UN: The United Nations Security Council had failed to give proper attention to the human-rights implications of the Iraqi crisis, the secretary general of Amnesty International, Ms Irene Khan, said during a visit to Dublin.
She said Amnesty had made representations to the council in this regard "We don't believe that the council has given attention to the human rights and humanitarian issues. We have appealed to the council to respect the UN Charter and to use force as a last resort."
Amnesty believed that in making its decisions on Iraq, the council should take account of the human-rights implications, but there had not been "any proper debate" on these issues.
"We understand that there have been discussions behind closed doors," she said. However, the fate of the people of Iraq was a matter of such great interest that it should not be left to such private discussions.
"Amnesty doesn't take a position on any war: we don't oppose war and we don't support war.What we do believe, however, is that those who have to make these difficult political decisions should take full account of the human-rights/humanitarian implications.
"First they need to weigh the danger that the regime presents now in Iraq, as compared to the human-rights/humanitarian disaster that might be triggered by the war."
The decision-makers also had to take into account the potential effect on the civilian population and what action would be taken against those who committed violations of international humanitarian law.
Amnesty had been working on Iraq for more than 30 years now. "In the 1980s, we produced the report about the massacre of the Kurds in Halabja, at that time of course neither the UK nor the US governments were interested in our report. They turned their backs on it.
"We have found it very difficult to get countries to focus on the human-rights record of this regime. We find now, similarly, a disinclination to discuss how the human-rights issues are going to be addressed. If there is war, there will be a set of problems coming out of that. If there is no war, there is also a very bad human-rights situation that needs to be tackled.
"So one of the proposals we are putting on the table in our lobbying with the Security Council is the deployment of human-rights inspectors. We believe there are arms inspectors looking at Saddam's palaces, there should be human-rights inspectors looking at his prisons and police stations."
It was not a new concept,Ms Khan said, but had been discussed by the UN at the level of the General Assembly, which had adopted a resolution last December on the deployment of human-rights monitors. "But it hasn't got the attention that it deserves, it hasn't been discussed properly and the Security Council certainly hasn't engaged with it."
Turning to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she said there had been "a terrible escalation of conflict which has had its toll on both sides". Civilians from both communities had suffered greatly and Amnesty believed that the deployment of international human-rights monitors sponsored by the UN would help defuse the situation somewhat.
"The UN could play a very useful role but unfortunately the Israeli government refused to accept a UN mission to Jenin [site of alleged human-rights violations in the West Bank] to look at that investigation. Since then, there have been many more incursions into the occupied territories and none of that has been investigated, it remains unresolved."
On the other side of the conflict, Amnesty had brought out a report last summer on Palestinian suicide bombings: "We had discussions with Hamas and with other Palestinian groups because we believe that they have a responsibility not to attack Israeli civilians." There is "a responsibility on both sides to protect civilians" and to avoid making a bad situation worse.
The Iraqi crisis was diverting attention from other "equally desperate" human-rights situations in places such as the Cote d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo, she said.
Ms Khan was visiting Dublin to discuss fund-raising for Amnesty with the Irish section.