This House believes only a new dictator can end the violence in Iraq
Wednesday January 31 2007
MOTION REJECTED
by 33% to 67%
Speakers
Sabah al-Mukhtar
Speaking for the motionSabah al-Mukhtar is an Iraqi lawyer and activist and the President of the Arab Lawyers Association, UK.
He is also a political analyst on Arab affairs, including Iraqi politics and oil issues, and appears on the BBC, MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Corporation), Al Jazeera, CNN and Sky television. He also writes articles for Al-Quds and the daily London Arabic newspapers.
Mr. Al-Mukhtar was admitted to the Iraqi Law Society in 1969 and the Bar in 1974. He also practiced law in the United Arab Emirates.
He is the co-author of the 'Arab & Islamic Law Yearbook' and is on the editorial board of the 'Arab Law Quarterly' and the 'Middle East Commercial Law Review' . He is a member of the Iraqi Bar Association, Federation of Arab Bar Associations, the International Bar Association, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Associate of the American Bar Association, and the Associate of the Asia-Pacific Lawyers Association.
He holds a bachelor's degree in law from Al- Mustansiryah University in Baghdad and was awarded a degree of Master of Law from London in 1986.
Adnan Pachachi
Speaking against the motionDr. Adnan Pachachi is a veteran Iraqi diplomat and former President of the Iraq Governing Council which governed the country in the wake of the American invasion in 2003.
Dr. Pachachi, considered one of Iraq's elder statesmen, comes from a long-established Sunni political family in Iraq. He served as Iraqi foreign minister and ambassador to the UN before the Baathists seized power in a coup in 1968.
He spent his years of exile in Abu Dhabi where he was an advisor to the government of the United Arab Emirates. After three decades in exile, Dr. Pachachi returned to Iraq in 2003 and founded the Alliance of Independent Democrats. He was one the Governing Council members to hold the rotating presidency.
In 2004, Dr. Pachachi was offered the post of Iraqi President in the Interim Government, but he turned it down. His Assembly of Independent Democrats, a coalition on Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and Christians, competed in the January 2005 elections but won only a small percentage of the vote. For the December 2005 elections he joined the Iraqi National List headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. The List claimed to "represent all of Iraq and not just one party".
Dr. Pachachi gained degrees from the American University in Beirut and Georgetown University in Washington.
Robert Baer
Speaking for the motionRobert Baer is a former CIA officer who spent most of his 20 year career in the Middle East and was one of the key men operating inside Iraq during the aborted uprising in 1995. He was also stationed in Lebanon and Sudan as well as Tajikistan, India and Europe.
Since leaving the CIA in 1997, Mr. Baer has worked for various news outlets and written several books. He was an on-camera consultant for ABC News in 2003 and hosted a documentary series called 'Cult of the Suicide Bomber' for Channel 4 in Britain. He is the author of 'See No Evil; The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism' , 'Sleeping With The Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude' and 'Blow the House Down'. He has also written for Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Nation and most recently for Time magazine.
'See No Evil' about the Middle East, the oil industry and espionage inspired the film Syriana starring George Clooney.
Mr. Baer speaks Arabic, Farsi, French and German. He received a Bachelor of Science of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
George Galloway
Speaking against the motionGeorge Galloway is a Member of Parliament in the UK and was a leading campaigner against the war in Iraq.
He was a member of the Labour Party before being expelled in 2003 in the wake of his outspoken comments on the Iraq war. He is now a member of the anti-war Respect Party which was founded in 2004.
Mr. Galloway was a founder of the 'Stop the War Coalition UK' which mobilized protestors against the war in Iraq. He also opposed the war in the Gulf in 1990.
Mr. Galloway was born in the Scottish city of Dundee and left school at 16 to become a factory worker. He was first elected to Parliament in 1987. In 2000, he founded and is still chairman of 'The Great Britain - Iraq Society'. He is a former Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Iran. In 1991, he formed the 'Emergency Committee on Iraq', which has been renamed the 'Emergency Committee on Iraq and Palestine', and he remains its chairman. He first became involved in the Palestinian cause in the early 1970s, regularly visiting Lebanon and becoming an activist in support of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation).
Watch online