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

I move:

That this House:

(1)

censures the Prime Minister for being guilty:

(a)

guilty of taking Australia into the wrong war in Iraq;

(b)

guilty of refusing to change strategy and bring Australian troops home;

(c)

guilty of changing his story on Iraq to suit his own interests; and

(d)

guilty of making Australia a bigger target for terrorists; and

(2)

demands that he admit he has failed in Iraq and adopt Labor’s strategy in the Australian national interest.

In question time, I ended with the question that I asked the Prime Minister before moving this censure motion. During his remarks, the Prime Minister suggested that the Labor Party had been sitting around reading polls. This was something that he never does! The Labor Party has consistently held its views on Iraq for four years.

For four years we have suggested a different course of action to this government, through a whole variety of changes in opinions and attitudes on that. But the tip-off of where the Prime Minister was coming from was in a tiny little article written by Malcolm Farr in the Daily Telegraph and headed, ‘Iraq’s stand won’t hurt coalition’. Just read those comments; they indicate this: that he had his minions up there in the press gallery yesterday with one or two journalists, pointing out to them that they had read the public opinion on Iraq—they thought their position was completely safe and they could pursue it without fear and without regard to anything else—to see if the Prime Minister could twist it a little to turn it against the Labor Party. But was there anything in that article that said the government cared for the Iraqi people?

Opposition Members:

No!

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

Was there anything in that article that said the government cared for United States troops?

Opposition Members:

No!

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

Was there anything in that article that said that the government cared for Australian soldiers?

Opposition Members:

No!

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

All that was in that article was all that drives this Prime Minister: the political survival of the government and the political advantage of the Prime Minister. That is what he is guilty of.

The consequence of what he has done has been to make this country less safe. There is no question about that. He is in there, ranting about opinions on JI in Indonesia, criticising the Labor Party for the view that we have that that particular movement, and the general area of South-East Asia, is our top counter-terrorist priority and where we ought to be concentrating our forces and initiating activity. That is what he was criticising us for at that point in time. What he completely neglects is what every serious analyst of what has happened in Iraq says, and what every serious analyst of what is going on in Iraq now says: that our presence there, the conduct of policy, the conduct of the activity, has enhanced the position of the global terrorist movement, enhanced their reputation in the Muslim world, enhanced their capacity to recruit and formed a magnet for those in the immediate region to pour into Iraq to assist them and in all ways act inimical to Australian and Western interests.

It is absolutely clear right now that things are changing in US policy. There is less debate in this country than there is in the United States and the United Kingdom. I have to say that the debate that we have been having in this place over the course of the last week is probably a year and a half to two years behind the debate which is now proceeding in London and Washington. But Paul Kelly had it right when he said this:

DON’T be misled by President Bush’s comments yesterday. In Iraq, the fix is coming. The policy will have to change. Only the politically deaf can miss the drumbeat of change in America. It is concealed now because of Bush’s need to hang tough for the mid-term election.

He then goes on to describe leaks from a study being put in place by James Baker, one of the most intelligent US officials it has ever been my pleasure to deal with. What Mr Baker is suggesting, at least in one of his recommendations, is that the United States, to get itself a cover for the extraction of US and allied troops from Iraq over the course of the next year, should do a deal or make arrangements with Syria and Iran.

Now we have come to this. We see now that two nations, one identified as part of the axis of evil and the other as a co conspirator, in terms of encouraging the international Islamic fundamentalist movement and encouraging state sponsored terrorism, are now the arbiters of our fate, the arbiters of the region. Single-handedly, and without a single casualty amongst the Iranians, the achievement of the Howard government is this: he has revived the Persian empire and he has changed the balance of power by the support he has given this operation in Iraq—against Western interests! So not only, in the narrow sense of our struggle with Islamic fundamentalism, has he disadvantaged this country, we also find that, in the broader geostrategic area, he has encouraged a nation that none of us, since the revolution of 1979, has ever wanted to see encouraged in international affairs. The policy of this government is total failure. When the Italians and the Japanese moved out—

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the Dutch.

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

You could add to that the Dutch—in fact, most of the 60 nations that were at one time or another in Iraq have moved out. None of them moved out with catcalls from the Prime Minister about weakening the Western alliance, collapsing the struggle against international terrorism or whatever. When the Italians moved out 3,200 troops, the Prime Minister’s position on it at that time was that that was a matter of no moment.

