'This House believes only another dictator can end the violence in Iraq'

• Introduction
• Sabah Al-Mukhtar
• Adnan Pachachi
• Robert Baer
• George Galloway
• Audience
• Vote Result

TIM SEBASTIAN
Ladies and gentlemen, a very good evening to you and welcome to this, the latest in our series of Doha Debates sponsored by the Qatar Foundation.  The killing goes on in Iraq province after province, street by street.  Whichever way you look, the violence is out of control.  President Bush says it's a war against terrorism.  Its critics say there wasn't any, at least in Iraq, before he invaded. So what does it take to stop this mayhem when the most powerful army in the world has so far failed - which brings us to our motion tonight, 'This House believes that only a new dictator can end the violence in Iraq.' Speaking for the motion, Sabah Al-Mukhtar, an Iraqi lawyer and President of the Arab Lawyers' Association.  He's a member of the Iraqi Bar Association and co-authors the Arab and Islamic Law Year Book.  With him Robert Baer, a former CIA officer who spent 20 years in the Middle East and operated in Iraq during the abortive uprising in 1995.  He's since emerged from the shadows to become a frequent commentator on security matters.  He was also the consultant on the recent film Syriana which mirrored some of his previous exploits.  Against the motion, Adnan Pachachi, well-known as the former President of the Iraqi Governing Council, formed after the 2003 American-led invasion.  A year later, he was offered the post of President in the interim government, but turned it down.  Also against the motion, George Galloway, expelled from the British Labour Party for his opposition to the war in Iraq.  He's now the sole Member of Parliament for the party he founded called Respect, but he plans to leave Parliament at the next election, although he promises to continue his highly vocal and controversial appearances.  Ladies and gentlemen, our panel.

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TIM SEBASTIAN
Now let me call first on Sabah Al-Mukhtar to speak for the motion.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Thank you. We're discussing the way forward in occupied territories of Iraq, which is a war of liberation there. There's no democracy in Iraq now, there was none before the occupation. Democracy is a system of management which comes into play when there is a functioning state; that means to be managed. There is no sovereign state of Iraq at the present moment to manage. There can never be democracy in a state of war or national emergency and certainly not in a situation where there is an occupation and liberation. We have a vivid example in the United States of America after 9/11, when all, almost all rights of the citizens were suspended. We had the Patriot Act, when all the other things were suspended, most of the democratic process in that country. The pretence that democracy is a must at all times and in all places is totally a nonsensical exercise. States cannot be built by democracy. States are built by a group or one - one or more to lead, to build a state, and Iraq is in a situation where it needs to be built after the occupation. All creative ideas come through diktats, religion, politics. Every one of these ideas started by one or more, but certainly it wasn't the consensus of everybody. The war of liberation in Iraq by its nature is not a democratic process. It cannot be. We cannot talk of democracy when there is occupation. Democracy is a very good thing to have but you cannot import democracy, nor can you impose it from the outside. Democracy requires the rule of the majority of the free, not the people who are under occupation. It's for these reasons I move that Iraq in the present circumstances needs a dictatorship, to be rebuilt. Thank you.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Sabah Al-Mukhtar, thank you very much indeed. You're a lawyer so presumably you care about the rule of law, and when things get tough, you want to chuck the laws away. Explain that, will you?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Well, this is the nature of things.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Who says it's the nature of things? You say it's the nature of things.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Yes. When you look at the trial of Saddam Hussein, when you look at the rule of law in the USA, when you look at the rule on terror as it's called everywhere.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You said after 9/11 that democracy was effectively suspended.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Of course.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Of course?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Of course it was.
TIM SEBASTIAN
So justice was no longer practised in the courts, people no longer had representatives to represent their views in Congress? The daily practice of democracy was suspended in the United States? That would be a news story.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
You are falling into the trap of the Arabs, of thinking black and white. It's either 100% there is no rule of law ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
This is a pretty black-and-white motion.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
No, no, no.
TIM SEBASTIAN
'Only a new dictator can end the violence in Iraq.'
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
You cannot have a half-pregnant woman. Either she's pregnant or she's not. Either you have democracy or you don't have democracy, that is the situation.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Oh, it's different in all countries, that's disingenuous. It's different in all countries and you know it.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
No, it isn't, no, it isn't.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You decide what's democracy these days, you decide when a country is free? I think America would be pretty surprised to hear that due law and all rights were suspended.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
The rule of law and the rule of majority is a concept which percolates through all systems. Nevertheless, in building nations you cannot have a democratic election. You can have leadership, whether it's one or more. However, even if they are called a council, a governor council, council of governors, Dr. Pachachi is one of the people who knows how to do these things ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
You had an election for the dictatorship in Chile in 1988 and Pinochet handed over to his elected representative.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Yes, Saddam Hussein had elections and the Americans have elections. The Americans had an election in Iraq and we all know what happened. Half of those who were elected or a lot of those who were elected are not even nationals of that country.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Sabah Al-Mukhtar, thank you very much indeed. Now let me ask Adnan Pachachi please to speak against the motion.

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TIM SEBASTIAN
Now let me please call on Adnan Pachachi to speak against the motion.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Thank you. I must presume that this is not a debate about abstract theories, but about the hard facts of the current situation in Iraq. Practical measures are required and not wishful thinking with fantasies about dictators and strong men. The people of Iraq have endured over the years every kind of dictatorship and absolutism. I know, I was there. Now they have had enough, and I assure you they have no stomach for yet another dictatorship. But implicit in the call for a strong man is the belief or the notion that the Iraqis are somehow condemned by fate to live either in chaos and anarchy or in slavery under a totalitarian dictatorship. In any case, it is no longer possible for anyone at present to seize power by force, because no such Iraqi force exists in Iraq, the country. The Iraqi forces have been heavily infiltrated by militias and other armed groups, and their loyalties are hopelessly divided, so only the Americans have the forces to install a dictator and keep him in power indefinitely. But this will not happen, because the American people are against further and deeper involvement in Iraq, but especially the Iraqi people on their part, in spite of their yearning for peace and stability, would not tolerate a ruler imposed on them by a foreign power. So democracy is our only hopeful salvation. Contrary to what some people think, democracy has not failed in Iraq. The sectarian violence raging in the country came as a result of a distortion of democratic principles, by the decision of the occupying powers to establish a political system based on sectarian divisions, but I believe there is hope to reverse these trends and return to the secularism under which the people of Iraq prospered and lived in peace and harmony for generations. One encouraging sign is the fact that the vast majority of Iraqis, irrespective of their ethnic origins, religious beliefs or confessional affiliations have nothing to do with the violence, which is the work of armed groups, partly equipped and funded from outside and partly from their own extortionist activities. These militias and armed groups rarely if ever fight against each other, but they commit atrocities against the civilian population of all sects and religions.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Could I ask you to wind up shortly?
