Iraq war would give the U.S. “better access to and more control over the oilfields and oil distribution in the Middle East and Central Asia,” averred Bommel (L)

Additional reporting by Khaled Shawkat, IOL Correspondent

THE HAGUE, March 14 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - In a parliamentary session on Wednesday, March 12, Harry van Bommel, spokesman for the nine-member parliamentary group of the Dutch Socialist Party (SP), questioned the government’s position vis-à-vis daylight American bribery to non-permanent Security Council members to support its new draft resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq.

Bommel, a staunch anti-war campaigner, urged the Dutch government not to turn a blind eye to Washington’s brazen attempts to buy the votes of countries like Pakistan, Guinea and Cameron.

Washington is bluntly offering billions of dollars in assistance to Turkey to allow the deployment of U.S. troops and the use of Turkish territories in striking neighboring Iraq, said the Dutch lawmaker.

Bommel exhorted his government to reconsider its bias towards Washington and to join the peace campaign championed by Paris, Berlin and several other European countries.

In 2002, the government of the Christian Democrats (CDA) rushed to argue that the United States was not in need of any new U.N. resolution to unleash war on Iraq.

It also agreed to sending Patriot missiles batteries to Turkey, a move slammed by the opposition as a pre-mature announcement of participation in the looming U.S.-led war.

SP leaders have been steering almost daily protests in several Dutch towns against the military facilities accorded to Washington and the looming U.S.-led aggression on Iraq.

On February 15, the capital Amsterdam witnessed the biggest ever demonstration of more than 80,000 people who protested the American war plans.

In December 2000, Bommel took part in an international humanitarian mission that visited Baghdad to protest the long-running sanction against Iraq.

In an earlier interview with the www.spectrezine.org, Bommel underlined that “no matter how evil (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s) regime is, an attack on his country is an irresponsible violation of the international legal order and an immense hazard to world peace.”

“An attack on Iraq will probably demand thousands of innocent civilian lives. Bombings as well as ground battles will create many innocent victims,” he cautioned.

“The fact that civilian victims are referred to as collateral damage is a sickening attempt to disguise the criminal nature of the operation,” asserted the Dutch lawmaker.

“The United States is preparing an attack that has no legal basis – as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself says,” he charged.

“An attack on Iraq would also constitute a serious threat to the United Nations. If the U.N. can be brushed aside as irrelevant, we might as well abolish the organization altogether, allowing the stronger countries of the world to do as they please,” he added.

Lambasting his government unwavering support for the American war schemes, Bommel stressed “the fact that the Dutch government calls this irrelevant is astounding, and should be perceived as unconstitutional, as our constitution dictates that the international legal order must be promoted,” he added.

“An armed conflict between Iraq and the U.S. is very likely to provoke a hazardous domino effect throughout the Middle East,” said the Dutch legislator, warning that “Israel will seize the opportunity to deal with the Palestinians,”

“The living conditions of millions of people will deteriorate and they will have even less freedom than before,” he noted.

Contemplating the repercussions of the looming war on Europe itself, Bommel underlined that “social cohesion in E.U. member states will deteriorate if European governments decide to support the war either morally or militarily.

“The idea that the Western world is at war with Islam will spread wider and wider,” he cautioned.

Unmasking the real American motives, the lawmaker said “an attack on Iraq would benefit only the United States, providing them with better access to and more control over the oilfields and oil distribution in the Middle East and Central Asia.

“The interests of the Iraqi people are nothing more than an argument meant to cloak the real reasons of the intended operation.”

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