Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I again pick up the intervention. The consequences for people of our policy are to address the fact that the conflict exists and to admit that it is a conflict that exists. It is a civil war between warring Islamic factions, between Shiites and the Sunnis. Yes, there is a presence of insurgents supported by al-Qaeda. By and large, they are supporting the Sunnis. The Sunni minority is trying to take down the Shiites.

But, as the American ambassador acknowledged in July last year, the principal cause of instability in Iraq is sectarian violence, this conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites. To say that we are in there fighting terrorists as opposed to trying to police and babysit, if you like, two Islamic factions is a complete misrepresentation. Indeed, in the area where Australians are in southern Iraq, in the provinces of Al Muthanna and Dhi Qar, they are virtually totally Shiite. Indeed, the Shiite militias from Baghdad go there on holidays for a bit of a break from the hostilities. There is very little, if any, Sunni presence, and one can assume from that that there is very little likelihood—and the government can correct me if I am wrong on this—of an al-Qaeda presence at all in that area.

So the representation that Australians are there fighting terrorists is a complete misrepresentation; it is a misrepresentation of the nature of the conflict in Iraq. It is a civil war that even General Petraeus, who has been complimented by the Prime Minister today, acknowledges is only going to be solved by a political solution. So this representation that we have to have troops there because they are fighting terrorists is a complete misrepresentation.

On the other hand, our troops are most certainly fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. In the coming months they are going to come under all kinds of pressure. The government knows, we know, it is an extremely dangerous situation. There are approximately 10,000 Taliban fighters who have been trained in Pakistan by al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants, ready for a summer invasion of Afghanistan, and who our troops will be confronting. It is a very dangerous situation indeed. There is a substantial prospect of casualties, which of course we all hope and pray against. That is why we asked the Prime Minister in question time today, ‘Does the government have any additional plans to supplement our force structure in Afghanistan?’

But it is not simply a question of supplementing your force structure, your protective forces, in Afghanistan; it is a question of allocating your national security priorities. In that context, Mark Thompson, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said that by focusing your resources on one battle location, you ‘double the resources that can be devoted to higher command, intelligence and policy, at the same time delivering a greater capacity for force protection and independent national command on the ground’. That is an expert saying, ‘If you’re in a combat situation, obviously if you can focus your resources on the one zone, you are doubling the resources that you can apply for that protection.’

No-one would ever say that anything our troops did was tokenistic or symbolic. Clearly our Australian troops are decent, talented, highly professional people. But the reality is they are in circumstances where they have not been called out as part of their civil call function or their security overwatch function; they have not been called out to assist the Iraqi police in that role. You have to question why we have them there. Why aren’t we focusing those resources where our troops are fighting terrorists, where they are facing an extremely dangerous period in the coming months? Why are we splitting our resources, including our intelligence resources? Why aren’t we backing up our troops in Afghanistan to ensure that casualties are minimised?

I would say to the Prime Minister, if he were here, that it is the responsibility of a Prime Minister in these circumstances not to think as a politician but to think as a warrior. And a warrior looks at outcomes, not symbolism. The outcomes that we can achieve in fighting the terrorists, the Taliban in Afghanistan, are real. That is where our resources should be focused. If we do not focus sufficient resources on protecting our troops in Afghanistan, then we are not doing the right thing by them. Clearly we are not doing the right thing by them, and, worse than that, we are exposing them to risk.

Our involvement in Iraq has been flawed from the start; we invaded Iraq on a false premise. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The invasion was necessary because the sanctions that had been imposed had been rorted. The Australian government and AWB under the control of the Australian government were the world’s leading rorters of that program. The government has absolutely no plans. It has not at any stage declared a mission statement for our troops. It is a disgrace and the government deserves to be condemned for this policy failure. (Time expired)

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