ADNAN PACHACHI
Yes. But change will have to come by democratic means, through the electoral ballot. I hope that the next elections in about 3 years' time will bring about a fundamental change. If not, we have to try again and again, because democracy, with all its imperfections and its cumbersome inefficiency, is preferable to the rule of despots who mortgage the future of their people and subordinate the interests of the country to their ambitions. Thank you.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Adnan Pachachi, thank you very much indeed. You say democracy hasn't failed. Shortly before we came into the studio here, an American commander in Iraq, Admiral William Fallon, was asked about democracy emerging from the kind of violence that takes place on a daily basis in Iraq, and he replied, 'It would be wise to temper our expectations'. In other words, it's over.
ADNAN PACHACHI
No, I don't think it's over. I think it has had its difficulties.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Difficulties? There is blood running in the streets.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Yes, but democracy has nothing to do with the blood.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But the blood is preventing democracy from taking place, isn't it?
ADNAN PACHACHI
Yes.
TIM SEBASTIAN
What does democracy mean when you have militias ruling the streets, when you're in fear of your life, when 20% of the population is either dead or on the move?
ADNAN PACHACHI
The fact that there are militias ruling the street is not because of democracy but in spite of it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Yes, well you can't have a democracy when they do, can you?
ADNAN PACHACHI
Yes, but you have, that's why ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
So the democracy is meaningless?
ADNAN PACHACHI
...the most important thing is really to confront these militias and armed groups.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Who's confronting them? When the American commander is implying heavily that it's all over and that even they have to temper their expectations.
ADNAN PACHACHI
In normal circumstances, the forces of the state will confront these criminal elements, but these forces, as I said, unfortunately have been infiltrated by those elements themselves. Therefore top priority in Iraq really is the reorganisation of the armed forces and the security forces.
TIM SEBASTIAN
It may the top priority but it's not happening, is it? People have been saying the same thing for the last three years, 'This is the top priority,' but this has not happened.
ADNAN PACHACHI
But we have the priority, we have to try to do it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You say Iraqi people have had enough of dictators. Haven't they had enough of the situation that's going on now?
ADNAN PACHACHI
But there is no other alternative. We can't just give up, we can't give up.
TIM SEBASTIAN
The alternative is a strong man, isn't it?
ADNAN PACHACHI
No. As I said, a strong man, we had experience of strong men for many, many years and they are all dismal failures.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Adnan Pachachi, thank you very much indeed. Now, can I ask please Robert Baer to speak for the motion.

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TIM SEBASTIAN
Now let me call please on Robert Baer to speak for the motion.
ROBERT BAER
I support the motion fully that Iraq needs to return to a dictatorship, a benign dictatorship, but nonetheless a dictatorship. I need to explain first of all that I was a participant in this fiasco which is now Iraq. I was in the mid-90's CIA Chief of Station in Northern Iraq and we were examining under what conditions we could remove Saddam Hussein without an invasion. We looked at how Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq. We went down to the very companies, battalions, the Republican Guards, we talked to the Shia, we talked to everybody, and what was clear was that Saddam Hussein held Iraq together by force, namely T72 tanks, MI 24 helicopters, and the Muhabarat. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't pleasant. We know more about Saddam than anybody would ever want to know, his brutality, but that was the nature of Iraq. In 1995, March 4th, 10 o'clock, we were supposed to launch a coup against Saddam which included five military generals and officers, and our plan was to leave the military in power, the Sunni minority, 20% of Iraq, and let Iraq return to a rule of law in democracy gradually. In the US government, I can only speak for US government then, we looked at Iraq as a shattered country. Look at the dates, 1258, Mongol invasion. A second one, 1401, immediately followed in the 16th century by the Ottomans. Then you had the Ottoman/ Persian wars that went on. Iraq was a shattered country which was held together by force. It was also a country prey to foreign interference, namely Iran. In the 60's and 70's, the CIA and the Shah attempted to get rid of Saddam using the Kurds. The Kurds at that point - I will be very politically incorrect here- stopped being Iraqis because they sided with Iran. We now have a government in Baghdad. Most of the members were on Iranian payroll at one time or another. This is not the time for an American occupation and a British occupation to impose a democracy, because any person we put in or government will look as a foreign government, it will be the continued interference in Iraqi history that goes back to 1258, the Mongol invasion. We need a general in Iraq who can follow the rule of law but act rationally.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Robert Baer, thank you very much. 8 million Iraqis risked death, intimidation, threats to vote in elections. You now want to tell them it was all a waste of time and forget it. You think they would let you do that?
ROBERT BAER
You look at the violence in Iraq. We're talking about 25% of the population is displaced or in exile, because right now Iraq ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
You think those 8 million people wouldn't want to vote again? The first free elections in 50 years?
ROBERT BAER
They're going to have to wait, because right now they do not want to live with each other. The Shias, the Sunnis, the Turkmen, the Kurds, they are not prepared to live with each other, let alone move into a democracy.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And yet 65% of the country thinks it's going in the right direction.
ROBERT BAER
That's going in the right direction because they're dividing, they're partitioning, but if we want to hold Iraq together, you have to suspend democracy, for how many years I can't tell you, but you must suspend it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Those 8 million don't want that, do they?
ROBERT BAER
We don't know. We don't know that the Shia are not voting in effect for a Shia state. You look at what happened in Najaf this weekend. These people, they're committed to their sect. They are voting for their sect. If you're Shia and you all of a sudden have been offered Baghdad, the city that you've been excluded from since AD 680, from the murder of the Prophet's grandson, of course you're going to vote, yes, I want this, the Shia want this, but it's not going to add or contribute to a united Iraq.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Countries emerge from civil wars and have democracies in the end. Why not this one?
ROBERT BAER
Look at Bosnia, it never came back together, Yugoslavia.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Never? It's only 10, 12 years. It takes time.
ROBERT BAER
It's still divided.
TIM SEBASTIAN
It's an evolutionary process, democracy, isn't it? 8 million people, you really think you can ram the genie back in the bottle after that?
ROBERT BAER
In 1933 democracy voted in Adolf Hitler. It doesn't mean democracy is always right, and sometimes you have to suspend it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Robert Baer, thank you very much indeed. Now let me call please on George Galloway to speak against the motion.

