Dogs of war are barking mad, but Shannon shouldn’t be their kennel

THE assurance from US Secretary of State Colin Powell must come as a major relief to the people of Iraq.

He promised that a US military occupation would hold Iraq's oilfields "in trust" for them which is rather like a Minister's driver telling you that he never broke the speed limit.

"Iraqi oil will be held in trust for the Iraqi people, to benefit the Iraqi people. That is a legal obligation that the occupying power will have," he said.

Almost in the same breath, Mr Powell admitted at a press conference that there were divisions within the US administration as to whether Iraqi oilfields should be privatised or left in Iraqi government hands.

They also have a problem about whether the US or the UN should oversee oil output in the aftermath of a successful American-led invasion.

Mr Powell purported not to have an answer to the question which the rest of us could have answered for him: would foreign companies - ie, American - or the government-owned Iraqi National Oil Company control the oilfields?

With a reserve of at least 112 million barrels of oil under the sand, the Yanks know exactly who will control the supply. After all, why else are they going to invade that unfortunate country?

They have absolutely no other reason or cause to precipitate the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents except to privatise the oil for the benefit of the American economy.

It's as simple as that.

At this stage it would be a relief if we no longer heard British Prime Minister Tony Blair parroting the line every time he appears on television that war is not inevitable.

Currently, there are more than 220,000 troops American and British either on their way to Iraq or already ensconced somewhere near its border.

The logistics of moving them, plus all their equipment, is not merely an exercise to put the frighteners on Saddam Hussein.

They're there because the pretzel pres, George Walker Bush, got a brainstorm in the aftermath of the appalling attack on the Twin Towers during which he imagined Saddam was his immediate problem and not Osama bin Laden. World sympathy, he thought, would be with him all the way to Iraq.

The only one with him, for some peculiar reason, is Tony Blair who is determined to bolster Bush, despite serious opposition in his own government, among his own backbenchers and throughout the British public.

At home, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern seems about to agree to a Dáil debate about whether the US military should be allowed continue to use Shannon Airport in the event of an attack on Iraq without UN approval.

Such a debate has been requested by the Labour Party leader, Pat Rabbitte, to try and get the Government to tell us where it - and, consequently, we - stand on the US-UK belligerence towards Iraq.

Without such a strident and determined commitment to launch an unprovoked assault on Iraq, US military traffic into Shannon should pose no problem. But the inevitability of an invasion, without the imprimatur of the UN, demands that such permission be withdrawn.

Bishop Willie Walsh, whose diocese includes the airport, said that workers at Shannon fear that a refusal of its use would be a serious threat to jobs in the area, and it would be all too easy for the rest of us to dismiss this consideration when our jobs were not the ones at risk.

However, while he correctly pointed out that the US could be facilitated elsewhere, he was inclined to think that in the event of a war without UN approval, the use of Shannon by the US for direct military purposes should be opposed.

On the question of such a war, the bishop quoted a UN report which stated that a war would place ten million Iraqi civilians at risk of hunger and disease and give rise to a million refugees.

"I believe that this proposed war is unjustified and that we as Christians should voice our opinion against it in every possible peaceful way which is available to us," he said.

"War can at times solve problems in the short term, but the history of war indicates that they solve little in the long term but cause enormous death and destruction and lay the seeds for future conflict," he added.

The demeanour of Bush from day one, was that America would invade Iraq no matter what world opinion thought, and they would do it alone if necessary.

He paid lip service to the UN and feigned support for its authority in world affairs.

But that's what it was - just lip service.

Thankfully, unlike Tony Blair, other European powers such as France and Germany are not slavishly following the American propaganda line. Both countries have unequivocally registered their opposition to a war with Iraq.

Alain Juppé, the former prime minister who now heads President Jacques Chirac's political party, put the French point of view very eloquently in a recent radio interview.

"Our vision of the world is that no power - not even the United States - has a vocation to go set things right by force, without respecting international law. Judging from the reports of weapons inspectors on the ground, there is no reason to start a military intervention."

That, succinctly, is the simple rationale that most people would agree with.

Unfortunately, George Bush is determined to visit upon the world the nightmare of another war in pursuance of his own personal agenda, and the perceived economic well-being of the US.

In a somewhat desperate bid to get away from the shadow of death and destruction, I offer you this from The Daily Telegraph. A woman caught driving with a dog on her lap, four in the passenger seat and 22 others in the back, was banned from driving for a year.

Police attempted to stop Barbara Byrne, 60, as she veered across lanes of the A1 with the spaniel-sized dog on her lap, a cigarette in one hand and a can of Coke between her knees.

When police finally got her to stop, 15 miles after signalling her to pull over, they had to back away because of the smell.

Ms Byrne, a former care worker, told her pursuers that she was taking her pets on a 100-mile trip from her home in Tongham, Surrey, to Skegness, so that they could walk on the beach.

In fairness to her, she denied driving without care and attention and failing to stop for a constable.

It didn't matter because Huntingdon magistrates found her guilty of all charges after a hearing that lasted two hours.