"We have a clear responsibility in the interests of long-term peace in the world to stop Saddam Hussein from defying the judgement of the world's community. He must be either persuaded by diplomacy or made by force to yield up his long-cherished ambition to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons - weapons which threaten not only his immediate neighbours in the Middle East but pose a direct and fundamental challenge to world peace.

All our experience of him teaches us that it is sometimes hard to succeed with him by diplomacy but one thing is for sure: diplomacy stands no chance of success at all unless he knows that if he fails to listen to reason, we have the force to back it up."