Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, why is the decorated former SAS officer and Iraq war veteran Peter Tinley wrong to say that the basis of the Iraq war was ‘immoral because the government knew at the time that evidence of weapons of mass destruction was not conclusive yet they chose to believe it because of their own reasons’?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The views expressed by that former SAS officer—and I pay tribute to all serving and former SAS officers, whatever their views may be on individual issues—reflect the fact that there has been on this issue a division of opinion within the Australian community and it is barely surprising that that division of opinion would be reflected in Defence Force individuals because they are part of the Australian community. The remark made by the former SAS officer related to the government’s state of knowledge in relation to weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion of Iraq. It is worth telling the House of an observation made on 7 February 2003, several weeks before the coalition operation. This observation reads as follows:

No foreign office or defence department official anywhere on the globe entertains the view that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction.

That is an unconditional assertion which I do not think even I made in quite those terms. I do not think the Minister for Foreign Affairs made such an assertion. I do not think even Tony Blair made such an assertion, but do you know who did make it? The Leader of the Opposition, on 7 February 2003. I will simply say he entertained a bona fide belief before the invasion and he was not basing it on something we had told him—just as the member for Griffith told the State Zionist Council of Victoria that it was ‘an empirical fact’.

The truth of the matter is that both the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Griffith were fence-sitters on the question of the coalition operation. If it had gone differently, they would have turned around and said, ‘Silly old Simon shouldn’t have opposed it. If they had listened to me, we would not now be in this situation.’ The Leader of the Opposition, who wrote in the Financial Review, ‘No foreign office or defence department official anywhere on the globe entertains the view that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction,’ would now, three years later, parade to the world that he was always sceptical, that he always knew and that he was always a doubter, but the truth of the matter is that three years ago he was a weak fence-sitter and it now suits him to be a political opportunist.

The member for Griffith had better brief the Leader of the Opposition on it because they are both as bad as each other. There is no contest on this. They might be rivals for the leadership, but they are not rivals for hypocrisy on the invasion of Iraq. They are co-conspirators in having had one position three years ago and now that it suits their miserable political hides to have a different position.

I respect any SAS officer. He is entitled to his view. He belongs to a great democracy. Let nobody say that, way back three years ago, when we were arguing on the basis of the intelligence we had that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that was not the belief of the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Griffith.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms King interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Ballarat is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are rolled-gold hypocrites for pretending otherwise.