Don Lydon (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am aware of his commitment to foreign aid and much will be needed in this situation.

We face a sad situation in Iraq. At the time of the invasion, Senators Norris and O'Rourke and I spoke against it, saying the war was both immoral and illegal. I said that not because I did not believe in the bringing down of Saddam Hussein, who had visited so much pain on his own people, but because war always brings many civilian casualties, with the concomitant problem of the destruction of infrastructure. I read yesterday that the number of civilians killed by military intervention in Iraq is between 21,000 and 24,735, although I do not know how they arrived at that precise figure.

Iraq has suffered much. First it suffered under Saddam Hussein. We know what he did to his own people, particularly the Kurds. We also forget that the country was bombed almost daily for years after the Gulf war. Sanctions and misappropriations of funds resulted in the deaths of thousands of babies and young children. The invasion has caused thousands of civilian deaths and insurgent attacks are now multiplying. Daily we hear of the deaths of US soldiers and Iraqis as a result of car bombs, mortars and suicide bombs.

May 2005 has been one of the deadliest months since the invasion in March 2003. In Baghdad, four US soldiers died on Tuesday in two separate attacks. Three were killed in the centre of the capital, where a bomb exploded as their convoy drove by, the fourth was shot dead 30 minutes later by a gunman in a passing car at an observation post on a vehicle. Another four US soldiers were killed on Monday in a bombing in Haswa, about 50 km south of Baghdad. The bloodiest attack hit a Shiite Turkmen neighbourhood in the northern town of Tal Afar late on Monday evening, when two suicide bombers drove into a crowd, killing at least 35 people. The double attack took place a few minutes after mortar bombs were fired at two houses in the Muallimin district of Tal Afar. People gathered at the bombing sites and 25 more people were wounded.

Also on Monday, five people were killed and 19 wounded when the driver of a pick-up truck blew himself up outside the town hall in Tuz Kurmatu, near the northern oil centre of Kirkuk. South of the capital late on Monday, at least 11 people were killed, many of them children, when a car bomb exploded outside a Shiite prayer room in Mahmudiyah, inside the so called "triangle of death". Five civilians were shot dead in the same area on Tuesday near the Tigris valley town of Suwariyah. In Baghdad, 11 died and 100 were wounded on Monday as a mini-van packed with explosives was detonated outside a popular restaurant in a Shiite district. A parked car exploded near a police patrol on Tuesday, killing two and injuring eight.

The bombers appear to have increased their attacks on Shiite neighbourhoods amid continuing resentment among the Sunni Arab former elite against the majority community's new empowerment. This recent wave of attacks in Iraq appears indicative of a new stage in the insurgency. Attacks on police and army recruitment centres illustrate the way in which the insurgents are targeting the most critical function of the new government — its ability to provide security. Attacks had increased in the run up to the 30 January election but then appeared to fall back slightly, although they were still at the same level as a year ago. There are now 400 attacks a week — this figure includes everything from major bomb blasts to smaller incidents with no casualties. We should try to realise the implications of these figures.

A spate of attacks in the last two weeks, however, indicates that we may be encountering a new spike closely related to political manoeuvrings in Baghdad as insurgents try to destabilise the new government. We become inured to these figures after a while as they roll of the presses. We think of a car bomb where 30 people are killed and hope that it will eventually sort itself out. We must always remind ourselves of the tragedy, pain and suffering involved, with families ripped apart; it does not matter what nationality or religion they are.

The sophistication and scale of some of the attacks appears to be increasing, including the use of tandem bombs, where a second bomb is timed to go off just as rescuers arrive to help those injured in the first bomb. Military style assaults have also taken place, such as that on Abu Ghraib prison.

There is a continuing trend towards the targeting of ethnic communities, as witnessed by attacks on Kurds in Erbil and Tal Afar. This is a sign of the way in which politics and violence are closely intertwined in Iraq. While foreign fighters have often been the most visible of those involved in the insurgency due to their extreme methods, the bulk are thought to be former Ba'athists and from the Sunni community. The challenge now for Iraqis is to bring Sunnis, most of whom stayed away from the polls on 30 January, back into the political process.

The signs, however, are not good. The new government, with its Shiite Prime Minister and Kurdish President, has struggled to draw in Sunni figures. With talk of further "de-Ba'athification", there is further alienation of Sunnis and undermining of attempts to reach out to tribal leaders and other figures of influence who could try to persuade the insurgents to stem the violence in favour of politics.

The other key challenge for Iraq in trying to stymie the insurgency is to develop its own security forces. With a newly elected government at least partially in place, building up the ability of the new Iraqi forces remains the key determinant of how long the US and other coalition forces stay in Iraq. Establishing the real strength of these Iraqi forces is not easy, not least because the raw numbers are misleading. On 6 April 2005, the multinational command on Iraq reported that there were more than 150,000 men in the Iraqi military, security and police forces. Recently, however, the Pentagon had to lower its estimate for the number of Iraqi security forces because the US had been counting police and soldiers who were technically on the payroll rather than those who were reporting for duty and had been counting those who were not fully equipped.

