of Bula which approved Mr Reynolds's appointment as chairman was told that he was receiving 87.5 million penny shares under a once-off option scheme granted because of these Libyan and Iraqi contacts.
It is clear, moreover, that Mr Reynolds had a personal stake in Iraqi oil even before he took up this Bula position. A subsequent Bula a.g.m. was told that Mr Reynolds would receive a 3.75 per cent share in an oil development in the western desert of Iraq if Bula was granted a licence to drill by the Saddam Hussein regime. According to Mr Reynolds, this stake arose from an agreement with a consultant, Bill Griffin, which predated his appointment as chairman of Bula. Mr Griffin, a petroleum specialist who described himself as Bula's "main negotiator with the Arab countries", said he had given Mr Reynolds this personal stake in the oilfield concession because Mr Reynolds had called for UN sanctions against Iraq to be lifted.
Mr Reynolds also explained to the Bula a.g.m. in 1999 that the oilfield in question, Block 4, was "much sought after, a very good, highly-prospective block", but that its full development depended on a lifting of sanctions. He also stressed that he was not claiming any "extreme influence" with the regime.
There is clearly nothing underhand or unusual about Mr Reynolds's business interests in Iraq. They do illustrate, however, the extent to which humanitarian concerns about the effect of UN sanctions cannot be entirely disentangled from private business interests.
Some of Fianna Fail's support for Iraq, moreover, has gone well beyond a call for the lifting of sanctions to embrace what looks very like a justification for Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. Writing in The Irish Times last month, former minister for foreign affairs Mr Andrews told us that "Kuwait was an integral part of Iraq for about 3,000 years" and that it had provoked Iraq by "slant-drilling Iraqi oil in the border area" which he described as "theft by another name".
He also implied that these were not just private thoughts but "were of concern . . to the present Minister, Brian Cowen".
This borders dangerously on the appeasement of a vile regime. Until we know more, the distinction between solidarity with the suffering Iraqis and sucking up to their murderous oppressors will be less clear than it should be.
fotoole@irish-times.ie