1 00:00:00,140 --> 00:00:07,013 George Galloway talking about Syria on the BBC Daily Politics Show with Jo Coburn and Dame Pauline Neville-Jones 2 00:00:06,873 --> 00:00:09,667 Well joining me now is Respect MP George Galloway. 3 00:00:09,667 --> 00:00:13,393 George Galloway; picking up on the first point, how genuine do you think the Russians are 4 00:00:13,393 --> 00:00:16,727 in terms of ensuring that the Syrians place- 5 00:00:16,727 --> 00:00:20,788 not only place their chemical weapons under international control- but destroy them as well? 6 00:00:20,788 --> 00:00:25,977 Absolutely, and as President Obama said, they’re putting their prestige on the line 7 00:00:25,977 --> 00:00:29,651 and Russia is very clearly back right at the centre of world events. 8 00:00:29,651 --> 00:00:36,861 It’s the beginning of history, not the end of it as Fukuyama projected 20 years go; the Russians are back. 9 00:00:36,861 --> 00:00:42,572 Dame Pauline will be shivering in her shoes at the idea of the Russians, with snow on their boots, 10 00:00:42,572 --> 00:00:46,060 being back but they’re back and we have to live with that. 11 00:00:46,060 --> 00:00:51,147 So definitely, this matter always could have been resolved by negotiation, 12 00:00:51,147 --> 00:00:55,999 will be resolved by negotiation, and the whole crisis has to be resolved by negotiation. 13 00:00:55,999 --> 00:01:02,749 But do you think that the Syrians will, in the timetable that is being [made], actually put those [into practise]- 14 00:01:02,749 --> 00:01:07,030 and is it practical for them to actually do it, bearing in mind there is a war as we all know going on- 15 00:01:07,030 --> 00:01:11,043 for inspectors to go in there to verify them, to destroy them and of course, 16 00:01:11,043 --> 00:01:14,070 which of course is what the Syrians and the Russians both want, stop any threat of air strikes. 17 00:01:14,070 --> 00:01:17,170 Well I do and I hope the inspectors then relocate to Israel 18 00:01:17,170 --> 00:01:21,382 which has a mountain of chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons, 19 00:01:21,382 --> 00:01:23,468 but nobody’s talking about that, at least not yet. 20 00:01:23,468 --> 00:01:25,138 Well no, let’s concentrate just on Syria. 21 00:01:25,138 --> 00:01:28,991 Are you shivering in your boots over the Russians being back? 22 00:01:28,991 --> 00:01:33,071 I do think it’s the case that at the moment the Russians are in the saddle 23 00:01:33,071 --> 00:01:37,845 but they’ve now got to demonstrate that they’re going in a meaningful direction. 24 00:01:37,845 --> 00:01:43,409 What has to happen now is a really genuinely serious negotiation. 25 00:01:43,409 --> 00:01:48,417 [BBC Reporter Daniel] Sandford’s distinction between ‘are they going to do something purposeful 26 00:01:48,417 --> 00:01:51,329 or are they going to muck about’, that’s an absolutely crucial question. 27 00:01:51,329 --> 00:01:52,222 What do you think? 28 00:01:52,222 --> 00:01:53,725 Well I don’t know, I think they’re on test. 29 00:01:53,725 --> 00:01:57,795 I would hope that this turns out- even if he didn’t intend it seriously- 30 00:01:57,795 --> 00:02:00,479 that it turns out to be something that’s actually serious, 31 00:02:00,479 --> 00:02:06,994 because I think getting the chemical weapons out of the battlefield is a good thing in its own right. 32 00:02:06,994 --> 00:02:10,819 [It’s] very difficult, let us not underestimate the difficulty of doing it 33 00:02:10,819 --> 00:02:12,885 and I think that is going to be one of the big issues. 34 00:02:12,885 --> 00:02:16,342 I don’t think it’s going to be done in one day, absolutely not, this is going to take time. 35 00:02:16,342 --> 00:02:20,722 The Foreign Secretary William Hague has actually just said that he’s sceptical-, surprise, surprise- 36 00:02:20,722 --> 00:02:24,249 of the plan of the offer being made by the Russians, 37 00:02:24,249 --> 00:02:29,350 and he says so because President Assad’s regime has lied for years about possessing chemical weapons 38 00:02:29,350 --> 00:02:34,733 and still denies using them but has denied actually possessing them right up until very recently. 