Of bandits and terrorists: Pinter's broadside

Harold Pinter was not able to deliver his Nobel literature laureate's lecture in person in Stockholm yesterday, but his pre-recorded speech was a characteristically impassioned critique of the Anglo-American decision to go to war in Iraq.

The British playwright called for "US crimes" to be addressed head on and mocked Tony Blair's Britain as "pathetic and supine". The invasion of Iraq was branded "a bandit act" which showed contempt for international law and systematically knocked down the justifications given for the conflict. And in a nod back to the controversies of the Cold War era, Pinter demanded to know why, when atrocities committed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the post-war period had been so well-documented, the damaging actions of the US in Nicaragua and elsewhere had been ignored.

The political broadsides were preceded by a brief reflection on the art of writing. Pinter began his speech by explaining that most of his plays had been born from a single line, word or image that came into his head. But the Nobel Prize winner swiftly interrupted his literary meanderings with an impassioned tirade against the Iraq war.

"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act," he said, "an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law ... an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public."

He continued: "We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East' ... the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true."

Other assertions - that Iraq had a relationship with al-Qa'ida, thus sharing responsibility for 9/11, and that Iraq threatened the security of the world - proved to be equally baseless, he said.

Pinter also took on US foreign policy more widely, contending that "crimes" committed by the US since the Second World War have been largely overlooked, unlike the atrocities committed by other nations.

As he drew to a close, Pinter read his 1997 poem, Death. Prevented from travelling for reasons of ill health, Pinter was represented by his publisher, Stephen Page, of Faber and Faber, who will also attend Saturday's prize-giving ceremony on his behalf.

DEATH (1997)

Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body

Did you close both its eyes

Did you bury the body

Did you leave it abandoned

Did you kiss the dead body