JONES:
The Prime Minister's on the line, Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES:
Prime Minister these are as tough a times as we've had surely.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it is very challenging and I can understand the anxiety of people. I'm pleased, if I can put it that way in a relative sense, I'm pleased to say at present there haven't been any new specific threats affecting Australia. But that doesn't mean to say they won't come. The security threats that the British and the Americans have received have been more specific, that doesn't mean of course that they'll come to fruition but the sort of alerts that we're seeing in Britain and the United States are very understandable, it's a sign of the times in which we live and I agree with you, I think we have to understand we're living in a new dispensation.
JONES:
PM, there have been a lot of suggestions over the last any number of weeks, what's all this business about Iraq got to do with September 11 and Osama bin Laden. Now we have an audio tape in which bin Laden seems quite clearly to give, in at least a general matter, specific advice to the Iraqi military of how best to fight the Americans and their allies. This should put pain to this argument that there is no connection between Osama bin Laden or the stateless terrorists and the provision of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein. Will it in any way, do you think, sway European opinion about the significance of this link?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it should. Alan, our argument is a very simple one. You have weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rogue states like Iraq, you have the possibility and the more those weapons proliferate the greater becomes the possibility that they will fall into the hands of terrorists. You have the leading terrorist, if I can put it that way, making common cause, although they have ideological differences, making common cause against the West with Iraq. Now that is a pretty straight forward proposition and it represents another powerful argument why Iraq should be disarmed, why the United Nations should make certain that it speaks with one very strong voice and very soon. Because if there is to be a hope of a peaceful disarmament it will only come if the world community, including the Europeans, including everybody on the Security Council, comes together and with one voice says to Iraq the game is up, you have got to disarm.
JONES:
Bin Laden says on the tape that it is permissible under Islam to shed the blood of, quote, "anyone who helps America."
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I mean that's sort of depraved language, of course does great dishonour to Islam. What you are witnessing here is the gross distortion of religion for the most perverted purposes. The great overwhelming majority of Muslim people around the world will be as repulsed by that as you and I are and it's very important again to say that our argument is not with Islam and that is one of the messages that I will be communicating to President Megawati when I go to Indonesia on Friday. Amongst other things I'll be explaining to her that our hostility to Iraq is related to the weapons we know that Iraq has, not to the religion of the Iraqi people. We respect their religion, we respect the religion of all people. But we are dealing here with a group of people who have distorted religious principle and religious belief, have tried to generate hostility between the great religions of the world and it's very important that we prevent that occurring and it's very important that we maintain a united front. Now I have to come back to this point, people keep saying can we have a peaceful solution? You will not get a peaceful solution if the world is divided in relation to Iraq. Iraq will be encouraged and emboldened if it sees a world divided. Iraq is more likely to contemplate the realities that it faces if the world is united.
JONES:
The CIA was suggesting yesterday, Mr Tenet, the head of the CIA saying that he felt that that unity that you're seeking was in fact weaker now than any point in recent times. Is there any hope in the immediate future of Europe, and we're talking about Belgium and France and Germany in particular, and even Russia, Vladimir Putin is now calling for more inspectors and for some more time. Are they likely to speak with a united voice?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well things can change very rapidly, you may remember last year there seemed to be a lot of disarray and then all of a sudden 15 members of the Security Council voted in favour of a very tough resolution. There's a lot of diplomatic work going on, very intense work going on and tomorrow morning here in England I will have the opportunity of talking to the British Prime Minister who I think has behaved with very great strength and very great principle on this issue. He's been very firm and upfront from the very beginning. But it's a difficult situation, the report from Hans Blix on Friday will be important, on all the evidence as I know it, it will be unreasonable for there to be any finding other than Iraq continues to be fundamentally uncooperative with the weapons inspectors and therefore in continuous breach of the Security Council's requirements.
JONES:
I know you've just left America but reports here today tell us that Americans in Washington and New York have been told in the last 24 hours to stock up on food and water to make sure that they've got supplies that last three days, to keep a battery powered radio and to have tape and plastic ready to seal up a safe room in the event of an attack by chemical or biological weapons or a radiological dirty bomb. Now I mean it can't get any worse than this can it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it can, I mean. Those warnings can...
JONES:
Can materialise?
PRIME MINISTER:
Can materialise. Alan, this is one of the great, probably the greatest dilemma a democratic society has. On the one hand you have a solemn obligation to communicate possible risk for people. If you do so you get criticised for alarming them. If you have to do it too frequently they can have alarm fatigue and not take any notice of it. And of course it goes without saying this is exactly what terrorists want to create in the minds of democratic communities. We have to understand that we are living in a different environment. The twin evils of the modern world are the potential coming together of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism, and if they do come together, the consequences for the world are very dire. Now, every time I hear myself saying something like that, I think - am I alarming people? I suppose it does make people anxious. On the other hand, it's what I believe and I have an obligation to communicate it the best I can to the Australian people.
