Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to commence my remarks in this grievance debate with a quote. It is from one of Australia’s most respected diplomats, the former ambassador to the United Nations, a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and a former special envoy for this Prime Minister, Richard Woolcott. He said:

The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, having made such a catastrophic foreign and security policy blunder, are now trapped in a dilemma of their own making.

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The starting point now must be to acknowledge the original and present errors and to decide on the most appropriate exit strategy from the appalling situating in which we chose to involve ourselves.

My grievance tonight is this government’s foreign policy failings, particularly in relation to Iraq. I raise this issue as a member of parliament who represents more present and former Iraqi citizens than any other member—a member of parliament who, on a daily basis, in his electorate office hears stories of murder, rape and the loss of human rights of citizens in Iraq.

We justified the invasion of Iraq on the basis of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction—weapons which failed to materialise. Then the government justified it by bringing democracy and freedom and prosperity to Iraq. And, as I said, every day in my electorate office I hear tales of people fleeing Iraq—fleeing persecution, fleeing a murderous regime and fleeing intolerance. The reality is, as hard as it is to believe, that these people tell me that the situation was better for them under Hussein’s brutal regime.

This was also the conclusion of the National Intelligence Estimate on the United States, which represents the conclusions of the United States’ 16 different intelligence bodies. They found that the war was clearly creating more terrorists than it was destroying. And it is the view of the United Kingdom’s Chief of the General Staff, Sir Richard Dannatt, who recently said, ‘We should get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems.’ Hugh White, the respected strategic analyst, said:

… don’t pay attention to what the Government says about what is happening in Iraq. When John Howard talks about how vital Iraq is in the war on terrorism, he is simply saying what needs to be said to support … Bush, and to justify the choices he has made to back … Bush’s policies over the past five years.

The reality is that the coalition forces were welcomed when they arrived, but they have worn out their welcome. Despite the arrogant and condescending lectures we get in this House every day from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the lectures that the Australian people receive, this is as big a foreign policy blunder as Australia has ever been involved in. Having made this blunder, the government ask us to take them on trust that they are the only ones who can fix it. The Australian people have woken up to this deception by the government.

This was a policy which was based on fallacies. There was never any evidence that Hussein’s regime was linked to the September 11 atrocities, and we now know that the evidence of weapons of mass destruction was indeed scant. It is a policy whose implementation has been botched. Greg Sheridan has written tellingly about this:  ‘Too many civil servants were sacked. The Iraqi army should never have been disbanded and the provisional administration should have been established much quicker. And, most fundamentally, there was little contribution to the rebuilding of infrastructure in Iraq.’ As former US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has been quoted, or paraphrased, as saying, ‘We do demolition; we don’t do reconstruction.’ The former citizens of Iraq whom I see in my electorate office on a daily basis and the authors of the letters and the heartfelt emails I receive would find that comment disgusting. The Canadian Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence recently recommended a 42 per cent increase in Canada’s military budget but a 100 per cent increase in their aid budget.

The coalition of the willing now faces a choice. We can continue on the path we are on, which will require a massive escalation of troops which, frankly, is beyond the capacity of the United States and certainly beyond the capacity of Australia and is reminiscent of the views of the Vietnam War that all that is needed is one more heave, one more push and victory will be ours. Or we can help Iraq on its way—we can help it establish an administration which protects the rights of minorities: the Assyrians, Mandaeans and Chaldeans. But the government is unlikely to go down this road because it has invested too much political capital, and a military withdrawal now would be seen as a political retreat by this Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister talks about cutting and running. Last week the Prime Minister of Britain announced that 1,500 troops would be withdrawn in a matter of weeks and a further 1,500 by the end of the year. Prime Minister Howard says this is just a drawdown. Currently, Australia has 1,450 personnel deployed in support of Operation Catalyst, and some of these are used in support of Operation Slipper in Afghanistan. The best estimate is that there are 900 personnel inside Iraq. So at least double and possibly three times the number of Australian personnel in Iraq will be withdrawn by the British government by the end of the year. The Prime Minister says that this is okay but, if Australia were to withdraw our troops, it would be a disaster.

The government’s policy is fundamentally flawed. The government have created the situation where the Christian citizens of Iraq are blamed by some fundamentalist groups for the invasion. As the United States intelligence estimate stated, ‘This war has created more terrorists than it is destroying.’ It would not be so bad if the invasion had not made us less safe, if it had made the world a safer place, but it has not. A fundamentally flawed invasion has been botched, and the government have refused to use their influence to ensure that the situation is improved.

An article by Nicholas Stuart appeared in the Canberra Times last year on 17 October, which I endorse. It said, ‘If Australia is really interested in helping the Iraqi people rather than just providing the terrorists with targets, it is time our Prime Minister started articulating a strategy for leaving Iraq.’

Last week we saw the amazing spectacle of the Minister for Defence comparing the Iraqi invasion with the Kokoda battle. Frankly, the less said about that the better. I think it was an insult to not only the veterans of Kokoda but also the fine Australian service men and women fighting in Iraq.

Each month thousands of Iraqi citizens die in bloody fighting. There are half a million internal refugees. Many more have fled to Syria and Jordan. Basic infrastructure, including schools, has been destroyed. The Johns Hopkins University estimates that 650,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion. Some people question that figure, and I understand there is a debate. But, on any analysis, many more thousands of Iraqis have died than should have and, as I have said, particularly members of minority faiths, such as Christians and Mandaeans, have suffered.

This government has been negligent; however, I acknowledge the support and interest of some of the members opposite. The member for Cook and Senator Payne have been particularly vocal in their support for the cause of the Assyrian community, but the minister has refused to use the government’s influence to do anything about the plight of the Assyrians and others in Iraq.

I was drawn to the findings of a Canadian Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence inquiry which say that the war on terror in Iraq seems to have ‘inspired radicalism within the Muslim community, in places where it was not evident before’. Again, members of my community and their relatives are bearing the brunt of this war. The fact is that there are no signs that this situation is getting better.

There is no monopoly on who is suffering in Iraq. There are Shiites suffering, there are Shiahs suffering, there are Christians suffering, there are Mandaeans suffering and there are people of no faith suffering—there are thousands of people suffering. The war in Iraq is making the world less safe rather than more safe. It is making the people of Iraq less safe rather than more safe. It is time that this government recognised this fact, recognised this reality and articulated an exit strategy for the war in Iraq.