39 00:02:34,733 --> 00:02:35,925 That is a valid point… 40 00:02:35,925 --> 00:02:40,307 Well as the harlot Mandy Rice-Davies said; ‘he would say that, wouldn’t he?’ 41 00:02:40,307 --> 00:02:44,993 because he and David Cameron have been left with egg all over their face. 42 00:02:44,993 --> 00:02:49,322 If it had been left to them, we’d already be in the midst of a Middle East war, 43 00:02:49,322 --> 00:02:53,991 with all the disastrous consequences that President Putin wrote about 44 00:02:53,991 --> 00:02:57,516 in the New York Times today or the Washington Post today. 45 00:02:57,516 --> 00:03:03,599 So I wouldn’t place too much reliance on the Foreign Secretary- for not much longer- of… 46 00:03:03,599 --> 00:03:07,823 But President Assad has lied about possessing chemical weapons and now they’ve admitted… 47 00:03:07,823 --> 00:03:09,950 They all lie about them, Israel lies about them, 48 00:03:09,950 --> 00:03:13,850 the United States sought a derogation from the chemical weapons treaty 49 00:03:13,850 --> 00:03:18,037 so it could continue to hold its stockpiles of chemical weapons. 50 00:03:18,037 --> 00:03:23,254 They all lie and obfuscate about this question, we need to ban all chemical weapons. 51 00:03:23,254 --> 00:03:25,535 I don’t begin to accept all of that. 52 00:03:25,535 --> 00:03:30,109 This is a very unsavoury regime and they can’t be relied upon so the real issue is… 53 00:03:30,109 --> 00:03:33,474 -Why did you put him in with the Queen then? Why did you billet him with the Queen? 54 00:03:33,474 --> 00:03:37,513 You were one of the people that advised the Queen to have him in her spare bedroom, 55 00:03:37,513 --> 00:03:38,381 why did you do that? 56 00:03:38,381 --> 00:03:44,313 Well hang on; let’s have a look at the issue of the chemical weapons because this is the key. 57 00:03:44,313 --> 00:03:49,326 The consensus in many Western nations is that Assad is responsible for that chemical weapons attack. 58 00:03:49,326 --> 00:03:50,088 What say you? 59 00:03:50,088 --> 00:03:51,214 I don’t believe that… 60 00:03:51,214 --> 00:03:51,866 -Why not? 61 00:03:51,866 --> 00:03:54,975 …because as soon as President Obama drew his red line, 62 00:03:54,975 --> 00:03:58,053 it was an open invitation for just such a provocation… 63 00:03:58,053 --> 00:04:00,473 -Well I think he regrets it now. 64 00:04:00,473 --> 00:04:05,632 …Well he’s now denying that he even drew it but that’s a measure of the fiasco that this has become… 65 00:04:05,632 --> 00:04:10,292 -I don’t think, you know, George, we would be in this diplomatic situation 66 00:04:10,292 --> 00:04:12,957 if the Americans hadn’t actually made it quite clear [that] they were serious. 67 00:04:12,957 --> 00:04:14,463 You would say that, wouldn’t you? 68 00:04:16,003 --> 00:04:19,585 But it’s the threat that has brought the Russians and the Syrians to this point. 69 00:04:19,585 --> 00:04:21,700 Jo, I said in Parliament last week: 70 00:04:21,700 --> 00:04:25,899 it’s not that they’re not bad enough to have done this chemical weapons attack; they are. 71 00:04:25,899 --> 00:04:28,345 But they’re not mad enough to have done it, 72 00:04:28,345 --> 00:04:35,208 to bring about the very deluge of international force against them that they’ve managed to avoid so far. 73 00:04:35,208 --> 00:04:36,318 What do you think? 74 00:04:36,318 --> 00:04:39,628 I think the evidence is pretty clear that they have actually done this 75 00:04:39,628 --> 00:04:42,432 and the issue is that it mustn’t go any further. 76 00:04:42,432 --> 00:04:47,920 It is very important- I do think that this is an initiative in its own right that is worthwhile. 77 00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:50,112 The great question is; what follows? 78 00:04:50,112 --> 00:04:52,422 Does it lead us then on to a diplomatic track 79 00:04:52,422 --> 00:04:57,511 or do we then go back to a continuation of the fighting and the military option? 80 00:04:57,511 --> 00:05:01,316 And there’s no support for that, this is the key point, that he’s got Obama off the hook 81 00:05:01,316 --> 00:05:05,661 because the Congress was about to throw out the idea of an American involvement… 82 00:05:05,661 --> 00:05:09,038 I think the Congress will be pretty tough if the Russians show 83 00:05:09,038 --> 00:05:11,615 that they’re just trying to twist the US round their little finger. 