Transcripts of speeches, Hyde Park, 28th September 2002.

John Pilger

I was just asked by somebody from the BBC ‘Didn’t I think that the people of this country were really suffering from compassion fatigue?’ and I said ‘this is your answer; 350,000 to 400,000 people suffering from compassion fatigue like hell’. It’s a great privilege to be here. I think that today may well be the beginning of true democracy in this new century. Democracy is not a game played in an institution that rubber stamps a government. Democracy is not one obsessed man using the power of kings to attack another country in our name. Democracy is not siding with Ariel Sharon – a war criminal – in order to crush the Palestinians. Democracy is this great event today representing the majority of the people of Great Britain. Now I’ve been to Iraq and I’ve been recently to Palestine and I’ve seen the suffering in those countries – children dying in cancer wards in southern Iraq, dying because their country is denied the equipment to fight their cancer and to clean up battlefields contaminated by depleted uranium – a weapon of mass destruction used by the United States and Britain 12 years ago. Let me quote 2 American scholars John and Carl Mueller who have examined objectively all the statistics of suffering in Iraq since the embargo was imposed 12 years ago. They conclude, and I quote ‘economic sanctions have probably taken the lives of more people in Iraq than have been killed by all weapons of mass destruction in history’. That research appeared not in a campaign pamphlet but in the American establishment journal Foreign Affairs. It’s a truth that many of my fellow journalists and broadcasters ignore or whisper because they know what it means. It means that a great crime against Iraq has already been committed in our name. And if they are honest with themselves they will know that the flattery of these imperial politicians has to stop and the truth has to be told. Half the population of Iraq are children. Consider what will happen to them when the cluster bombs fall and the depleted uranium is used, as it will be. You know, we speak only of murder when some tragic and hideous event happens in familiar circumstances. But there is no difference, let me assure you between murder committed here and murder committed by our government and its Allies in Iraq and in Palestine. This is not rhetoric and its time our public language was freed of its double standards. If they attack Iraq, Bush and Blair will be international criminals. They must be stopped because other countries will be next; Iran, North Korea, perhaps even eventually China. What is so exciting about today and all the other demonstrations and meetings that are happening all over Britain is that they represent the true moral mainstream of political life in this country. Today a taboo has been broken – we are the moderates . Bush and Blair are the extremists. The danger for all of us lies not in Baghdad but in Washington. Only one country has used a nuclear weapon against civilians, only one country has threatened to use nuclear weapons in South East Asia and the Middle East, only one country has torn up all the treaties that were forged over years to prevent this happening, only one country is developing nuclear weapons for pre-emptive use and that country is the United States. Tony Blair belongs to George W. Bush and not to us. If he joins the attack on Iraq he will kill untold numbers of innocent people and he will promote the kind of terrorism that endangers the lives of all of us. Is that we they call patriotism?
Blair and Bush are the true enemy within. I believe we have no choice now: our resistance to their murderous plans must be unrelenting.

Scott Ritter (Former Major in US Marine Corps & former UN Weapons Inspector)

First of all I want to commend you all for being here today. We are on the verge of engaging in a military action against Iraq. And the President of the United States has war plans on his desks that speak of sending between 100,000 and 200,000 American troops off to fight, kill and be killed in Iraq. And yet here today we have a crowd four times that size – an army of peace, democracies, divisions, waging peace, rejecting war. Thankyou for being here. Now people have asked me ‘Why am I here?’ and the answer is simple ‘I am an American’ and ‘I stand for what America stands for, America is a nation of laws, laws which are set forth in the constitution which founded my great country and I reject the policies that George W.Bush is pursuing, wholeheartedly. Now what purpose do I see by being here today? I would like to send two messages. Two messages. The first message is to Prime Minister Tony Blair in response to his dossier regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Mr Blair, I too share your concern about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction because I know more than you about what Iraq had and what had been accomplished in the field of disarmament. I know that while we did not account for everything in regard to Iraq’s weapons and there are still things to be done in the field of disarmament that weapons inspections do work, can work and will work if allowed to go back into Iraq unfettered by the manipulation of the United States and Great Britain. I do know that there is a job to be done, I am not giving Iraq a clean bill of health. They have not yet earned it, they must do so and they say they will hold themselves fully accountable to the rule set forth in the Security Council and I for one am in favour of making Saddam keep his promise. But we too have a promise we must keep; a promise of running a clean investigation free of the corruption of American influence that seeks to remove Saddam Hussein not to disarm Saddam Hussein. So Mr Blair, while I commend you for publishing this document and reinforcing the concerns that I and others have over unresolved issues I say this to you: this document is not a case for war, does not make the case for war, this document is not worth one drop of blood from an American soldier, a British soldier or an Iraqi civilian.
That is my message to Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government.
Now I have a second message to President George W. Bush. But first of all I have to say something. For those of you out there who are leading the chants of ‘Down, down USA’, Shame on you, shame on you! This is an argument between you and the administration of George W Bush and not between you and the American people. The American people are a law abiding people, the American people are a good people and the American people can be your ally, if you let them. The first thing that has to occur is that you have to motivate the people of America and you are doing so with this demonstration of democracy, you need to empower the American people to confront the policies of George W Bush because the policies of George W Bush are inherently un-American. We have a saying in the United States, it’s a saying which says ‘friends don’t let friends drive drunk’. Ladies and Gentlemen we have an alcoholic at the wheel of American foreign policy in George W Bush and we the people of the United States of America need your assistance to reach in, grab the keys from the ignition and say ‘No! we will not allow you to drive the vehicle of international peace and security over the cliff of war’.