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TIM SEBASTIAN
Now let me please ask George Galloway to speak against the motion.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Don't be confused by this fiendishly and typically British line-up and motion here this evening.  This is not a referendum between Saddam Hussein and the rancid, traitorous stooge puppet regime currently ruling inside the Green Zone in Baghdad.  This is a motion that's asking you to endorse a new dictatorship.  Dictatorship is the curse of the Arab world.  Dictatorship almost without exception from Marrakesh to Bahrain is the reason that the Arabs are divided and weak and the rulers and the big powers are stealing their wealth.  Dictatorship has been a complete disaster for the Arabs and you're being invited to endorse an additional dictatorship now.  If the Arabs were free, if the Arabs were living under democracy, there would be no American bases in any Arab country.  There would be no normalisation in any Arab country. That's the reason why the CIA man (pointing at Robert Baer) doesn't want democracy, he wants dictatorship, because if the people ruled in the Arab world, the policies of the governments they elected would be completely different.  Instead of investing 6 trillion Arab dollars in the American banks and stock exchange, Saudi Arabia would be investing the same 6 billion dollars in the Arab world, in the Muslim world.  Think what the Arabs would be if they were free, from the Atlantic to the Gulf, all these people, all this oil, all this gas, one God, one language, one culture, Shaab Arabi Wahad (one Arab people), that's what we need, one clear Arab people.  The idea that a dictator is going to solve the problem now that we have in Iraq, which dictator, which one, which of the gangs of New York that we placed in power in Baghdad is going to be the dictator?  Saddam Hussein cannot be dug up from the ground, it will not be him who will be the new dictator?  Who will it be?  You take your pick.  I don't fancy any of them myself.  My friend and my lawyer, Sabah Al-Mukhtar, made the point earlier, there is a war of liberation now in Iraq and I wholeheartedly support it, but it's not a war of liberation in order to install a new dictator.  It's a war of liberation surely so that Iraq can be free and sovereign and dignified, and the only way to do that is by making the agreements and the alliances and the social peace between the different trends in Iraq, and that cannot be done at the point of a gun or the point of a bayonet.  So, reject the idea that dictatorship is the way forward.  The Arabs unchained will have to be theArabs democratic.
TIM SEBASTIAN
George Galloway, thank you very much indeed. What would be so wrong with a little benign dictatorship? People like their rulers in this region.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
I'm not sure that they do. How do we know that they do?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Well, when Sheikh Zayed died in the UAE in 2004, there was an outpouring of tremendous grief. He was much loved by his population, ask anyone in the UAE.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
There is grief perhaps for the passing of iconic figures.
TIM SEBASTIAN
It was more than that.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Well, nobody ever tested that. If these rulers are so loved, why don't they put themselves in front of an election and let's see how loved they are. Hosni Mubarak got more votes in the election he described as the first free election. Even though he's been elected three times before, he got more votes in the first free election than in the three rigged elections. Who believes that? Nobody believes these rulers are really the choice of their people.
TIM SEBASTIAN
So your objection is to dictators in general or just in this region?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Well, dictators in general are a bad idea because they start off ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Like your friend Fidel Castro for instance?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
He's not a dictator.
TIM SEBASTIAN
He's not a dictator? Why isn't he a dictator?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Don't compare Fidel Castro to the rulers I'm talking about.
TIM SEBASTIAN
He runs what Human Rights Watch calls 'an undemocratic government that represses nearly all forms of political dissent.'
GEORGE GALLOWAY
I'll debate Cuba with you any time you like but I doubt if I've got enough time to do so now, but I'll make this point.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You think he's a democrat, do you?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
I'm flying this evening to Caracas, Venezuela ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
What's that got to do with this?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Everything. ... to speak at a rally at the weekend with the great Hugo Chavez and one of the reasons Hugo Chavez is great is because he was elected time after time after time despite the CIA, despite the American government.
TIM SEBASTIAN
We were talking about Castro a moment ago, but you changed the subject very quickly. What Human Rights Watch says, harassment, police warnings, surveillance, house arrest, that's all fine, that's democracy?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Fidel Castro is besieged by the biggest and most powerful country in the world.
TIM SEBASTIAN
We're not talking about what he's besieged by, we're talking about the way he runs his government.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Well, we are, well we are, because if a country's besieged and invaded and invaded by terrorists ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
You're a selective champion of democracy, George Galloway, you pick and choose.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
... no, no, 348 times they tried to assassinate Fidel.
TIM SEBASTIAN
That's got nothing to do with the way he runs his country.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
It has everything to do with it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Of course it doesn't. So you put your political opponents in jail?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Listen, when Hitler was at the Channel ports, ready to sail across the Channel, there was not much democracy or freedom of speech in London at the time.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Well there isn't much democracy in Cuba, is there?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
If America will take its guns away from the throat of the Cuban people, Cuba will be as free as Venezuela. You don't like it when they have free elections in Palestine and they elect Hamas.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You don't have anything good to say about the current government in Iraq, and you don't want a dictatorship. What is going to save the day in Iraq, let's hear that from you, apart from slogans?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
The liberation movement will have to be brought in to a national dialogue based ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Who's going to do that?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
... based on the withdrawal of the invader occupying forces from the country.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Who's going to do that?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
There is a plan. The resistance, the Iraqi resistance which every honourable and dignified Arab supports, every one, the resistance movement has a plan, it should be implemented.
TIM SEBASTIAN
The resistance movement is one movement? Come off it, George.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
The national resistance movement in Iraq has a peace plan based on the withdrawal of the invaders.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Which part of the resistance movement, which part?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
... based on the non-sectarian Arab nationalist resistance movement in Iraq which every honourable and dignified Arab supports, and they have a plan, it can be implemented, it has to be a national dialogue between all the sects, between all the nationalities and all the people of Iraq, unlike you, unlike that side of the argument.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, we'll come to that side of the argument.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
I have faith. I have faith in the Iraqi people.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Thank you, George Galloway. We're going to take some questions now from the audience.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Can I just say one word?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Say one word and then we're going to questions.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
George was trying to divert the attention. We are not talking about democracy in the Arab world, because we all want democracy, not the Americans, but we're talking about Iraq at the present time, whether you can get it out of the mayhem which it's in by democracy or by dictatorship, that's what we're discussing, not the Arab issue

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TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, that was more than one word. Let's go to the gentleman over there.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Good evening. My question is for you, Mr. Sabah. Don't you believe that among the 40 million Iraqis living in Iraq right now, there is one single Iraqi who can be a powerful president and believe in democracy for a better future in Iraq?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
I don't think there is one that the Iraqi people can agree on. They have never agreed. They don't even agree on Islam, they don't agree on Mohammed or God, so there is no one man. I'm talking about a dictatorship which could be a man or a group of men or an arrangement, but it is not this silly process of having boxes which are filled by papers coming from outside.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Then how would you feel if you were living under a dictator who would deny your basic rights, like you won't be a free person, you can't vote if you were living under a dictatorship. I mean, won't you feel bad about this, as a lawyer?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
You are absolutely right. I will be fighting against him. I'm talking about the process now in Iraq which is occupied. We're not talking about how you manage an ordinary country like from Morocco to the Gulf.
ADNAN PACHACHI
It's not what the motion says. The motion says, 'We need a dictatorship in Iraq.'
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
In Iraq, yes, at the present moment, that's the situation now.
ADNAN PACHACHI
A new dictator, you say now you want.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Yes, at the present moment.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Where is he, who is he?
