Brussels, 18/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Belgian Socialist Véronique De Keyser, MEP, was in Iraq on 17 April for what she considers "above all a mission for peace and observation of the daily lives of the Iraqi people and of the many problems arising from the embargo and/or food/oil programme that has already caused one and a half million victims among the civilian population". Ms De Keyser, as the "shadow rapporteur" on the report by British Liberal Democrat Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourn on the situation in Iraq eleven years after the Gulf War (to be discussed in plenary in May), put forward several amendments. She was mainly keen that the Parliament should take a clearer position against any possibility of US military intervention in Iraq. Ms De Keyser thus notes a passage of Baroness Nicholson's proposed resolution which stresses the "need for support to opposition activities outside Iraqi borders". The appeal clearly aims for support at the National Iraqi Congress based in London, she stresses, considering that it also involves "support to military action after the fashion of the successful scenario (militarily speaking) in Afghanistan". As Ms De Keyser told the press before leaving, she is opposed to the "war of propaganda" which the American Administration seems to be launching, in an attempt to gain Europe's backing for its vision of an "axis of evil". The purpose of her journey, she said, is to seek a road for dialogue, which is of course difficult, with the Iraqi civil society, instead of encouraging foreign opposition. Ms De Keyser is to meet, among others, the rector of the University of Baghdad, intellectuals, trade unionists, and representatives of women's organisations.