The point about the Prime Minister’s activity in recent times is this: he put our troops back in. People have tended to forget that. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Prime Minister withdrew Australian forces; in the aftermath of the last election, without notice to the Australian people, he put the Australian forces back in. So let us have none of this rubbish about consistency in the Prime Minister’s position. All there has been is consistency in political calculation. That is all there has been from this Prime Minister.

Everybody in the world knows—the United States administration knows—that the coalition’s strategy in Iraq has failed. Everybody in this country knows that the writers of this failed strategic policy are the Prime Minister and the foreign minister. Even the Prime Minister and the foreign minister now base their arguments on this preamble: whatever you might think about whether or not it was a good idea to start this war, whatever you might think about the way in which we conducted it and the things we decided to do in the aftermath—and you could quite legitimately, they go on in parentheses to say, regard that as mistaken—we are right now.

Why in logic ought there to be the view prevail that those who failed in strategic judgement in the first instance so dramatically have somehow dramatically got it right now? Why should anybody operate on that assumption? No-one should operate on that assumption. But it seems to be the position of this Prime Minister that, unless and until there is a U-turn from the United States—and there certainly looks like there is some sort of turn coming—the only thing this Prime Minister can do, in the middle of the deep hole he finds himself—or in which, more particularly, he has placed Australian armed forces—is to keep digging. It is not a bad idea to dig in, Mr Prime Minister, but not when they have got your hole vectored, not when they know exactly where you are. That is exactly what those who wish us the worst know and understand.

Whatever the politicians are saying about this—and all politicians have to protect their skins in these particular eventualities and these horrible circumstances—the military men are different. Every single American general who either has direct responsibility now or had responsibility at some point in time says this: the current strategy will not work. They marched before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services only about two or three weeks ago and said precisely that: the current strategy will not work. That is what all the American generals who have a view, who are or have been directly responsible for the affairs of this region, are saying. Some of them have different solutions. Some say, ‘If you’re going to persist there, do it with another 200,000.’

The last time we saw advice like that, of course, was from General William Westmoreland after the Tet offensive in 1968. When a substantial political victory was won by the Viet Cong, he went to the President of the United States and said, ‘I’ll do it all right with another 200,000 troops.’ There is a certain resonance in that 200,000 figure. It would not be readily possible for the United States to put another 200,000 troops in; that is all there is to it.

That is the American view, and then there is the British view—and these are the two major participants in the coalition of the willing, those with serious forces in the area. From the British, of course, we have the view, as I read out in question time, of General Sir Richard Dannatt. He did qualify it subsequently; he could do nothing else. Quite frankly, if General Dannatt had persisted in the view he had he would have had no option but to resign. So he did in fact somewhat modify his point on the timing of British withdrawal, nothing else. He modified nothing in his comments except the timing of British withdrawal. But what he did say, and he said it at length, was that the British should:

… get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems.

Because we are there, bad things happen. It exacerbates the problem. The second thing he said was:

I don’t say that the difficulties we are experiencing around the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them.

So his overall judgement about the situation in Iraq was that every policy feature of the Western alliance aided our enemies and discomfited our friends. He went further; he had a lot to say about Afghanistan. And I might say, he had things to say about Afghanistan which are identical to what the Labor Party has been saying for a considerable period of time—that failure in Afghanistan is almost entirely a product of wrong strategy in Iraq. He had that to say about it. What Dannatt thinks and what most of those who sit down and analyse these affairs think is: whatever else you do, you have to get yourself out of there; you have to get yourself unhooked.

What we need—from this country’s point of view, and I think we need it across the alliance too—is a new strategy. We need the strategy that Labor are advocating. John Howard wants to know what I would do if I were Prime Minister. Well, I will tell him. I would have the courage to tell my American friends that we are bringing our troops out of Iraq. I would have the compassion to help the Iraqi people with aid and training, which is what they need most. I would have the common sense to put our troops in the region and our resources into practical measures. I would be the ally that the United States needs, not the ally that the current administration wants. That is what I would do.

It is very clear that, at the top level, our ally is now changing its position. Our ally is now, according to its leader, going to a change of strategy. What Mr Bush has said is not insignificant. He said:

If the plan is now not working, the plan that’s in place isn’t working, America needs to adjust, I completely agree.

They are preparing to shift ground. Not necessarily included in that shift will be the need for Iraq to be a functioning democracy and a unified entity. Included in that shift in ground will be a judgement about security inside Iraq that falls well short of an assumption that there is no trouble in the streets, that there are no bombs exploding. They will change. They will change—but they will change without any help from us—because they understand that the troop presence is making things worse.

