Labhrás Ó Murchú (Fianna Fail)

I join other Senators in welcoming the Minister of State to the House. One can only imagine the suffering of the Iraqi people at present and the extent of the fear and uncertainty and sense of helplessness which must exist. It is impossible for any person so far removed from the scene to make any proper or balanced judgment as to what may be happening there. We are dependent on where we are coming from ourselves. The best we can hope for is that we would make some inspired assumptions. A prerequisite for those assumptions must be in the first instance that whatever about the deception of the public by the protagonists in the current war that we should not allow ourselves to be tempted into self-deception out of a sense of loyalty to any one particular player in this terrible tragedy.