George Galloway talking about Syria on the BBC Daily Politics Show with Jo Coburn and Dame Pauline Neville-Jones
Well joining me now is Respect MP George Galloway.
George Galloway; picking up on the first point, how genuine do you think the Russians are
in terms of ensuring that the Syrians place-
not only place their chemical weapons under international control- but destroy them as well?
Absolutely, and as President Obama said, they’re putting their prestige on the line
and Russia is very clearly back right at the centre of world events.
It’s the beginning of history, not the end of it as Fukuyama projected 20 years go; the Russians are back.
Dame Pauline will be shivering in her shoes at the idea of the Russians, with snow on their boots,
being back but they’re back and we have to live with that.
So definitely, this matter always could have been resolved by negotiation,
will be resolved by negotiation, and the whole crisis has to be resolved by negotiation.
But do you think that the Syrians will, in the timetable that is being [made], actually put those [into practise]-
and is it practical for them to actually do it, bearing in mind there is a war as we all know going on-
for inspectors to go in there to verify them, to destroy them and of course,
which of course is what the Syrians and the Russians both want, stop any threat of air strikes.
Well I do and I hope the inspectors then relocate to Israel
which has a mountain of chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons,
but nobody’s talking about that, at least not yet.
Well no, let’s concentrate just on Syria.
Are you shivering in your boots over the Russians being back?
I do think it’s the case that at the moment the Russians are in the saddle
but they’ve now got to demonstrate that they’re going in a meaningful direction.
What has to happen now is a really genuinely serious negotiation.
[BBC Reporter Daniel] Sandford’s distinction between ‘are they going to do something purposeful
or are they going to muck about’, that’s an absolutely crucial question.
What do you think?
Well I don’t know, I think they’re on test.
I would hope that this turns out- even if he didn’t intend it seriously-
that it turns out to be something that’s actually serious,
because I think getting the chemical weapons out of the battlefield is a good thing in its own right.
[It’s] very difficult, let us not underestimate the difficulty of doing it
and I think that is going to be one of the big issues.
I don’t think it’s going to be done in one day, absolutely not, this is going to take time.
The Foreign Secretary William Hague has actually just said that he’s sceptical-, surprise, surprise-
of the plan of the offer being made by the Russians,
and he says so because President Assad’s regime has lied for years about possessing chemical weapons
and still denies using them but has denied actually possessing them right up until very recently.
That is a valid point…
Well as the harlot Mandy Rice-Davies said; ‘he would say that, wouldn’t he?’
because he and David Cameron have been left with egg all over their face.
If it had been left to them, we’d already be in the midst of a Middle East war,
with all the disastrous consequences that President Putin wrote about
in the New York Times today or the Washington Post today.
So I wouldn’t place too much reliance on the Foreign Secretary- for not much longer- of…
But President Assad has lied about possessing chemical weapons and now they’ve admitted…
They all lie about them, Israel lies about them,
the United States sought a derogation from the chemical weapons treaty
so it could continue to hold its stockpiles of chemical weapons.
They all lie and obfuscate about this question, we need to ban all chemical weapons.
I don’t begin to accept all of that.
This is a very unsavoury regime and they can’t be relied upon so the real issue is…
-Why did you put him in with the Queen then? Why did you billet him with the Queen?
You were one of the people that advised the Queen to have him in her spare bedroom,
why did you do that?
Well hang on; let’s have a look at the issue of the chemical weapons because this is the key.
The consensus in many Western nations is that Assad is responsible for that chemical weapons attack.
What say you?
I don’t believe that…
-Why not?
…because as soon as President Obama drew his red line,
it was an open invitation for just such a provocation…
-Well I think he regrets it now.
…Well he’s now denying that he even drew it but that’s a measure of the fiasco that this has become…
-I don’t think, you know, George, we would be in this diplomatic situation
if the Americans hadn’t actually made it quite clear [that] they were serious.
You would say that, wouldn’t you?
But it’s the threat that has brought the Russians and the Syrians to this point.
Jo, I said in Parliament last week:
it’s not that they’re not bad enough to have done this chemical weapons attack; they are.
But they’re not mad enough to have done it,
to bring about the very deluge of international force against them that they’ve managed to avoid so far.
What do you think?
I think the evidence is pretty clear that they have actually done this
and the issue is that it mustn’t go any further.
It is very important- I do think that this is an initiative in its own right that is worthwhile.
The great question is; what follows?
Does it lead us then on to a diplomatic track
or do we then go back to a continuation of the fighting and the military option?
And there’s no support for that, this is the key point, that he’s got Obama off the hook
because the Congress was about to throw out the idea of an American involvement…
I think the Congress will be pretty tough if the Russians show
that they’re just trying to twist the US round their little finger.
