10 Questions for the Minister of Defense

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday March 12, 2003 12:57 by anon

From a letter sent to Bertie Ahern and the Minister of Defense from the people of the town of Thurles, county Tipperary.

1 if the granting of military landing rights at shannon airport this year was necessary to maintain employment - does this mean that there will be job losses next year if a new war cannot be found ?

2 is ireland thus now in a situation where employment in the mid west region is dependent on the plans of the generals in the pentagon ?

3 united nations reports estimate that up to 500,000 innocent iraqis will die in the event of war. about 90,000 people in ireland are employed by u.s. companies - are the minister and the government saying that it is acceptable to permit five or six iraqis, including many children, to perish in order to maintain each irish job ?

4 the minister and the government have found the money to pay the fees for overflights by u. s. military aircraft to the irish aviation authority. is subsidising the $360 billion u. s. defence budget a higher priority than helping those in need in our own country, such as those seeking medical cards or awaiting operations ?

5 the minister and the government have often lectured the i. r. a. and other groups on the "futility of violence" and stated that "no cause is worth the shedding of innocent blood." how is this consistent with supporting the u. s. war effort - or do the government now believe that the i. r. a. were right all along ?

6 if it is right, now, to provide facilities for the u. s. military on the way to remove a dictator ( who is not even occupying another country and who does not have concentration camps) - was eamonn de valera wrong to refuse facilities to the united states and britain during the second world war ?

7 are the decisions of the government in these matters being influenced by the large amounts of political funding received by the governing fianna fail party from various interests in the u. s. - and is this not another form of dependency ?

8 does the minister accept that when saddam hussein and the united states were allies in the 1980s the then fianna fail government had no problem with saddam's weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons of the type that killed 4,000 kurdish iraqi citizens in march 1988 ?

9 does the minister accept that immediately following the above massacre, the fianna fail cabinet secretly increased the amount of the export credits available to saddam hussein without informing the dail, in order to support the u. s. policy in the region ?

10 what are the minister's views on the very friendly letter written to saddam hussein in 1989 by the minister's then boss, taoiseach c. j. haughey, in which mr. haughey stated that he was - "very pleased that the friendly and sympathetic relations between our two countries continue to develop and to take on more substance in areas such as cooperation in the field of health care, and that some irish economic interests have been able to contribute to what iraq has achieved in the economic and social fields under your guidance."