Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I follow on from the remarks of my colleague the member for Melbourne Ports. I rise to speak on the prime ministerial statement on Iraq as one of the ‘mob’, which was the expression used by the Prime Minister to describe the hundreds of thousands of Australians who marched against Australia’s involvement in the war in Iraq. I rise to say, as a proud member of that ‘mob’, as it was described by the Prime Minister, that the mob was right.

The Prime Minister made a ministerial statement to parliament about the relocation of Australian forces within Iraq—a war that has now cost at least $1.3 billion—but in so doing the Prime Minister failed to acknowledge or mention any of the features of this conflict that are of great concern to ordinary Australians, particularly those who marched in the streets. Nor did the Prime Minister admit that the primary foreign policy goal, other than the unconditional backing of every policy posture of the Bush administration, has really been to avoid putting any troops on the front line—if there is such a thing, in the terrible war that Iraq has become. Like all members in the House, we wish only for the safety of our men and women in service overseas. But the clear fact is that the strategic ambition of the Howard government has been, having committed Australian troops to this conflict, to try at the least to keep them out of harm’s way. That is understandable. But, as a strategic approach to an intervention of this kind, it is not acceptable.

The prime ministerial statement was short on reflection and rather incomplete about the likely prospects of our troops, now that the Japanese construction forces and engineers have gone. As members would know, it was short on reflection on what the war in Iraq has actually meant to the international legal framework for the conduct of conflict. As members would know, the international rules and norms covering war were strengthened and codified after the two so-named ‘great wars’ of the 20th century, the first and second world wars. These codes and principles were laid out in the Geneva convention and in various other international instruments. They were underpinned by core religious and philosophical tenets that had evolved over time. They included at their heart the principle of a just war. These were the rules, and the rule of a just war in particular provided a framework within which it was fervently hoped that armed conflict could be managed and that the highest priority would be given to the interests of the civilian population—the young, the innocent, the infirm. Additionally, the issue of proportionality was seen as being a guiding principle in the conduct of wars.

It is the case that, with each war, the number of civilian casualties continues to rise. This is partly a product of the nature of wars themselves and partly a product of the way in which wars are entered into and the technologies that are used. The figure was around five per cent in World War I and stood at nearly 90 per cent by the time the Vietnam conflict was concluded. I think the House must ask the question: once the figure gets close to 100 per cent, where do we turn?

Additionally, there had to be very good reasons for leaders to commit young men and now young women to the battlefield and to the awfulness of war. Primary of those was to defend the national interest and to exercise the right as a sovereign state to defend the state against unprovoked attack—that is, the right of self-defence—and it is enshrined in international law. It is on the basis of the right of self-defence and the exercise of a just war that all other normative rules, regulations and principles that govern the conduct of armed conflict between nations rest. It is a great tragedy that those rules have been made tattered and frayed by the conduct of the Howard government as it entered the war in Iraq as part of the coalition of the willing.

The actions of the allied nations in World War II were entirely justified for the same reason that the US invasion, strongly encouraged and supported by the Howard government, is without justification. This Iraq war is an illegal war. Those who still support the war, apart from presiding over a terrible mess, are party to the original wrongful act of acceding to war, notwithstanding the terrible nature of the Hussein regime, without an accepted legally justifiable reason.

The Prime Minister’s ministerial statement on the current status of the Iraq war we are debating here did not, of course, address any of these issues. It did not go to the heart of why this war is opposed by the Labor Party and by millions of Australians. But, in addressing the role played by our troops there, as the Prime Minister did, numerous questions are still hanging. Amongst them is: was the normative framework of international law served by our entering into an armed conflict in Iraq? The answer must be no. Indeed, the notion of a pre-emptive strike—a policy that the Prime Minister seems to have embraced—actively destabilises not only the international legal framework that surrounds the conduct of war but, additionally, the geostrategic stability of parts of the world that experience unrest, particularly the Middle East. It is no accident that much of the rhetoric that flies around the Middle East in terms of conflict, claim and counterclaim rests in part on an insecurity that attaches to the notion of a pre-emptive strike.

The next question that the Prime Minister should have addressed was: was Australia’s national interest served by committing the nation to war? Again, I say the answer is no. The head of the Australian Federal Police made it crystal clear early on in the war’s carriage that, as a consequence of the government’s decision to enter the war in Iraq, Australians and Australia were more exposed to the risk of terrorism than otherwise would have been the case. The Prime Minister and the foreign minister shouted him down, but it was too late. An honest public servant had belled the cat.

The national interest, too, is affected by the significant burden that is placed on the Australian defence forces by war. This is a constant concern raised by military analysts, and it is doubtless on the minds of senior defence personnel as well. The Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Houston, said in evidence to a Senate committee earlier this year—I think in February—that the general feeling was that Australian troops should be there as long as the Japanese engineers required protection and that by the middle of the year they should be out.