84 00:05:11,615 --> 00:05:15,227 I think the American reaction will be pretty tough and the Congressional reaction will be pretty tough. 85 00:05:15,227 --> 00:05:17,184 And they are ready to go, so say the Americans. 86 00:05:17,184 --> 00:05:20,821 It is not, it seems, an empty threat even if you are right in saying 87 00:05:20,821 --> 00:05:26,458 that President Obama personally does not want to get engaged in a war in Syria. 88 00:05:26,458 --> 00:05:29,018 If the Russians, as Pauline Neville-Jones has said, 89 00:05:29,018 --> 00:05:31,987 and the Syrians don’t actually put their money where their mouth is 90 00:05:31,987 --> 00:05:33,102 then those air strikes would happen. 91 00:05:33,102 --> 00:05:37,054 Well you should take your tanks off the lawn because nobody wants to use these tanks, 92 00:05:37,054 --> 00:05:39,236 neither the British public nor the American public. 93 00:05:39,236 --> 00:05:42,072 Now I know that democracy doesn’t mean much to some people, 94 00:05:42,072 --> 00:05:45,227 the idea is that leaders make these decisions, 95 00:05:45,227 --> 00:05:47,753 but public opinion is completely against it 96 00:05:47,753 --> 00:05:52,784 and the BBC, which is funded by public opinion or the public who have that opinion, 97 00:05:52,784 --> 00:05:58,734 really ought to wise up because your role as the wartime propaganda mouthpiece 98 00:05:58,734 --> 00:06:02,924 is really infuriating people the length and breadth of this country. 99 00:06:02,924 --> 00:06:04,394 George Galloway, that’s just you being deliberately provocative. Let’s get back to the… 100 00:06:04,394 --> 00:06:05,586 You’re going to lose your licence fee over this. 101 00:06:05,586 --> 00:06:08,936 Well you don’t have to threaten me. Let’s get back to the issue at hand. 102 00:06:08,936 --> 00:06:12,831 You say [that] you don’t think Assad was mad enough to use chemical weapons 103 00:06:12,831 --> 00:06:15,978 so you’re going against all the intelligence or certainly the vast majority of it… 104 00:06:15,978 --> 00:06:17,924 -No I’m not, why do you say that? 105 00:06:17,924 --> 00:06:21,963 Where’s the intelligence? Show it to me, you’ve got lots of papers here, show me the intelligence. 106 00:06:21,963 --> 00:06:22,617 …I don’t actually have… 107 00:06:22,617 --> 00:06:23,806 -No you don’t, no one has it. 108 00:06:23,806 --> 00:06:25,305 Where’s your evidence to say it wasn’t? 109 00:06:25,305 --> 00:06:26,442 I’m saying that logic… 110 00:06:26,442 --> 00:06:29,491 Where’s your evidence to say that it wasn’t Assad’s regime? 111 00:06:29,491 --> 00:06:35,751 My argument is logic; that it brought about the very prospect of international engagement in the war, 112 00:06:35,751 --> 00:06:37,591 which they had avoided so far. 113 00:06:37,591 --> 00:06:38,681 Well OK let’s hear… 114 00:06:38,681 --> 00:06:43,309 It’s not as if this is the very first time that chemical weapons have been used. 115 00:06:43,309 --> 00:06:47,984 Bad men use chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons… 116 00:06:47,984 --> 00:06:51,361 Yes! George Bush. George Bush used them, Tony Blair used them and you supported them. 117 00:06:51,361 --> 00:06:52,901 Let Pauline speak and then I’ll come back to you. 118 00:06:52,901 --> 00:06:58,972 I mean I think, sorry, logic doesn’t actually hold up against what the evidence shows 119 00:06:58,972 --> 00:07:04,664 and I think the Russians do understand, actually, that this is a dangerous moment 120 00:07:04,664 --> 00:07:07,044 and that, actually, this man can use it again. 121 00:07:07,044 --> 00:07:10,929 They see it as their advantage to get this off the battlefield. 122 00:07:10,929 --> 00:07:14,940 Undoubtedly they don’t want to see the Americans strike because even if we don’t take- 123 00:07:14,940 --> 00:07:19,143 or a lot of people don’t take- the effect of an American strike seriously, I’m sure the Russians do. 124 00:07:19,143 --> 00:07:22,905 OK well let’s hear, George Galloway, who you think was responsible 125 00:07:22,905 --> 00:07:27,827 for supplying Al-Qaeda forces in Syria, as you put it, with chemical weapons. 