I think the American reaction will be pretty tough and the Congressional reaction will be pretty tough.
And they are ready to go, so say the Americans.
It is not, it seems, an empty threat even if you are right in saying
that President Obama personally does not want to get engaged in a war in Syria.
If the Russians, as Pauline Neville-Jones has said,
and the Syrians don’t actually put their money where their mouth is
then those air strikes would happen.
Well you should take your tanks off the lawn because nobody wants to use these tanks,
neither the British public nor the American public.
Now I know that democracy doesn’t mean much to some people,
the idea is that leaders make these decisions,
but public opinion is completely against it
and the BBC, which is funded by public opinion or the public who have that opinion,
really ought to wise up because your role as the wartime propaganda mouthpiece
is really infuriating people the length and breadth of this country.
George Galloway, that’s just you being deliberately provocative. Let’s get back to the…
You’re going to lose your licence fee over this.
Well you don’t have to threaten me. Let’s get back to the issue at hand.
You say [that] you don’t think Assad was mad enough to use chemical weapons
so you’re going against all the intelligence or certainly the vast majority of it…
-No I’m not, why do you say that?
Where’s the intelligence? Show it to me, you’ve got lots of papers here, show me the intelligence.
…I don’t actually have…
-No you don’t, no one has it.
Where’s your evidence to say it wasn’t?
I’m saying that logic…
Where’s your evidence to say that it wasn’t Assad’s regime?
My argument is logic; that it brought about the very prospect of international engagement in the war,
which they had avoided so far.
Well OK let’s hear…
It’s not as if this is the very first time that chemical weapons have been used.
Bad men use chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons…
Yes! George Bush. George Bush used them, Tony Blair used them and you supported them.
Let Pauline speak and then I’ll come back to you.
I mean I think, sorry, logic doesn’t actually hold up against what the evidence shows
and I think the Russians do understand, actually, that this is a dangerous moment
and that, actually, this man can use it again.
They see it as their advantage to get this off the battlefield.
Undoubtedly they don’t want to see the Americans strike because even if we don’t take-
or a lot of people don’t take- the effect of an American strike seriously, I’m sure the Russians do.
OK well let’s hear, George Galloway, who you think was responsible
for supplying Al-Qaeda forces in Syria, as you put it, with chemical weapons.
If there has been a use of chemical weapons, it was Al-Qaeda who used the chemical weapons.
Who gave Al-Qaeda the chemical weapons?
Here’s my theory: Israel gave them the chemical weapons.
Where’s your evidence?
It’s a theory, and it’s superseded by my new theory which is that Saudi Arabia gave it to them
and everyone who knows anything about the Middle East
knows the depth of the involvement of Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, one of Pauline’s great heroes,
he is the man who has fuelled and armed this war
and I now believe that Saudi Arabia gave Al-Qaeda these chemical weapons.
But you admit it’s theory?
Theory, of course, I’m not her; I’m not the head of the Intelligence Agency.
But you are throwing out conspiracy theories, which is what some people would say,
and they’re not based on any evidence either.
They’re based logic, everyone knows…
-Your logic?
No, this is why…
You see you don’t know this because you’re not a specialist in the area and I don’t blame you for that…
-And you are?
I am, yes, that’s why you brought me here.
Is that right?
Yes, that’s why you brought me here isn’t it?
Go on…
Why did you bring me here then? Because I’m the MP for Bradford?
(sarcastically) Yes, that’s why we brought you on.
You brought me here because I am a specialist in the area
and I’m telling you [that] Saudi Arabia is up to its neck;
the grisly, hand-chopping, head-cutting regime of Saudi Arabia, so beloved of people like Dame Pauline
Do you think Israel would like that sort of regime on its border?
Israel wants them all to kill each other for as long as possible.
There’s an implicit admission already in Damascus that, actually, they do have chemical weapons in their possession
and where they’re going to be found will demonstrate, actually, who is the custodian of these chemical weapons
and I don’t have any doubt that it’s going to turn out that, actually,
these are in the possession of and under the control of the regime in Syria.
The Syrian regime has chemical weapons, as does the Israeli regime,
as does the American regime, as does the British regime,
the British were the first people to use chemical weapons in the Middle East,
Mr Churchill used them on Kurdish tribesmen in the north of Iraq in 1921.
Do you think there will be any military intervention in Syria?
I think at the moment we can’t tell.
I do think it will return as a serious option if this diplomatic initiative does not succeed.
George Galloway…
-As always a pleasure.
…a specialist on the Middle East, in his own words, thank you so much.