Our reasons for being in this war constantly change and they are still changing, and that is one of the great flaws in the government’s participation in the coalition of the willing. Now the minister, I understand, says that the troops should be out by Christmas. Do we recall the pillorying from the media and from the government that came when a former Leader of the Opposition made that same observation? The Minister for Defence clearly feels that it is okay to raise the ‘out by Christmas’ flag yet again, and I do hope the troops are out by Christmas. But, as Air Chief Marshal Houston and other senior military officers know, there is a national interest that attaches to having troops committed in Iraq—that is, our defence capacities, given the other engagements in Afghanistan and in the region, are simply stretched to the limit. For those of us who have defence facilities and institutions in our electorates—as I do in Kingsford Smith—it is no poor reflection on officers at both senior and serving levels that they are only too well aware of the very great pressure and very great levels of responsibility that have been placed on them by the government by this commitment.

Was the original claim of removing weapons of mass destruction sufficient reason for invading Iraq? That was the reason that was given. Again the answer is no. In fact, it was a deliberate falsehood and the Prime Minister knew it and he repeated it subsequent to knowing it, and yet that was the reason championed to the Australian public—a reason without any foundation or fact whatsoever. It is the worst of leaderships to allow a country to enter a war on the back of a falsehood or a lie, and it will be acknowledged and recognised as that as the history of our involvement in this war is written.

Was the removal of the regime of Saddam Hussein—in fact, this was one of the original reasons as well—reason enough to enter into war? The difficulty with this reason was that initially the question of Saddam Hussein’s regime was not seen as instrumental to the conduct of the war. In fact, Prime Minister Blair made it very clear that it was not about regime change at all; it was simply about weapons of mass destruction. But very quickly it became one of regime change. The key here is that, other than voices being raised within countries like Australia and the US about the conduct of their leaders as they enter into war, it is the voices that are universally raised outside in other countries and communities who witness the actions and the words of our leaders and make judgements accordingly.

Was the revised aim of addressing and hopefully defeating fundamentalist terrorism achieved by going into war in Iraq? Again, the answer is no. In fact, the Iraq adventure has had the opposite effect. Iraq has become a lightning rod for the disaffected, a breeding ground for terrorism and a place of terrible suffering. Was the war then justifiable as policy by any other means, to paraphrase Clausewitz, I think? Again, no. The invasion of Iraq remains a dismal failure, but the Prime Minister did not admit this in his statement to the House. Conservative commentators like Francis Fukuyama are scathing of the US conduct in the war. Owen Harries has called the war ‘a misbegotten adventure, wrongly conceived as well as incompetently implemented’. And yet the Prime Minister’s statement made no allowance for that.

Labor believes the Australian troops should be withdrawn now the Japanese reconstruction force has departed, but instead the prime ministerial statement indicated that the troops may be called on by the Iraqi government to provide backup. But that raises serious questions again about whether Australian troops will be used in some kind of call-up capacity—something which has attached to it another set of risks, difficulties and problems.

It is nothing short of a miracle that Australian loss of life has been so few and it is due entirely to the high levels of professionalism and service of the ADF. It is also a fact that the lives of the innocent lost in bombing raids in Iraq are not officially counted. But that fact should repulse any civilised person or country reflecting on this war. It is a fact that Australia provided cover for the sale of wheat to Saddam Hussein’s regime while prosecuting war against Iraq and that the government clasps its hands to its chest and proclaims its fealty to the nation and the sacrifice of young lives whilst at the same time acquiescing to trade with those that you are meant to be engaging in war with—an act of monstrous hypocrisy.

It is a fact that President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had no exit strategy and no articulated rationale for the conduct of this misadventure, and it is a fact that the Howard government, constantly hiding behind the cloak of patriotism, has been with them all the way. It has not exercised the necessary serious correspondence, discussion and serious judgement on these issues with a senior alliance partner that it should have done. It has simply been with them all the way. Notwithstanding the intimate access that Foreign Minister Downer has to senior members of the Bush administration, he has not been paying attention to the commentary of those who watch these matters closely nor of the people who watch with shock and say that this is a war that never should have been entered into.

In conclusion, let me say that there are other aspects of our involvement in the war against Iraq that need to be referred to briefly. They include the illegal renditions of terrorist suspects, the drumbeat from the American Attorney-General that the Geneva convention should not impede the US in its campaign on terrorism, and the fate of Australian citizen David Hicks, who has been abandoned by this government. All of these matters, and many others, flow outwards from the conduct of this government in a war that was illegal and that would not serve any of its avowed aims.

The access to power and the strong ideology that the Howard government has experienced in its relationships with the United States regrettably have taken us to a place that we should never have been in. They have taken us to the war in Iraq. Australians and Australian troops will be well served if we are out of there as soon as possible.

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