Firstly, coalition troops in Iraq are a magnet for jihadists from around the world who are destabilising Iraq. It might be said, however, that they are no longer the principal source of massive instability, murder and mayhem in Iraq. They are one source but not the principal source. The principal source is now a massive religious dispute between the Shiite and Sunni communities as they jockey for advantage. Nevertheless, the jihadists are there, getting the training they want and getting the experience they want. So when they ultimately leave Iraq they will leave with the sorts of skills possessed by the jihadists who left Afghanistan and gave us 9-11 and subsequent terrorist attacks. They are being trained, they are being skilled up, by the continuation of our capacity to attract them into Iraq. You have to start using your noggin in this particular exercise, at least on some occasions, and start to think through things seriously.

Secondly, the coalition leadership in Iraq is a security blanket for the Iraqi civilian leadership that allows them not to solve their own problems. They do know that when there is a bit of trouble in a district and you ring up a battalion of US soldiers, you can keep it quiet while those US soldiers are in the district. So if you have not been able to arrange the appropriate agreement, settlement or whatever between local Sunni and Shiite forces—if the ethnic cleansing process has got to a point where you cannot calm it down—rather than sit down and negotiate an outcome you invite the coalition forces in and then for a period of time there is quiet in that area. But the quiet ceases once the American forces are withdrawn.

It means that the impetus for the Sunni and Shia leadership in the government in Iraq to get the political settlement that only they can provide is dissipated, foreshortened by the ease with which you can solve the immediate problem with an immediate fix from the United States armed forces that are present. It has to be said: when they are fighting Sunnis or Shias what they are not doing is struggling with global terrorism—they are not doing that.

Keeping the peace in the Shiite districts of Baghdad and protecting the Sunni districts of Baghdad have got absolutely nothing to do with the global jihadist struggle—nothing whatsoever. We have been dragged into a fight that has sucked the oxygen out of us at the very time when we needed to be at our most clever and most effective in understanding what it is that we needed to do. Because all of those who are involved with us are in some way or other, I am afraid to say, tainted with this confessional dispute, this religious dispute between the various forces. Hardly any secular candidates won seats in those elections; they were all won by those with associations with tribal groups and religious fundamentalist groups and most of them with militias on the Shia side that at one point in time or other had been funded by the Iranian government. Why do you think James Baker is talking about incorporating the governments of Syria and Iran in some sort of settlement to cover a withdrawal of American forces? He is doing that, of course, because they are influential in this regard. That is what they have let themselves into.

The Iraqi people do need our support. They need our political support, and we will give it. They need our economic support, and we will give it. They need humanitarian support, and we will give it. They need training support, and we will give it. They do not need a foreign troop presence that is making things worse and to which they object—they do not need that. That is why we will bring our troops back home. They can fight the war on terror in our region. My advice to this Prime Minister is: stop digging. Like your colleagues, change strategy; change it for the better. Get a better basis for your relationship with Iraq than the one you have now. Get a better basis for the struggle in the war on terror than the one that you are fighting at this moment.

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

Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

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

This censure motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition is built upon two arguments, both of which are utterly false.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The Prime Minister has the call. The Leader of the Opposition was heard without interruption. The Prime Minister has the call.

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

The first of the Leader of the Opposition’s propositions is that the position of the government and, in particular, my position is built on political considerations. He read from an article in the Daily Telegraph today which said that the reason the government is taking its position on Iraq is the politics and not the merits. I cast no aspersions on the person who wrote that article but I go to the heart of the Leader of the Opposition’s charge that our policy on Iraq has been poll driven.

I say without fear of contradiction that the decision I took on Iraq in March 2003 was the most poll defiant decision I have taken in the whole time I have been Prime Minister of this country. When I heard the Leader of the Opposition read out this resolution at the beginning of his speech, I recalled an article in the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald in January of 2003, which recorded that only six per cent of people polled in an AC Nielsen poll about attitudes to Iraq supported the course of action my government ultimately took.

If we had been listening to the polls and were poll driven on Iraq, we would never have joined our American allies. If we had simply asked the Australian people, ‘Do you agree or disagree with this?’ then, as now, we would have taken the supine advice of the opposition, turned our backs on the Americans and the British, turned our backs on the Iraqis and, being poll driven, had no political courage, no long-term commitment to that great alliance, which has meant more to this country than any alliance in our history, and the whole course of debate in this country would have been quite different.