JOURNALIST:
In your discussions with President Bush and now tomorrow with Tony Blair, what emphasis has been given to what - I hope we're not overstating it - but the crisis in North Korea. Dr Steven Watkins from John Hopkins School of International Research in Washington, John Hopkins University, wrote only this week that if North Korea is not persuaded to stop its weapons development, in a few months it would be capable of laying waste to major Japanese cities. Further missile testing will give North Korea the ability to strike Alaska and eventually the continental United States and Australia. Now I see that the CIA have now warned today that North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons and a missile that could carry one to the west coast of the United States. Now if you can't contain Saddam Hussein and disarm him, surely the West or those people seeking international peace, will have no credibility with North Korea.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is exactly right Alan. You can't imagine that if we show weakness towards Iraq - when I say 'we' I mean the world community - that we are going to show strength to North Korea. There is a link between the two. North Korea has been emboldened to do in part what she has done by the disarray of other countries towards Iraq over the past few years. And not only is Iraq a big test for the Security Council to make sure that its will is enforced, but if the Security Council walks away from its responsibilities relating to Iraq, it will not be believed in relation to anything it tries to do concerning North Korea. So I think there is a very... and the answer to your question is yes, it is an issue that has been discussed between the President and myself. It will be discussed tomorrow morning here in England between myself and the British Prime Minister. There is that link and it's a very important link.
JOURNALIST:
So are you also saying that the critics who counsel delay to give UN inspectors more time, ignore the imperative imposed upon the world by North Korea's threats in relation to the exercise of nuclear power?
PRIME MINISTER:
I just say two things in reply to that. Firstly, the problem with Iraq is not more time. It's attitude, it's cooperation. If Iraq were genuinely cooperating, they could have all the time in the world. That is not the issue. The issue is whether they are serious and fair dinkum about cooperating with the weapons inspectors and to date I have seen no evidence that they are. So far as North Korea is concerned, the longer we appear weak, indecisive and ambiguous about Iraq, the more encouraged the North Koreans will be to extend their reach and to expand their threat and to increase their level of intimidation.
JOURNALIST:
PM, you're meeting with George Bush, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, everybody [inaudible]. What the hell... the average layman is saying what the hell is the United Nations doing that these situations have been allowed to reach such a critical point. Is there a future for the United Nations? Is its credibility up for grabs, or has it shot its credibility completely? How did we get to this point?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the United Nations was indifferent towards Iraq for many years. It was only when the Americans went back last year to reenergise and that they again got interested. But I do think that the United Nations, and particularly the Secretary General, understands that if the Security Council doesn't come up to the mark, doesn't discharge its responsibilities in relation to Iraq complying with the past resolution - if it doesn't do that, it will really do enormous long-term damage to its credibility. And the United Nations is a very up and down organisation. Many of its specialised agencies do very good work. Many of them interfere unnecessarily in the affairs of democratic, free countries so it's a very mixed bag. But the Security Council right now has a pivotal moment in the historic experience of the United Nations, and if it fails this test, if it allows to Iraq to fudge at the edge again to get away with it, it will do enormous damage to the United Nations.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think the leadership of France have forgotten the terror that they faced in the hands of Nazi Germany and can't seem to understand a similar terror faced by people in Saddam Hussein's Iraq? Have they got bad memories?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the French are... I hesitate at a time like this publicly to use any language that's provocative. I think they are playing it, to say the least, a spoiling, unhelpful role. And I think they are forgetting some of the lessons of history and they are perhaps allowing a sense of national pride and importance to take precedence over commonsense.
JOURNALIST:
Okay. Just a quick one before you go, and I thank you for your time, but Zimbabwe... there are suggestions that you can't win over Mbeki and Obasanjo, who seem to be trying to tell us that things have improved in Zimbabwe and they should be allowed back into the Commonwealth.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is no doubt we disagree. I don't think Zimbabwe has done anything to meet the expectations that were laid down at our meeting almost a year ago. I don't believe that Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth should be allowed to run out. I think it should continue until the full meeting in Nigeria at the end of the year. Nothing I have seen suggests that Zimbabwe is anything other than an enormous tragedy for millions of its own people.
JOURNALIST:
We'll leave it there because I've got to go to the news, and you've got to go. But thank you for your time Prime Minister and good luck on behalf of Australians in these endeavours.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]