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FULL TEXT: Tony Blair's Speech to the TUC
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
(16:07)
British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Speech to the Trades Union Congress (TUC)

Monday September 9, 9:37 AM
Prime Minister Tony Blair is set for a bruising encounter with his ruling Labour Party's traditional paymasters when he addresses the Trades Union Congress this week. Tensions are running high with rank-and-file union members over the prospects of war with Iraq and Blair's perceived bias towards big business. Blair is shown arriving at the TUC annual conference in Brighton on September 11, 2001. He later cancelled a speech to members after news broke of the first hijacked plane slamming into New York's World Trade Centre.
Image Credit: Kieran Doherty -- Reuters.

“I believe it is right to deal with Saddam through the United Nations. After all, it is the will of the UN he is flouting. He, not me or George Bush, is in breach of UN Resolutions. If the challenge to us is to work with the UN, we will respond to it. But if we do so, then the challenge to all in the UN is this: the UN must be the way to resolve the threat from Saddam not avoid it. Let it be clear that he must be disarmed. Let it be clear that there can be no more conditions, no more games, no more prevaricating, no more undermining of the UN’s authority. And let it be clear that should the will of the UN be ignored, action will follow.”

BLACKPOOL
In a speech to the TUC Conference, the Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Iraq under Saddam Hussein is 'unrivalled as the world's worst regime: brutal, dictatorial, with a wretched human rights record'. Mr Blair stressed that Parliament will be consulted and will have the fullest opportunity to debate the matter.

Read the Prime Minister's remarks on Iraq below:

"Tomorrow, September 11, is the anniversary of the worst terrorist act in history. Let us today, once again, remember and mourn the dead. Let us give thanks to the fire fighters, the police, the ambulance and medical services, the ordinary citizens of New York. Their courage was the best answer to the terrorists' cruelty. Terrorists can kill and maim the innocent, but they have not won and they never will.

"We should never forget the role played by trade unions in the struggle for justice. Today we welcome Wellington Chibebe of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Your opposition to the regime of Mugabe is the ultimate riposte to his fraudulent nonsense about fighting colonialism. People here, including myself, fought the detestable apartheid system of South Africa and we know the difference between the cause of freedom and a leader abusing that cause to conceal incompetence and corruption on a catastrophic scale.

"We welcome, too, the Colombian CUT's Hector Fajardo. Your nation is fighting the ugly scourge of narco-terrorism, in which the drugs trade and terror destroy the life chances of a country. You have our solidarity in that struggle.

"Thank you also to the trade unions of Northern Ireland - who, throughout the worst and even at the best, are symbols of the non-sectarian future that Northern Ireland needs.

"Around the rest of world too, trade unions are at the forefront of campaigns to end child labour, to remove discrimination, to bring democracy in place of dictatorship.

"On September 11 last year, with the world still reeling from the shock of events, it came together to demand action. But suppose I had come last year on the same day as this year - 10 September. Suppose I had said to you: there is a terrorist network called Al Qaida. It operates out of Afghanistan. It has carried out several attacks and we believe it is planning more. It has been condemned by the UN in the strongest terms. Unless it is stopped, the threat will grow. And so I want to take action to prevent that.

"Your response and probably that of most people would have been very similar to the response of some of you yesterday on Iraq.

"There would have been few takers for dealing with it and probably none for taking military action of any description.

"So let me tell you why I say Saddam Hussein is a threat that has to be dealt with."
(More: Number-10.gov News Source)
2002 © 10 Downing Street Newsroom.

Dan