I say to the Leader of the Opposition: call me anything you like on this issue but the last call that has any credibility is that I have been poll driven. At every point, if you polled the Australian people they would have had reservations about what we were doing or what we contemplated doing. It is the responsibility of any Prime Minister of this country to listen to public opinion, distil it and be guided by it but, in the end, if he is worth his salt he has got to make a judgement based on his assessment of the longer term interests of this country. And so it was in March 2003 that this government took the most poll defiant decision it has taken in the whole 10½ years it has been in government.

If censure motions are meant to be based on arguments, reason and fact, fact No. 1 from the Leader of the Opposition crumbles away immediately. We have never been poll driven on Iraq. We have always had a position on Iraq that has probably not been supported by the majority of the Australian people in opinion polls. It is the job of any government and of any prime minister with a backbone, on occasion and after having listened to people, to back his own judgement and take the decision.

I accept responsibility for that decision I took. I knew that it was in defiance of the polls. I knew that it was in defiance of recorded public opinion. But I took it because I believed it was the right decision. I still believe that it was the right decision that we took. It is still my view and, stripped of all of the verbiage and these long incantations of the discussions he has had with senior American officials from the Leader of the Opposition, it still remains the case—and the Leader of the Opposition knows this—that if we withdraw from Iraq, the Americans and the British have the same right to do the same thing.

If the coalition goes from Iraq it will deliver two great victories to the terrorists. It will deliver an enormous propaganda victory not only in the Middle East. Imagine the impact on the stability of Saudi Arabia of a terrorist victory in Iraq. Imagine the impact on other Arab states of a terrorist victory in Iraq. It will deliver not only an enormous propaganda victory but also an enormous strategic victory to the terrorists because al-Qaeda will be afforded a platform in Iraq in the same way that they were afforded a platform beside the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Leader of the Opposition quotes people saying that the terrorists have found a jihadist cause in Iraq. If you believe that, you must also believe that in relation to Afghanistan. If you believe it in relation to Afghanistan, then why don’t you withdraw from Afghanistan as well? Why doesn’t the Leader of the Opposition’s logic extend to Afghanistan?

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hatton interjecting

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

Somebody interjects, ‘We have.’ The last time I checked we had almost 600 Australian military personnel in Afghanistan, so do not give me this nonsense about us withdrawing from Afghanistan. The other premise—and this is a very interesting premise—of the Leader of the Opposition’s attack this week—and I say this week because it is not only in his censure motion today—is that the Leader of the Opposition himself all along has been a ferocious opponent of the government’s policy in Iraq. The truth is that, on very careful examination, that is not quite in accordance with the facts and the truth. When you delve back into what the Leader of the Opposition had to say you get very interesting pieces of research. This is the Leader of the Opposition when he was not the Leader of the Opposition; this was the member for Brand who was keeping that respectable, magisterial distance from the decisions being taken by the then Crean-led opposition. He was just a little bit back and a little bit to the side so that, if it turned out a little bit differently from what the Labor leadership had said, he would have been able to say: ‘Well, of course, I would never have gone in as hard as Simon did. I would never have said all of these things.’

I came across an article dated Friday, 19 July. The heading is ‘There’s a case for taking out Saddam Hussein, but the challenges are great’. You bet there was a case for taking him out. There were about 1½ million cases of dead Iraqis for taking him out. But here he was—he was trying to get a little bit distant so that, if it all worked out a little bit differently, he would then be able to say, ‘Well, of course, I always thought they went a bit overboard in opposing Howard over Iraq.’ He says in this article:

Much discussion of US intentions in Iraq—

and this is July 2002; mark the date—

revolves around the credibility of claims that the Iraqi dictator is developing nuclear weapons. He may be. What he has done unquestionably is establish a substantial biological capability.

This is the Leader of the Opposition who now says that we lied about all of these things. He was to go on to say, at the beginning of 2003—

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

Mr Downer interjecting

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

The Minister for Foreign Affairs is warned!

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

that as far as he was concerned there was not a foreign ministry in the world that did not believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. His colleague the member for Griffith in addressing the State Zionist Council of Victoria in 2003 said that it was an empirical fact. He said, ‘If you don’t believe the intelligence, believe the American scientists.’ He was not relying on the intelligence briefings he claimed he had got; he was relying on something else.