TIM SEBASTIAN
(Addressing the questioner)You want to come back?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Yes. Last thing. The path to democracy in the Arab world has never been easy. It requires patience. Don't you believe in your countrymen? I mean, don't you have patience? It needs patience. You can't have democracy on a golden plate to be served to you. Everything needs time, especially democracy in Iraq. Why shouldn't Iraq be the first country to begin with and impose and implement democracy?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Oh, democracy is a beautiful thing to have but not in an occupied country. You have the Americans occupying it there now.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
You should have a bit more patience.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Oh, we have no problem with that. Once it's liberated, they must have democracy.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right. Let's have a question from the lady in the third row there.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Good evening. My question is for the motion. Ultimately a dictator has the same connotation, it has one definition. You just got rid of Saddam Hussein so the next dictator's going to be better? I mean, all dictators are the same at the end of the day, so what have you done if you've just gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and then put another dictator just to take his place?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Robert Baer.
ROBERT BAER
What you're going to do is keep people alive frankly, and to look at Iraq now where hundreds of thousands of people are being killed, and for us on the outside, sitting here and saying, 'Yeah, we'll be a little bit more patient, maybe we'll lose two million, three million in the name of democracy.' It's easy for us to say, but for the Iraqis being blown up by suicide bombers, people being shot, people starving, babies dying, democracy is irrelevant for them now. What we want is a rule of law with a tyrant behind it, and not necessarily a tyrant, tyrant's a bad word, but a military officer who's going to let people go to the market in the morning and the rest of it, and I fully agree that this cannot be imposed by the United States or any other country, but we do not have democracy in Iraq now, and we won't.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Lady in the front row.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Mr. Galloway, you said that the answer is the formation of one Shaab Arabi (one Arab people), but with so many conflicts within the Arab world itself, how do you suggest that these conflicting nations could put their differences aside and form this ideal shaab(people)?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
It's my argument that it's dictatorship which has created this situation. Sykes-Picot, in the building where I have sat for 20 years, with their pencils, invented all these mini countries and because in those days they chose corrupt kings now added to puppet presidents, to put in charge of these mini states, but I have travelled the Arab world over and over, from the Atlantic to the Gulf, and it is one people, with one language, believing in one God, and its potential ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
And fighting wars against each other?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Yes, because the dictators fight wars, and imperialist countries want them to fight wars. Why do they sell them weapons? Why did Saudi Arabia buy billions of pounds worth of weapons from Britain? Who are they going to fight? Are they going to fight Israel? No. The reason for the division is the dictatorships, and the key is democracy. If the Arab people were free, they would elect free governments that would govern their countries in the interests of their own people and not in the interests of the others.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, let's take a question from up there, gentleman up there.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
This question is for Mr. Baer. Is America using dictators in order to manipulate the Middle East? For example it put Saddam as a leader and then conducted a war to take him off.
ROBERT BAER
Oh, absolutely, there's no question. The dictators, a lot of people in the Middle East and the rest of the world were put in and sustained with American power. If you like, it's, 'We inherited the British Empire,' and didn't do as well frankly, but yes, we have contributed to it, we've contributed the dictators but we're not talking about an American dictator. We're talking about holding Iraq together as a country, because if Iraq falls apart, the chaos will migrate down the Gulf, especially if there's a war with Iran, which is going to be much worse than any semblance of democracy which we ....
TIM SEBASTIAN
Why? Why will the chaos multiply if it breaks apart?
ROBERT BAER
Bahrain. You've got problems there; people aren't happy. You've got Hezbollah. Isn't anybody looking at the conversion from Sunni Islam to Shia Islam after the war? Hezbollah is the only power, the only group that has forced the Israelis to give up land. We are talking about the sectarian division in the Middle East which right now shows no sign of getting worse, and you know, look, who is the most popular group in Lebanon? It's Hezbollah. You've got overwhelming number of Shia, Sunni and Christians supporting Hezbollah because it took on Israel, beat it in the field of battle, but how far is this going to go in undermining the Middle East?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Question from the gentleman over there please.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
My question is for Mr. Galloway. You mentioned democracy. Well, the example would be the US, so saying that people have democracy in the US, then what's going on with Guantanamo, why there are people there? They cannot speak to a lawyer, cannot have any connections with the outer world. This is one part. Another part, we're talking about the motion and the motion is about ending the violence, and do you think that democracy's going to end the violence, especially if democracy is led by the US?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Adnan Pachachi, let me bring you in here.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Well, you see, let me begin by saying this. We heard somebody saying maybe a benign dictator. My answer is how can you guarantee that he's going to remain benign? You know very well that dictators, that's what experience has shown, dictators cling to their power tenaciously and will not give it up voluntarily and they use every means at their disposal, every military means to stay in power, so you cannot really gamble that a dictator is benign and he's going to remain benign and will be completely free of personal issues.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
That doesn't answer my question. You talked about dictatorship. I was talking about democracy.
ADNAN PACHACHI
But I haven't finished.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
But it's not like, if we don't have democracy, then the answer would be dictatorship. What is it going to be if you have democracy in Iraq led by the US, having puppets as you guys were mentioning?
ADNAN PACHACHI
I think it's quite extraordinary, excuse me, that somehow it's all right for the United States to impose a dictator but it's not all right for them to encourage democracy. I think it's a rather flawed logic, if I may say so.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
If the Iraqi people are going to put a dictator in Iraq, that's democracy because they choose the person, not a person imposed by the US.
ADNAN PACHACHI
The Iraqi people will not choose a dictator.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Because they're divided and nobody can put them together except a dictator.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Excuse me. You said: can democracy end the violence? Yes, I think probably democracy has a better chance of ending the violence than a dictator who is imposed by a foreign power.
TIM SEBASTIAN
It hasn't done so well so far. George Galloway, you wanted to come in.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Yes. You don't know me well if you think I'm advocating the US as a model for democracy, or if you think I'm supporting Guantanamo Bay, which by the way is on illegally occupied soil in Cuba, against the wishes of the Cuban government. But the reason why I think we hesitate on the subject of Guantanamo is because there's a Guantanamo in many Arab countries, much, much worse than Guantanamo. There is in many Arab countries, they are flying them from Guantanamo to the Arab countries to be tortured more brutally.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
That's going to be another debate.
