David Norris (Independent)

I appreciate the attitude of the Leader yesterday to my request that the House debate the situation in Iraq and her indication that it would engage in a rolling debate. Will she indicate her intentions in this regard for next week? A debate of perhaps one hour without the presence of a Minister and with Senators allowed five minutes to contribute might be considered. We must monitor what is going on.

There has been a remarkable reversal in British public opinion. Today 67% are against the war. Major contracts have already been awarded by the United States Government to Vice-President Dick Cheney's Halliburton Corporation.

Yesterday I was accused of histrionics. I make no apology for being harrowed, as are most decent people in this country, by what is happening. For the honour of the Seanad we must place on record two paragraphs from a report by Robert Fisk in The Independent today that will shame the United States and Britain. It states:

It was an outrage, an obscenity. The severed hand on the metal door, the swamp of blood and mud across the road, the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three children in their still-smouldering car.

Two missiles from an American jet killed them all – by my estimate more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces before they could be 'liberated' by the nation that destroyed their lives. Who dares, I ask myself, to call this 'collateral damage'? Abu Taleb Street was packed with pedestrians and motorists when the American pilot approached through the dense sandstorm that covered northern Baghdad in a cloak of red and yellow dust and rain yesterday morning.