What this lot were doing back in 2002 and 2003 was setting up a case to cover themselves in case things turned out differently from what Simon Crean said. At least Simon Crean was up-front in his opposition. This other lot were just having two bob each way. That is what they were doing. Now he comes into this place and works himself up into a lather and says, ‘I was always viscerally opposed to what the Americans and the Australians did.’ He had another very interesting thing to say in that article of July 2002. He said:

But should an attack be imminent Hussein can change course on inspection to play for time. Once a US force is in place, it will be used. This is in part because the agony of getting such a force in place is so great. Not to eliminate Hussein having done so would be unthinkable.

That is what the Leader of the Opposition said in the article. He said, ‘Not to eliminate Hussein would be unthinkable.’ What the Leader of the Opposition, in his then guise as the ever ready, dignified, knowledgeable man who never quite got into bed with Simon Crean on the issue, was doing there was leaving open the possibility that, if things worked out as a short, sharp American victory, he could have said: ‘That’s what I would have told Dick Cheney to do. We shared those experiences in Gulf War No. 1. We were great mates together. We would have shared it all and we would have agreed. And silly old Simon should have never gone in hard.’

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

Order! The Prime Minister will refer to members by their seat.

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

That is the truth and that is the second insubstantial ground on which this motion is built. First, the Leader of the Opposition falsely asserts that we have been poll driven on Iraq. I have to say again that it was the most poll defiant decision I have taken in the 10½ years that I have been Prime Minister. I took it against the advice of the polls because I believed the action I was taking was right. That is our position. Second is the idea that the Leader of the Opposition has always been a crusader against what we were doing. He believed Iraq had WMD. He sort of accepted that once there was an American build-up they had to go in and do it and he was all ready to jump in and say, ‘I told you so. You should never have taken such an outlandish anti-American position.’

That really brings us down to what really matters about this debate. What really matters about this debate is: how can the Leader of the Opposition justify making the Australian people less safe by his policy on Iraq? Because what the Leader of the Opposition is arguing for is a course of action that will not only give an enormous propaganda boost to the terrorists in Iraq, it will not only provide al-Qaeda with another platform in Iraq, as they have in Afghanistan; what the Leader of the Opposition is advocating is a course of action that will embolden the cause of Islamic fanaticism and fascism all around the world. The great fight for the soul of Islam is being fought between moderate leaders like General Musharraf in Pakistan and President Yudhoyono in Indonesia against the fanatics of al-Qaeda and the fanatics of Iraq. By our actions, our deeds, our retreat, our lack of resolve and our lack of will, if we provide them with an enormous propaganda victory, which the Leader of the Opposition advocates, we will live to rue and lament that day for many years into the future.

I do not pretend that things in Iraq are easy and I do not pretend for a moment that the struggle is easy. But I do know this: if we go from Iraq, the Americans and the British have the same moral right to go as we have. And if we all go from Iraq we will deliver a victory to the terrorists, we will betray the democratic hopes and aspirations of the Iraqi people, but, worst of all, we will bring to the terrorists on our doorstep a sense of hope and encouragement that they will use as a recruiting weapon, as surely as we sit in this parliament today, to recruit people for the jihad cause against moderate Islam, the forces and the values of the way of life that all of us hold so dear.

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

This Prime Minister argues in his core defence that he is not poll driven. This nation has never had such a poll driven Prime Minister. Every element of domestic policy, every element of foreign policy, every element of national security policy—all driven through the prism of one man. It is not the Minister for Foreign Affairs or the Minister for Defence; that one man is Mark Textor. There is nothing that I see done in this parliament that is not shaped fundamentally by this Prime Minister’s recourse to market research.

This Prime Minister’s response to things like ‘children overboard’ was also shaped by market research. You cannot point to a single national security policy scandal where market research and polls have not fundamentally shaped the way in which this Prime Minister operates. The reason for it is this: first and foremost, this Prime Minister is a clever politician and, last and least, he is the leader of this nation. This Prime Minister, as he cuts and runs from the chamber of the House of Representatives, is a clever politician. He is not a leader in the tradition that this country has seen in the past and not a leader prepared to take decisions in the nation’s long-term interest—not a leader in Curtin’s tradition, not a leader in Chifley’s tradition and not even a leader in Menzies’ tradition. This leader is in a league apart, whereby political research and the short-term political interest of his own career come first, but this nation’s interest comes a long last.