TIM SEBASTIAN
That's not quite the question, is it?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Well, imposing US democracy against dictatorship, now my point is this. The outcome of the revolution in Iraq, of the national liberation struggle in Iraq, if it is to just produce a dictatorship, it will not have been worth the blood, it will not have been worth the trouble. But if the national liberation struggle in Iraq leads to the rout of the invaders, which I believe that it will, and it is replaced by a government of the people, for the people, by the people, elected by the people, removable by the people, that would be a real beacon for the whole of the Arab world.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I totally agree with you but is that going to happen in the next few months, can we end the violence?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Well, I'll tell you this, it will never happen if you agree now to a new dictatorship in Iraq, because the one thing I agree with Dr. Pachachi on is that once you get a dictator in, however benign he says he is at the beginning, he'll stay a long time and he won't be benign by the end of it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, we're going to move on to a lady in the third row there please.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I wanted to ask the team for this motion: In a country which is shattered, do you think that dictatorship can bring change?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
A liberation movement needs leadership. Dictatorship by its nature, it is leadership. Now, you could have, I know we've said about benign and what-have-you, but liberation requires leadership. Mohammad in Islam, he was a leader. Mao-Tse-Tung in China was a leader, you can name anybody, you cannot have a liberation movement by consensus. That's why you need a leadership. The leadership, I am not advocating a man, I don't know what arrangement there is, but there must be something which is not coming out of this ballot box when you are talking about liberation. This is the leadership they require.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Do you find that convincing? You don't look very convinced.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
No, not really.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You want to come back, ask him another one?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Can you just tell me; a dictator like Saddam, who has really not done anything for Iraq, was changed. Can a new dictator really change it (the situation)?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Well, I'm not going to get into whether Saddam did anything for Iraq or not. The answer is what happened to Iraq, that's why all the world is against Iraq, because there were things which were done, but that's past, but what I'm saying is this. A liberation movement needs leadership and the concept of leadership, democracy is a management. It's when you have something which is working, functioning, then you have a process how you do things. You have ministers, you call them in and you ask them and they have to reply and they have to do this, but liberation, the army is not based on democracy. There's no army in the world where the army officer will ask the soldiers, 'Should we go this way or that way?' That's not how it works. You have a leader who orders and people work. Until you get there, and thereafter that, they may assassinate the leader, they may kick him out as Britain did with Churchill. He took them to the war, he won the war, and immediately after the war the process back again, Churchill was thrown in the rubbish bin.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, perhaps we can hear from some of the Iraqis. I know there are quite a few Iraqis in the audience here. Are you from Iraq? Perhaps you'd like to have a question to our panel.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Good evening. My question is to Mr. George Galloway. You think that dictatorship is not a solution for Iraq right now. What would be the solution then? I'm Iraqi and I know we are Iraqis from different cultural backgrounds, different religions, all together in one country. It's something impossible to keep us all together, control us. It's something very difficult. I know this, but let me give you an example. Iyad Allawi, when he was in the government and ruled Iraq for a period of time, he had the ability to make the situation quite stable, relatively to the current situation. So what do you think?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Well, I certainly don't agree with that about Iyad Allawi, but that's a different matter. Democracy is not just about the majority ruling. The minority has rights in a democracy. It's not like a democracy, two wolves and a sheep and the two wolves vote to eat the sheep, that's not democracy, even though the wolves are two and the sheep is one. The sheep has rights too. It has a right not to be eaten by the two wolves, and what I'm talking about when I talk about democracy is government of the people for the people by the people. It is not just a case of 51% get their hands up and they rule ruthlessly over the 49%, no. And it's possible, there are many schemes, in the north of Ireland for example ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, let him come back, he wants to come back.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
But what is the use of the democracy if we have thousands of children dying every day, thousands of men, women, people couldn't go and study and live, what's the use?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
I told you, I'm not here to support his democracy. I spit upon his democracy (points to Dr. Pachachi).
TIM SEBASTIAN
No, but he's asking you a valid question. You're not addressing his question.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
It's a puppet regime.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You've said that many times but you're not addressing his question.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
I am addressing his question, because it's a false dichotomy. I'm arguing for democracy, real democracy in a sovereign, independent Iraq, that's what I want to see.
TIM SEBASTIAN
(Addressing the questioner) What do you want to see? Let me just ask him what he wants.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Democracy nowadays in Iraq, it's something impossible, it's something impossible. I want to find a solution for the current situation. A dictatorship is the best solution right now.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Robert Baer.
ROBERT BAER
Can I go back to one point? You know what Iraq needs, and I think you're absolutely right, is a Fidel Castro. You've got the Turks coming in from the north, you've got the Saudis coming from the south and you've got the Iranians. You need a strong man, a leader, just as Fidel Castro protected Cuba, we need one in Iraq, the same sort of fatherly, call him whatever you want, a dictator.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I don't want to live under a dictatorship.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Oh, this is coming from a CIA man.
TIM SEBASTIAN
We're hearing all shades of opinion tonight.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I don't want to live under a dictatorship, I don't want that.
ROBERT BAER
No, no-one wants dictatorship.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
But it's the best solution for the current situation.
ROBERT BAER
If you can't go to the market, what good is democracy? You can't even show up at the(inaudible) now. You can go live in Jordan, you can live in Syria and pray that ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Let's hear from somebody else in Iraq. Are you from Iraq, sir?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Good evening. The main point that Mr. Sabah made is that we need now a dictator and I think this is wrong. Everybody knows in Iraq that we had dictatorship for a long time, but in the same time we have strong leaders, we have the Prophet Mohammed, not in Iraq, he lead the Muslims in the world. This man, he was not a dictator, he was supported by God but in the same time more speaking with his colleagues, with his followers, he'd take their advice, he was speaking with them.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Can I just ask, if you don't want a dictator now, what do you want in Iraq?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
No, we want a strong leader but in the same way with a strong democracy like Mr. George Galloway says, we need a new process. This process is very important. We need a strong instrument to implement this democracy. It's not easy to bring a democracy to your country without having a strong army, strong institutions, strong things to keep this democracy, and with a strong leader which is supported by his own people, we don't need a dictator. The dictator can give you very good decisions sometimes, but the problem is the dictator sometimes makes a wrong decision. These decisions lead to disaster for his country.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, let me have the panel respond to that. Sabah Al-Mukhtar.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Well, I agree with the proposition he's putting and this is exactly our motion. The motion is that at the present moment the circumstance in Iraq does not lend itself to "the process of democracy." This idea that somehow you have ballot boxes and you call in people and you fill in the ballot boxes ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Well, he's actually saying he wants a strong democracy. He's saying he doesn't want a dictator. You're voting for a dictator, at least I thought you were.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
No, we are getting into the semantics now. We are getting into the semantics.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
I know you're sorry the motion doesn't say something else, but the motion says what it says.
TIM SEBASTIAN
(Addressing the questioner) I didn't want to put words in your mouth. Did you want a strong democracy and a strong leader?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
No, we want a strong leader ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Thank you.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
... with a strong democracy, not a dictator any more.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You want to have your cake and eat it. Alright. You want it all ways, OK. There's gentleman in the front row, let's go to him.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Now my question is to Mr. Baer. 65% of Iraqis voted for a democracy in their country. Don't you think those 65% deserve their chance to have a democracy in their country? Now, 65% is the majority. They voted for a democracy in their country. Don't you think they should have a democracy, don't you think they should get the consequences of their decision, either it be good or bad, without the interference of any other countries? We already saw what happened when the United States interfered in Iraq, when it came into Iraq. We saw all the oil lost, we saw the gas, we saw the people killed. Now do you think they should have a democracy?
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, you've asked him a question several ways, let him give you an answer now.