126 00:07:29,104 --> 00:07:36,108 If there has been a use of chemical weapons, it was Al-Qaeda who used the chemical weapons. 127 00:07:36,108 --> 00:07:39,435 Who gave Al-Qaeda the chemical weapons? 128 00:07:39,435 --> 00:07:44,870 Here’s my theory: Israel gave them the chemical weapons. 129 00:07:45,503 --> 00:07:46,928 Where’s your evidence? 130 00:07:46,928 --> 00:07:52,836 It’s a theory, and it’s superseded by my new theory which is that Saudi Arabia gave it to them 131 00:07:52,836 --> 00:07:55,171 and everyone who knows anything about the Middle East 132 00:07:55,171 --> 00:08:02,706 knows the depth of the involvement of Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, one of Pauline’s great heroes, 133 00:08:02,706 --> 00:08:06,359 he is the man who has fuelled and armed this war 134 00:08:06,359 --> 00:08:10,408 and I now believe that Saudi Arabia gave Al-Qaeda these chemical weapons. 135 00:08:10,408 --> 00:08:11,145 But you admit it’s theory? 136 00:08:11,145 --> 00:08:16,416 Theory, of course, I’m not her; I’m not the head of the Intelligence Agency. 137 00:08:16,416 --> 00:08:20,086 But you are throwing out conspiracy theories, which is what some people would say, 138 00:08:20,086 --> 00:08:21,782 and they’re not based on any evidence either. 139 00:08:21,782 --> 00:08:23,531 They’re based logic, everyone knows… 140 00:08:23,531 --> 00:08:24,292 -Your logic? 141 00:08:24,292 --> 00:08:25,592 No, this is why… 142 00:08:25,592 --> 00:08:29,488 You see you don’t know this because you’re not a specialist in the area and I don’t blame you for that… 143 00:08:29,488 --> 00:08:30,208 -And you are? 144 00:08:30,208 --> 00:08:32,502 I am, yes, that’s why you brought me here. 145 00:08:32,863 --> 00:08:33,505 Is that right? 146 00:08:33,505 --> 00:08:35,029 Yes, that’s why you brought me here isn’t it? 147 00:08:35,029 --> 00:08:35,776 Go on… 148 00:08:35,776 --> 00:08:38,101 Why did you bring me here then? Because I’m the MP for Bradford? 149 00:08:38,101 --> 00:08:39,408 (sarcastically) Yes, that’s why we brought you on. 150 00:08:39,408 --> 00:08:41,765 You brought me here because I am a specialist in the area 151 00:08:41,765 --> 00:08:44,794 and I’m telling you [that] Saudi Arabia is up to its neck; 152 00:08:44,794 --> 00:08:51,733 the grisly, hand-chopping, head-cutting regime of Saudi Arabia, so beloved of people like Dame Pauline 153 00:08:51,799 --> 00:08:55,335 Do you think Israel would like that sort of regime on its border? 154 00:08:55,335 --> 00:08:58,249 Israel wants them all to kill each other for as long as possible. 155 00:08:58,249 --> 00:09:03,302 There’s an implicit admission already in Damascus that, actually, they do have chemical weapons in their possession 156 00:09:03,302 --> 00:09:08,023 and where they’re going to be found will demonstrate, actually, who is the custodian of these chemical weapons 157 00:09:08,023 --> 00:09:10,396 and I don’t have any doubt that it’s going to turn out that, actually, 158 00:09:10,396 --> 00:09:14,562 these are in the possession of and under the control of the regime in Syria. 159 00:09:15,278 --> 00:09:18,671 The Syrian regime has chemical weapons, as does the Israeli regime, 160 00:09:18,671 --> 00:09:21,280 as does the American regime, as does the British regime, 161 00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:24,751 the British were the first people to use chemical weapons in the Middle East, 162 00:09:24,751 --> 00:09:29,910 Mr Churchill used them on Kurdish tribesmen in the north of Iraq in 1921. 163 00:09:30,660 --> 00:09:33,862 Do you think there will be any military intervention in Syria? 164 00:09:33,862 --> 00:09:36,740 I think at the moment we can’t tell. 165 00:09:36,740 --> 00:09:42,124 I do think it will return as a serious option if this diplomatic initiative does not succeed. 166 00:09:42,124 --> 00:09:43,068 George Galloway… 167 00:09:43,068 --> 00:09:44,252 -As always a pleasure. 168 00:09:44,252 --> 00:09:48,257 …a specialist on the Middle East, in his own words, thank you so much.