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

That is right, interject; close it down. You do not want to hear any criticism. The Labor Party fails to explain what would have happened if its wishes had come true. If the Labor Party’s wishes had come true there would have been a price as well. That price would have been the continuation of Saddam Hussein’s regime in power. There would have been the continuation of that ugly, cruel dictatorship. Although weapons of mass destruction, true, were not found, it was concluded comprehensively—as the Leader of the Opposition said himself in February—that Saddam Hussein continued to maintain weapons of mass destruction research programs.

Let me make one other point about Iraq, because the people who are often ignored in these debates are the people who are most affected. The people who are most affected are the Iraqi people. I wonder whether the Labor Party, other than thinking about what their pollsters have been telling them—which presumably is why they have suddenly brought on the debate today—have ever given a thought to the views of the Iraqi people.

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