ROBERT BAER
I think Iraqis deserve democracy as much as anybody when you have the right circumstances. I mean, can you have a democracy, let's be particularly nasty right now, in the West Bank, when you have the Israelis coming in, targeted assassinations? It's a concentration camp. Can you have a democracy? Can you vote for Mahmoud Abbas, could you vote for Hamas and have a true democracy, or in Gaza? No. The circumstances are right, we have to leave; foreigners have to leave. You have to have some sort of transition for a rule of law and at the end of that rule of law, with a strong man, if you like, with a strong police force, with a strong military, at that point the society moves on to a democracy. It comes in stages, it cannot be imposed.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, you're telling him no.
ROBERT BAER
I'm telling you no, forget it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Adnan Pachachi, you wanted to come in here.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Yes, I just want to make a comment on what my colleague said. This is not my democracy. The fact of the matter is, in spite of the fraud and the irregularities and intimidation, 12 million people, not 8 million by the way, 12 million people voted, and thousands of Iraqis voted outside Iraq. This was not an ideal vote, it was not a perfect vote, but the fact of the matter is, with all the imperfections, you can say that it represents to some extent the desires of the Iraqi people, and we should not ignore that, we should not ignore that.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, OK, we won't ignore it. The gentleman up there had his hand up.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
For the motion, don't you think another dictator in the area will create more tension between neighbouring countries?
ROBERT BAER
I think, if I could answer that, I think that the problem right now is, and as we know because there are no borders on Iraq, we're getting more tension now. We're seeing Iran operating, we're seeing Syria, we're seeing Saudi Arabia, we're seeing all these other foreign forces moving into Iraq, undermining democracy, and if we are not careful there will be a war this summer around Iraq, and democracy will become irrelevant.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Could I add that the neighbouring countries will be very happy to have a dictatorship because they are all dictatorships. They don't want somebody outside.
ADNAN PACHACHI
So you want to please them, is that what you want to do?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Sorry?
ADNAN PACHACHI
You want to please all these neighbours by wanting a dictator in Iraq?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
No, I'm saying to him as a result, he is worried that the neighbours might not like it and I'm comforting him that they will love it.
ADNAN PACHACHI
They will love what, a dictatorship?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Lady in the third row.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
My question goes for the motion, mainly to Mr. Al-Mukhtar. Sir, you mentioned that liberation needs leadership, but in a way don't you think that you're suggesting unrestrained leadership with unlimited power, so I mean, it's sort of the extreme. Why not talk about monarchy or constitutional monarchy, having a parliament under one leadership that could be strong? But having an ultimate dictatorship, you cannot transform dictatorship into a democracy unless you want Iraq to go into war again some time in the future.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
All states, when they were created, they were created not through democratic process. Every state, you look at any state, whether you look at the Civil War in America or you look at the wars in Britain or you look at the European countries or the Arab countries, they were all created by leaderships, and we're calling it dictatorship simply because it was not elected. Now, that is the process that we are talking about now. Once you have the state, then it will transfer. Iraq was created by King Faisal I when the British imposed him on Iraq, and as soon as things worked out, they created a parliament and they began to do the elections and they worked until the revolution came. Even when you look at the other countries, it's exactly the same process. Nations, state creation requires leadership. As I said, it's just like the army. You cannot run a war by democracy. Wars are won by leadership, and because it's not elected, we are calling it dictatorship.
TIM SEBASTIAN
They can be run by democratically elected leaders as well, and they often are.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
You will lose quite a lot of wars if you're going to ask the soldiers whether he should go right or left, or whether you do it tonight or tomorrow night. I don't think, I don't recommend it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
No, the soldiers are controlled by the political leadership.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
No, they are controlled, sorry, with respect, they are controlled by their military leaders. It is only stupid presidents like President Bush in the USA where he goes against what his generals are telling him. That is where the problem is. The leadership is always a military one.
TIM SEBASTIAN
He was democratically elected after all. Gentleman in the third row.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
My question is to Mr. Al-Mukhtar. Do you not think that dictatorship is in fact already in place in Iraq, after all, a majority can be a tyrant, and do you not think that if all ethnic and sectarian groups of Iraq were actually included in the government, the violence could be stopped?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Number one, if you have majority rule, then you don't have a dictatorship.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
You can have a dictatorship.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
No, that's not a dictatorship. Majority rule is the process of democracy, that's the majority have a rule ... It is wrong to accept to take half of this. Majority rule is democracy, but as they said, minority have a right, so that's number one.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Actually I think that's the best question of the night, because what we have at the moment is the tyranny of the majority in an election which by the way is growing like Topsy in front of our eyes. You say 8 million, he says 12 million. You said 60% turned out, somebody else says 65%. The Ba'ath Party were banned from the election. The election process was designed by the occupation. Sectarian militias drove people out to vote, so don't forget any of these factors, but a majority was elected, it's a Shi'ite majority and it is imposing its tyranny on the others. That's not democracy. That's just another kind of tyranny. It's what was called an elective dictatorship. I'm against all dictatorships, even elected ones.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
George, in Iraq there is no democracy. At the present moment, there is no process of government. It is an occupied territory with militias fighting each other, with the Americans taking sides.
TIM SEBASTIAN
I'd like to ask someone in the audience from Iraq whether they would like to speak up in support of the fledgling democracy, if you can call it that, in Iraq. Is there anybody from Iraq who'd like to do it? You, sir.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Mr. Pachachi can do that.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Good evening. I wanted to say something like you, Mr. Robert. You said Shias don't want to live with Sunnis. With all respect, you don't know what the situation is. My father is Shia and my mother is Sunni, so I guess they want to live together.(Applause) I want to live with my friends from Shia, it's not like they don't want to, the problem is they can't. Why can't they? Because of the violence. The issue here, the main point of this event for me at least is not democracy and dictatorship. It's the violence in Iraq. The violence in Iraq doesn't stop by either a dictatorship or having democracy. You asked George Galloway, are you in favour of democracy or in favour of dictatorship, and I don't know if he's not sure or whatever, but I think the point is that we don't have, it's not the two extremes.
TIM SEBASTIAN
So what is the answer in your view?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I agree with my brother over there, he says we want a leadership, a strong leadership. I don't have to go all through all your studies about politics and stuff to know whether you don't say your opinion or you say it and it's not listened to, the same as not having democracy.
TIM SEBASTIAN
So you want a strong leader but not a dictator?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Yes.
TIM SEBASTIAN
A strong leader emerging from democratic process?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Strong leader, not a dictator, that's the point. Thank you.
TIM SEBASTIAN
A lady in the second row.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Do you think that the problems between the Sunni and the Shia will ever stop, whether there is a dictator or not?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Who would you like to answer that?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Both of them.
TIM SEBASTIAN
George Galloway, you want to try this?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Well, you know, I travelled between 1993 and just before the war to Iraq so many times. I never met one person who ever told me they were a Sunni or a Shia. I met families who were both. I met people who really were neither, who were secular, who were nationalists, who were Arabs first and foremost, Iraqis first and foremost. I think the Iraqi people are the least sectarian people in the Arab world. I have real faith in the people of Iraq. What's happened is an illegal military occupation has taken place and has deliberately fomented sectarian division, made divisions between people in order to keep them divided so they could rule. This is the rule of empires including our own empire in Britain throughout millennia, to divide and rule. So I believe that all Iraqis, whatever their confession, should support the liberation struggle to drive the foreign occupiers from their country and make a united democratic country out of it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Adnan Pachachi, you're not cheering on your compatriot. You agree with him?