The repeated attacks on recruitment centres are clearly an attempt to undermine morale and recruitment, as well as the ability of the security forces to combat the insurgency. Most of the national guard is still too lightly equipped and trained to perform more than limited security missions. Even if the numbers are at last picking up, the capabilities are a long way from matching those of the multinational coalition. The key point as people talk about early exit strategies and time lines for US withdrawal is that creating Iraqi forces does not make them combat effective or capable of ending crime.

The attacks may also increase pressure from the Kurdish and Shia communities to use their own well trained militias to put down the insurgency. The fear is that sending Kurdish troops into predominantly Sunni towns may further inflame sectarian tension. The January election was a success but the challenge was to build on it, establish the country in the long term and quell the insurgency. This challenge still remains. Several months since the election, many ministries have yet to be filled. The problem has been trying to strike an acceptable balance of power between the different national groupings.

Iraq's once dominant Sunni Arabs, who only constitute 20% of the population, largely boycotted the elections or were scared of voting. Now they have only 6% of seats in the new National Assembly. Shia Muslim and Kurdish parties have realised credible Sunni Arabs must be included in the new Government if the insurgency is to be undermined. It has been difficult to find Sunni candidates acceptable to all sides. For example, the Sunnis say they offered up to 22 candidates for the defence ministry but all were turned down. Shias and Kurds are reluctant to endorse candidates who served in the former regime and are suspected of having blood on their hands. Sunnis complain that the policy of "de-Ba'athification" risks turning into an all-out Sunni purge. Some argue that given Iraq's dark history of dictatorship and war, there were bound to be birthing pains in forming a representative government. However, those commentators will be disappointed that several months after the elections, problems still exist. Weeks of wrangling mean weeks of delay in confronting the large economic, security and political challenges facing Iraq. Political stagnation risks increasing the appeal of the resistance. Meanwhile the clock is ticking for the Iraqi Government to draft a permanent constitution.

The delays in forming the new government played into the hands of the insurgents, many of whom are clearly determined to destabilise it. The announcement of the new Cabinet on 28 April heralded a fresh wave of attacks. It is less clear that the formation of inclusive government can draw the sting from the insurgency. One element of the insurgency may be remnants of the former Ba'athist Government that may be placated by Sunni representation in the new Government. However, the insurgency is thought to be a loose collection of disparate forces including Islamists, Iraqi nationalists, foreign jihadists and left-wing groups. Supporters of these groups may be more difficult to win over.

Most of Iraq's neighbours have urged an end to the violence. However, some may have mixed feelings for the political process. While Shia-controlled Iran has been happy to see Iraq's natural Shia majority come to the fore, Turkey is anxious about the burgeoning Kurdish role and the risk that a war-torn state could break up leaving an independent Kurdish state on its borders. Saudi Arabia may be concerned by the effect the new potency Iraq's Shias could have on its mostly Shia eastern province.

The US claims its presence in Iraq is limited to leadership of the multinational peacekeeping force and its large embassy in Baghdad. However, few Iraqis believe that Washington has given up its political influence. The creation of the interim constitution now guiding the political process which maximises the clout of minority groupings in Iraq, including the more US-friendly Kurds, was done under the auspices of the US. Meanwhile, there is no sign of an agreed timetable for the withdrawal of US troops, although it was the second point in the United Arab Alliance's manifesto. This group was the winner of January's election. The US President, Mr. Bush, has indicated that US troops are in Iraq for the long haul and several permanent US military bases are under construction there.

In many areas of Iraq, reconstruction has stalled. The wars, the sanctions and the looting have left Iraq's infrastructure in ruins. In 2003, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the World Bank stated that Iraq required $36 billion for reconstruction. The US authorities in Baghdad added another $19 billion to the estimate to cover security and the oil industry. International donors pledged to contribute €32 billion to reconstruction, with over half pledged by the US. By September 2004, only $2.5 billion had been released, largely because the security situation did not allow rebuilding work to proceed. Over half of the $1.2 billion released by the US was spent on security-related measures. The reconstruction effort has been hit by allegations of mismanagement and Iraqi oil revenue unaccounted for.

An Internet website gives the cost of the war in Iraq. While it is changed every few seconds, the last time I checked it stood at $171,983,948. This would have funded anti-global hunger efforts for seven years. It would have funded a worldwide AIDS programme for 17 years. We could have ensured that every child in the world has basic immunisations for 57 years for the amount spent on this unnecessary war. The Vietnam war is known there as the "American war". Up to 3 million Vietnamese were killed and much of the country defoliated. With Iraq, we are now in another Vietnam.