Benn and Saddam: the transcript

"If I meet a powerful man, I ask five questions: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And, how can I get rid of you?" - Tony Benn, July 2002. Tony Benn (switches on tape recorder): I'll just mark this. It is now Sunday February 2, the year is 2003. I'm with President Saddam Hussein somewhere in Baghdad, and I'm on a peace mission.

Saddam Hussein: And welcome to you, my friend from England, Mr Bin Wedgwood. I trust your journey has been comfortable.

TB: It was an early start, Mr President, though I'm often up before dawn back in London. It's my age. And the drive seemed longer than the three hours it actually took because of the car windows being blacked out. But it's good finally to be here and to be able to talk about peace.

SH: Ah peace! What is more precious than peace? How do these wars get started? It is a mystery. Toffee?

TB: No thank you, I have some tea here in my old Thermos. Would you like some? You want me to taste it first? It's just ordinary Typhoo. Can't be doing with these fancy teas. [Pours from flask.]

SH: The Iraqi people very much like Typhoo. They know, as you say, that Typhoo puts the T in England. England is a country that they love. For hundreds of years our peoples were friends. Many things we took from you English. Our plugs, our measurements, our traffic lights, our red telephone boxes, even the design of our bunkers. One million - one million! - Iraqi persons used to travel each week to England to shop in your Oxford Street. I myself used to order many of my finest clothings from Man at C&As.

But what has become of that England? The England of Good Queen Bess, The Tolpuddle Diggers and Neville Chamberlain? Now the peace-loving people of the world call down curses upon the head of Mr Tony Blair, because he has allied himself with the Zionist oppressors and American imperialists. Yet we are forgiving. We are cooperating with the UN. Why should we be attacked?

TB: Well, of course, there is this issue of chemical and nuclear weapons; though I looked it up before I came out here, and it was President Andrew Jackson who first authorised the use of chemical weapons - in the shape of camphor bombs - on the Nez Perce Indians in 1831. So there is a level of hypocrisy here which...

SH: Let me tell you my friend - and through you the world - that Iraq has never possessed such weapons. And those we had, we never used. And even when we used them it was purely in self-defence. And then we destroyed them. Except for some warheads and bombs that got lost. And if President Bush knows where they are then he should come here personally, as you have, and find them. That would be helpful. But he will not, and the world knows why. Because he wants Iraq's oil.

TB: Well, it's interesting you should raise that. America goes to war where there's an oil interest, as we did in the Falklands, because the Falklands was an oil war - there's more oil around the Falklands than there is around the United Kingdom. And, of course, some companies are now bigger than nation states. Ford is bigger than South Africa. Toyota is bigger than Norway.

TB: Bigger than Norway. And I do not want a world which is safe only for oil companies and motor companies, but which is dangerous for my grandchildren.

SH: I too am a grandfather. I too think of my grandchildren, Raghda and Rana's fatherless children.

SH: I shot them. But there were others I didn't personally shoot, you understand. Family gatherings in our country can sometimes become, how do you say, over-exuberant. We have much family: uncles, half-brothers, nieces' husbands. And they all want jobs in the secret services or running the Olympic committee. They get angry. Boom! What can you do? But you, Mr Bin Wedgwood, are a courageous horseman, a roaring tiger, for coming here to speak peace.

TB: Mr President. I've got a picture on the wall of my study of Daniel in the lion's den. Have you heard that story? In the Bible there's a man called Daniel, and he went into a lion's den. They said, you'll be eaten up. He wasn't. And my Dad used to say to me, dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm, dare to let it be known.

Priceless!

2 posted on 02/03/2003 7:59:39 PM PST by freebilly (Why do Republicans play hardball like little girls...?)

Nice that the Guardian permits a token Jewish humorist to "balance" their round-the-clock bashing of the USA and Israel.

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