His second argument concerned the Leader of the Opposition’s position on the war. I just say this: when it came to a vote in this parliament, when we actually sat down and looked at that resolution on the war, we voted against it. We voted against the war, every one of us united. Each one of you voted for the war. Let us cut the nonsense from this debate. There could not have been a sharper divide in this nation and this parliament when we looked at the arguments that this mob put for taking this country to a war—in defiance of the UN charter; in defiance of the United Nations Security Council resolution. We had the integrity to vote against this war; they had the expediency to vote for this war. The argument that you have advanced concerning the Leader of the Opposition collapses in one heap because this party was as one.

This Prime Minister advances as his third defence that, if there were a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, it would lead to a massive compounding of the existing jihadist threat in South-East Asia. The CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, is a funny old thing. Sometimes it puts out things which do not exactly fit this government’s interests. A bloke named Porter Goss—a decent fellow—was recently the head of the CIA; he was in the congress before that. Back in 2005, in testimony to the United States congress about what was then going on in Iraq—at that time and under the circumstances, there was no talk of leaving Iraq—he said:

Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists.

He went on to say:

These jihadists—

that is, those there now—

who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups, and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other countries.

Could those other countries include South-East Asia? You had the head of the CIA saying way back then that, as a product of the United States’ policies in Iraq—like right now—that you had a bubbling-out of freshly trained jihadists from Iraq into the rest of the world. So do not come to us with the argument that your policy is somehow reducing the spread of jihadism to the rest of the world. You are compounding it.

The fundamental historical and strategic error they made was this: to take a Western invasion force into the middle of the sacred sites of Islam and somehow believe that the Islamic world was going to sit around and say, ‘It’s okay—not a problem.’ Well, it was a problem. It remains a problem. It remains a huge fuelling agent for jihadists worldwide; a unifying agent for previously split traditions of militant Islam into one united force of Islam and militant Islamism. This is the singular, national security policy legacy of this mob opposite, who have the audacity to call themselves the responsible government of Australia.

There are many things we have known in this debate over the last two or three years. It has been known for years now that this government lied about pre-war intelligence on Iraq. It has been known for years now that this government lied about the impact of Iraq on Australia as a terrorist target. And we have known for almost a year that this government lied about the warnings it got about $300 million going to Saddam Hussein’s back pocket. We have the foreign minister—Saddam Hussein’s bagman of choice; his preferred bagman—as the person responsible for authorising, through the agency of the Customs regulations, $300 million worth of cold, hard readies for the back pocket of the Iraqi dictator. The Howard government is of course the best friend Saddam Hussein has ever had. We have known these things for some years.

The importance of the censure motions this week, the questions in the House of Representatives and some of the answers given is this: the debate has now entered an entirely new important phase in the history of the Iraq debate in this country, because it is now a debate about their strategy for the future of Iraq. It is about the plans that they have for Iraq’s future. It is about how they propose to stabilise Iraq’s security. It is a debate now about how they will in fact bring about political arrangements in Iraq which give the Iraqi people, long suffering people that they are, some hope for their future.

So far in this debate, which has now raged for some years, we have not had a strategy from this government but a slogan. The slogan is ‘cut and run’ or ‘stay till the job is done’. But you know what? The business of government is a serious business. It is about what really works. What will actually deliver a half-decent outcome for the poor people of Iraq? What actually works on the ground? This Prime Minister says he is not poll driven. You should actually look at the substance of his policy. If this man were a leader of the nation he would put forward in a formal statement to the parliament his outline for how Iraq will be stabilised over the one, two and three years ahead. That is missing. It has not been there at all. Instead, he has a focus group, with Mark Textor at work on the key line and theme. If you want evidence to counter the argument put by the Prime Minister at this dispatch box only 15 minutes ago, it is that: no strategy, only a slogan. Of course, the market researchers say, ‘Don’t argue a strategy, you might be held accountable to it. Give them a slogan and that’s all they’ll remember.’ That is why this government stands so condemned in terms of the effectiveness of its policy on Iraq. The member for Bennelong is not a leader. The member for Bennelong is a clever politician. The primary prism through which he looks at national security policy and foreign policy is in fact what the market researchers tell him.

When you look at the arguments which the government has put forward for the future of its strategy in Iraq it is important to focus on the new developments in the last day or two. They concern these things: the transfer of responsibility to the Iraqi security forces for security in their own country—plank No.1 of the government’s new emerging policy on Iraq. Plank No. 2 is whether Iraq should be a unified state or a separated state. Plank No. 3 is whether or not we are really serious about having an Iraqi democracy anymore. Let us have a look at those.