ADNAN PACHACHI
Well, I said in my statement that the vast majority of Iraqis, both Sunnis and Shias, are not involved in the sectarian violence. On the contrary, I think the vast majority of Iraqis of both sects want to live in peace together as they have throughout the ages, and I think George Galloway was right in saying that you don't feel that there is that difference. What's happening, you have militias who act in the name of a sect, but in fact they're after consolidating their power in order to extort some money from their victims.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And who do you blame that on?
ADNAN PACHACHI
Well, I blame it, as I said, on the occupying power which established a system based on sectarian division, that I think gave birth to all that, and also the activities of neighbouring countries who encourage this. But let me say one thing in the end, you know, democracies can provide strong leadership. We have seen that so often, in the United States, in Britain, and so many democratic countries. The idea that democracies can't have strong leadership is a lot of nonsense. In fact democracies are more efficient than dictatorships in pursuing for example a struggle or war or anything of that kind. And look, let me tell you something. Democracy is here to stay in Iraq, no matter what anybody else says, because the people have tasted democracy, with all its imperfections, with all the problems, with the presence of the occupation, but democracy is there to stay and I don't think the Iraqis will ever, ever again are prepared to sacrifice the right which they have already enjoyed in order to have yet another dictator who will ...
ROBERT BAER
There are some historians here and I'm supposed to be answering questions, but when has there ever been a people that voted themselves out of a civil war? I don't know. Has there been ever a time in history when someone said, 'All right, we've had enough, let's vote ourselves out?'
ADNAN PACHACHI
But they are not all involved in this civil war, there is no civil war.
TIM SEBASTIAN
How would a civil war look different from what is happening in Iraq?
ADNAN PACHACHI
Well, in a civil war, for example, you have something in Northern Ireland or something in the United States in the 19th century, where a large group of people are fighting another large group of people.
TIM SEBASTIAN
We've had 75-100 people dying every day, how different would a civil war look in Iraq?
ADNAN PACHACHI
The majority of the Shias and Sunnis are not involved in these acts of violence, it is the militias, and by the way, they never fight each other, have you noticed that? These militias don't fight against each other.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Americans are bombing Haifa Street in the centre of Baghdad and you tell me this is not a civil war? What the hell is a civil war then? Who is fighting the civil war against Haifa Street?This is another one of militias, the Americans have become another militia. You've got various militias in Iraq and one of them is the American army there, that's the militia. This is where you are having the civil war, because they come on one side when it suits them and they are not on the other side when it suits them.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Well, the majority, my dear man, the majority of the people, and you should know it, are not involved in these activities. It isn't as though the Sunnis are all of one opinion or the Shias are of one opinion. They do not make part of a one monolithic entity. There's no such thing as that.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, we're going to move to another question, lady in the second row there.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Good evening. My question is for those against the motion. You are talking about having democracy in Iraq, so could you please give us ways to apply that democracy in Iraq during the current events?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
There is no democracy in Iraq. There is a foreign occupation, there are sectarian collaborators with that foreign occupation, some of whom have very large militias which they pretend are policemen or members of the Iraqi National Army. There is no democracy in Iraq at the moment, for these and the other reasons I've given in this programme. There is a liberation struggle to throw out the foreign occupier. My case, although it's being misrepresented, my case is that the end result of that must be a democracy. That's what must come after the foreign occupiers have been driven out, a democracy. If it's just another dictatorship, just another Arab dictatorship, as if we didn't have enough Arab dictators, it won't have been worth the blood.
ADNAN PACHACHI
I don't believe the motion is whether democracy is functioning or not. The motion is, should we have a new dictator in Iraq.
TIM SEBASTIAN
It was a question that came from the floor.
ROBERT BAER
The motion I'm supporting is, we need transition, strong man, call him a dictator, call him whatever you want, transition.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Absolutely, absolutely.
ROBERT BAER
At the end of the day we want democracy but now the only way to stop the violence, is a strong man.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, let's take a question from the gentleman on the 5th row up there, you sir.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Mr. Galloway, you keep saying that the allied coalition forces has to go out of Iraq, but do you think if they do go out, will democracy come or will civil war result from that?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
No, I have faith that the Iraqi people, once the foreign invaders, I don't call them an allied coalition, I call them an illegal, violent, military occupation of the country, once they have been driven from the country, it's better if they decide to go, but if they don't go, they'll leave the same way the American occupation left Vietnam, clattering in their helicopters, just a few steps ahead of the people charging up the stairs after them. Once they go, there should be national reconciliation. There is a process that can be undergone. It's happened in other countries, and that's what I'm here arguing for.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
But the opposition is talking about a temporary dictator who will, when the allied coalition forces come out, during that crucial moment, that's when the dictator will take power. Even in democratic countries when you have civil war going on, they declare Martial Law, which is another form of dictatorship. Now, would that be the same thing in Iraq?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
No, I think the motion, forgive me for sounding too like a parliamentarian, we have to debate and specially we have to vote upon the words in the motion, in other words, we wish we're in the motion, the words we're trying to persuade others are in the motion, but the words in the motion which is that Iraq needs a dictator. Now, I'm telling you ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
... 'that only a new dictator can end the violence in Iraq.'
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Exactly. That doesn't say transitional dictator, doesn't say ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
No, end the violence, end the violence. Those are the key words.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Doesn't say transitional, doesn't say benign, doesn't say nice with nice teeth. It just says dictator.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But it does say to end the violence. That's what it says.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Can you tell us how is this dictator going to be chosen? Come on, well, who's going to? This is a very important point.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
I'll answer you. We will do another lot of boxes we will fill with papers.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Who is going to choose the dictator?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Mr. Pachachi, you know very well that even the election commission is under trial.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Who is going to choose the dictator? Give me an answer.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Let him speak. You asked him a question, let him speak.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
You know very well, I'm not talking about the militias.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Who is going to choose the dictator?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
I'm telling you ...
ADNAN PACHACHI
Tell me, truthfully, openly and clearly.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
If you stop talking I will tell you. It is the resistance which is going to create and find the leader for Iraq that it will liberate it and take it into a process of state where you can have democracy. Thank you.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Do you mean after the Americans leave, is that what you're saying?
ROBERT BAER
After the Americans leave, yes.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Absolutely, absolutely.
ADNAN PACHACHI
And do you think the Americans are going to leave and suddenly there will be liberation?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Ask your supporter, Mr. Galloway, he'll tell you about Vietnam, how they left.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, well, we're going to ask somebody from the audience, you sir, third row.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I have a question for both panels. Some people do agree with democracy and some people do agree with a dictatorship. How about a constitutional monarchy, mid way?
