Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question, again, is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the report of the Iraq Study Group, headed by former US Secretary of State James Baker, which concludes:

Current U.S. policy is not working ... Making no changes in policy would simply delay the day of reckoning at a high cost.

Does the Prime Minister agree that current coalition strategy in Iraq has failed?

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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. I welcome the publication of the report of the Baker-Hamilton commission in relation to Iraq. The contents of that report are largely to be said to be predictable. It certainly said words to the effect of those said by the Leader of the Opposition. But it also said a number of other things. For example, it said the following:

... we believe it would be wrong for the United States to abandon the country through a precipitate withdrawal of troops and support.

Can I say that again:

A premature American departure from Iraq would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions, leading to a number of the adverse consequences outlined above. The near-term results would be a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization, and a threat to the global economy. Al Qaeda would depict our withdrawal as a historic victory. If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return.

They are not my words or Alexander Downer’s words. They are the words of James Baker and Lee Hamilton, from a bipartisan commission of inquiry.

Of course the United States is looking at reworking its tactics but, as I have said before and I will say again—

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Bevis interjecting

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

Order! The member for Brisbane!

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

The words I have used in the past are very close to the words used by the Baker-Hamilton inquiry, ‘a precipitate American withdrawal’—and that is Labor policy; the Leader of the Opposition leads a party which is advocating a policy that would produce, in the words of the very report referred to by the Leader of the Opposition—

Graham Edwards (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary (Defence and Veterans' Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Edwards interjecting

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

Order! The member for Cowan!

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

... a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization, and a threat to the global economy.

It would produce a situation where:

Al Qaeda would depict our withdrawal as a historic victory.

Yet that is the policy of the Australian Labor Party. The Australian Labor Party cannot have it both ways: they cannot require immediate Australian withdrawal without morally acknowledging that if it is good enough for Australia to pull out it is good enough for the United States and the United Kingdom to pull out. The Leader of the Opposition is chained to a policy that would have the disastrous consequences outlined by the bipartisan report to which he has just referred.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister update—

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Bevis interjecting

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

Order! The member for Brisbane is warned!

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would the minister update the House on proposals to achieve the goal of a secure and democratic Iraq? Are there any alternative policies?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, as the Prime Minister has just said, we have been reading with a great deal of interest the work of the Iraq Study Group. They produced—

Graham Edwards (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary (Defence and Veterans' Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Edwards interjecting

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

Order! The member for Cowan is warned!

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

a 100-odd page report. We welcome the work of the Iraq Study Group. It is one of a number of reviews that have been undertaken. What is interesting about this issue is that the Iraq Study Group agrees with the goal articulated by the United States administration, by the British government and by other coalition partners, of which there are 27 including Australia. The goal in Iraq is ‘an Iraq that can govern, sustain and defend itself’. That is an entirely sensible and obvious, I would have thought, goal.

The Baker-Hamilton report makes 79 different proposals. They are all worth looking at seriously. I will identify one of those proposals, and that is that there should be increasing diplomacy with Iran and Syria. I can say that the Australian government has taken the view all along that it is important we maintain dialogue with Iran on a lot of issues but importantly on this issue. Indeed, just last week I spent half an hour on the telephone with the Iranian foreign minister, most of the time—not all of the time—discussing the issue of Iraq. Whilst the Australian government is much in favour of further diplomacy with Iran and Syria, it has to be said that our hopes are not high for what that can achieve. Nevertheless, we see it as a useful initiative but one that you would have to be heroically optimistic to believe is likely to achieve a significant change.

Next week the defence minister and I will be in Washington for the annual AUSMIN talks with our American counterparts. This will be an opportunity for us to further discuss, amongst other issues of course, the question of Iraq. As difficult as the situation is in Iraq, and especially in and around the Baghdad area, it is important to succeed in Iraq. It is also important to do something else, and that is to take into account the wishes of the Iraqi people. Some people set themselves up as greater judges than the Iraqi people. There are two things that the Iraqi people want. One of the things they want is to be rid of Saddam Hussein, and we helped them get rid of Saddam Hussein, and they do not want him back. The second thing they want is the international presence in Iraq for as long as necessary. Their own domestic security forces, particularly their army, are unable to handle security effectively enough themselves. It was never the object of the coalition to colonise Iraq; it was always the object of the coalition to set up a situation in Iraq where a democratic government would be able to sustain itself.

The Iraq Study Group of course reinforces these very arguments. I know the Prime Minister has mentioned this already but it is worth repeating: the Iraq Study Group, which the Americans would say is a ‘cross-aisle’ group, includes Democrats and Republicans. A lot of people said that the election of a Democrat majority in the American Congress would mean the United States would just quit Iraq. This cross-aisle study group, this bipartisan study group, say that there were some ideas that the group explicitly rejected. They said that they did not ‘recommend a precipitous withdrawal of troops because that might not only cause a bloodbath, it would also invite a wider regional war’. They are the words of Democrats and Republicans. They are the words, if I may say so, of people who have studied this issue in even greater detail than the Australian opposition.

When we are asked if there are alternative policies in a difficult situation, our answer is that there is the Leader of the Opposition’s policy, which is to haul up the white flag and surrender, and there is the Australian government’s policy which is not to surrender but to stand by the people of Iraq for as long as they want us to do so to ensure that a democratic government in Iraq which has successfully been elected is able to survive in the teeth of insurgents and terrorists.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Further to my previous question to the Prime Minister, I ask: why is the Prime Minister the only world leader to refuse to accept the Baker committee’s conclusion that current coalition policy in Iraq is not working?

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

The Baker-Hamilton commission, as both the foreign minister and I have pointed out, came to a number of conclusions. One of those conclusions is that the policy of the person who just asked me the question would lead to a bloodbath in Iraq.