ROBERT BAER
It's fine. Why not, bring back the monarch.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Adnan Pachachi. Constitutional monarchy?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
He was a supporter of the monarchy movement.
ADNAN PACHACHI
We had constitutional monarchy but I think the Iraqi people don't want that any more.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Is there anything in Islam called monarchy?
ADNAN PACHACHI
I think that was a failure in Iraq's history but now the people want something else, they want direct democracy, they want to feel that they have a stake in the government of the country, and they are not going to give up that, no dictator chosen by the Americans or by what we call the resistance, no, that won't do.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK. We'll take a lady in the second row there please.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
The question is for the motion. Just recently Mr. Mukhtar Limani resigned from the government, he's a diplomat and he resigned in Iraq and in his letter of resignation to Mr. Amr Moussa, the Secretary General to the Arab League, he mentioned how the people of Iraq, they widely trust the government. And he said the governments just agree with the Iraq government, basically, so this is how it is, the people of the government taking responsibility, is this how it's going to be in the future, will they seek responsibility?
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Well, the Arabs have taken a disgraceful position toward Iraq, all throughout the last two decades. Iraq defended the Arabs against Iran and all the Arabs supported them. Iraq took the position against Israel, all the Arabs supported, the armies came from here, the base is still down here, etc. The position from the ambassador of the League of Arab States was saying, he was saying the Arabs are disinterested at the present moment in what's happening in Iraq, no-one is taking any position, all the governments are meeting the traitors who have been appointed by my colleague, the CIA, to rule in Iraq. They are being accredited into the Arab countries, they are accepted and met by the heads of states of the Arab countries, and that is what he was criticising. He was saying if the Arabs are unwilling and unable and are not interested in supporting the Iraqi people against the occupation and against the stooges and the agents who were appointed by the occupier, this is what he was objecting to, that's why he resigned his position.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, OK.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Have you spoken to him? I have spoken to him. He came to visit me in Abu Dhabi. We had a long chat, so don't put words in his mouth.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Why did he resign? You tell the lady, she's asking why, tell her, please, tell her why did he resign.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Give him a chance.
ADNAN PACHACHI
He resigned because he said the Arab League is not doing enough. The Arab League, the Secretary General of the Arab League means Amr Moussa, is not doing enough to really work on the reconciliation process in Iraq.
SABAH AL-MUKHTAR
Oh, I see.
ADNAN PACHACHI
But you talk about traitors, he never said anything of the kind. Don't put words into the mouth, don't be a demagogue and a propagandist, please.
TIM SEBASTIAN
We're going to take a question from the gentleman in the third row there please.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Good evening. I'm an Iraqi who's lived 30 years outside Iraq. My question is to Mr. Robert. What do you think, knowing what you know about Iraq, what Condoleezza Rice has said, 'creative chaos,' is it planned by the American to look like that or ...
ROBERT BAER
I wish I could tell you that what's happening in Iraq was planned. It would appear to be some competence in the US government. There isn't any. The New York Times came out with an article, it called around everybody in Washington and said, 'Do you know the difference between a Shia and a Sunni?' and nobody knew the difference. Unfortunately the United States is separated from the Arab world by a very large ocean.
ADNAN PACHACHI
Do you know the difference then?
ROBERT BAER
You see, I do, I've read the Koran in Arabic.
ADNAN PACHACHI
The Koran has nothing to do with the Shias and Sunnis.
ROBERT BAER
No, but I've spent 30 years in the Middle East and it's ...
ADNAN PACHACHI
What is the difference? No, please tell me, I mean, I ...
ROBERT BAER
The point is, with all humility, the United States went into Iraq having no idea about the country, let's face the facts, and we're paying a price. You can say it was for oil, you can say it was to create chaos, you can say it's racism. The United States didn't know. We were misled into this war, but stick to the facts, and the question is, how do we get out, and I as an American have a superficial knowledge of Iraq and the Middle East. We need the rule of law and a strong man who will take control of the streets so the Iraqis can go back and live and then make their own democracy, with the Americans gone, I agree. You can't have foreign occupiers in Iraq making democracy.
TIM SEBASTIAN
I'd like to hear your position, if we may, on the motion.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I think Iraq needs a strong man but he doesn't have to be a dictator.
ROBERT BAER
Dictator's a bad word in the English language, as much as I understand, it's a bad word. It's a strong man ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
But it's a word that you signed up for. What's your recipe?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
One thing actually, I just want to assure Dr. Adnan that the next strong man or dictator, especially underline the dictator, will be selected by Mr. Robert's colleagues, the CIA, this is for sure.
ROBERT BAER
I left the CIA under very unpleasant circumstances, so I can't speak for them.
ADNAN PACHACHI
You said that rule of law and a strong man. I think they are mutually exclusive.
ROBERT BAER
No, they're not. The problem was Saddam, he was crazy and so were his two children, they were crazy.
ADNAN PACHACHI
There was no rule of law, what are you talking about?
ROBERT BAER
There was no rule of law.
TIM SEBASTIAN
We've got time for one more question, lady in the third row there.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
My question is for Mr. Galloway. You've clearly talked about US occupation in Iraq. Do you really believe that the US is there to implement democracy for Iraqis' good or for the benefit of the US? The US divided Iraq even more, the Arab world, and so doesn't this make the US stronger and in control of the Arab world?
GEORGE GALLOWAY
Actually the US doesn't control a single street in Iraq. It controls the skies, but it can't control a single street. To enter Haifa Street, which is right in the centre of Baghdad, they have to come with F16's and helicopter gun ships, four years after they said the war was over and the country was occupied. What began as a means of terrifying or terrorising the world with American power has achieved the opposite. Now the world is no more terrified of the United States. That's why at the weekend a million people will be with me in Caracas in Venezuela waving their fists at George Bush and daring him to come to occupy Venezuela, so have faith, my dear. The Arabs are not weak, the Arabs are not useless, but you know the great only appear to be great if we are on our knees. If we stand up like the Palestinian children of the intifada, like the Iraqis of the resistance, like the Hezbollah, they don't seem so great.

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TIM SEBASTIAN
It has to be the most publicised visit to Caracas in history.  Ladies and gentlemen, we've come to the point in the proceedings where we're going to vote on the motion, the motion that 'This House believes that only a new dictator can end the violence in Iraq.'  Would you please take your voting machines.  If you want to vote for the motion, would you press button one, the yellow button.  If you want to vote against, please press button two, the red one, and would you please do it now.  Through the wonders of modern science, your vote will be transmitted to our computers and we'll get the results shortly.  And here are the results coming up now on the screen.  For the motion, 33.1%, against, 66.9%.  The motion has been resoundingly defeated.  It only remains for me now to thank our distinguished panellists for making the journey here.  Thank you to you, the audience as well.  The Doha Debates will be back against next month, and now from all of us on the team, thank you very much indeed, good night.  Thank you.

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