The first one, I think, is terrific. When harassed today on ABC national radio about whether he had any sort of strategy for the future of Iraq, the Prime Minister was forced to say: ‘A signpost for determining Australia’s troop withdrawal will be the handover of security responsibility to the Iraqi forces.’ Iraq has 18 provinces. This morning the Prime Minister was asked how many provinces that handover has occurred in. His answer was two. Foreign Minister, you are following me in this debate: how many provinces do we need where security responsibility has been handed over to the Iraqis for you to believe that there is a reasonable basis of security that would justify the withdrawal of foreign troops?

Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He’s cut and run!

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

When it comes to cutting and running, our Alex is in a league of his own. If we look at the data, as of 7 August 2006 we find that there are five Iraqi army divisions, 25 brigades, 85 battalions and two national police battalions. The breakdown for the forces is: police, 123,500—trained; total of other police units, 176,000; army, 129,700; total armed forces, including the other two, 131,600; and—as of this document I have here from the United States State Department—the total number of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces is 307,800, as of 11 October 2006. The opposition is up to date!

My question to the foreign minister is this: how many do we need? Where do they need to be deployed? How many need to be trained? I have given you the up-to-date numbers. Two provinces have now been handed over and there are 16 to go. Is the number of provinces going to be eight or nine? Just give us a ballpark figure, and give us one for the total number of troops. Or, Foreign Minister, are you saying to the parliament that is all too hard, because the pollsters have said to you, ‘Whatever you do, don’t articulate a strategy. Stick to the slogan’? That is what this mob is all about.

Plank No. 2 of the unfolding new Howard government strategy on Iraq is this—and this is a really interesting one: should Iraq remain a unified state? Pardon me if I have missed something here, but I have been following this debate over the years and I thought that we were on about keeping Iraq together. I actually thought that that was the general view. I must have missed something because what we now have from our fearless Prime Minister is a view that that is now something that will be largely up to the Iraqi people. It might not turn out that way. The strategic shift in this Prime Minister’s statement today cannot be underestimated in its importance. From the dispatch box today, he said, ‘It may turn out to be a split state.’ That has never before been said by this mob. They also said further, ‘That would be acceptable to them.’

Now, suddenly, plank No. 2 of the unfolding new mystery tour—otherwise called ‘the Howard government strategy on Iraq’—is that we will have an Iraqi state which is potentially divided into two or three or half-a-dozen or whatever. Again, Foreign Minister, could you let us know from the despatch box whether the government believes that the Iraqi state should be unified or split prior to the withdrawal of Australian troops. That is, I think, a pretty basic question for the future strategy in Iraq.

Here is question No. 3. I think this is a good one too, because we have the lion of democracy, the champion of democracy, about to take to the dispatch box. How many times have we sat here in this chamber while we have been savaged by the dead sheep opposite on the whole question of this unfolding avalanche of democracy—this domino theory of democracy—that once we democratised Iraq everything else that was a nondemocracy in the Middle East and the Arab world would roll over like ninepins—bing, bing, bing, bing, bing? That was how it was going to work. Do you remember all those speeches?

It has not gone entirely to plan. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have been a bit of a problem in that script. There have also been a few problems in Lebanon of late—but let us not complicate it. There have not been huge advances in democracy in some of the other authoritarian states in the Middle East—not that I have seen, but I am sure the foreign minister will tell us if there have been some. But now the last domino falls, which was the first domino. They no longer believe that it is an absolute precondition that we have a democracy in Iraq either, because if you listened to our fearless Prime Minister today—the captain of political purity; he who never reads the market research—he said, ‘Democracy has a reasonable chance if that is the wish of the Iraqi people.’ This is the first statement from this mob, otherwise called the government, where they say that they could themselves leave Iraq if in fact it devolves into a nondemocracy—an authoritarian state perhaps, maybe run by a strongman, maybe a moustachioed strongman. Who knows how it could turn out? But we have here for the first time in this government’s consistent approach to its Iraq policy the possibility that Saddam II could be back on the road.

Plank No. 1 falls, plank No. 2 falls, plank No. 3 collapses in a heap, and the champion of democracy opposite here said to us all in this parliament:

A democratic Iraq will be part of the solution to an expanding democratic process in the Middle East.

You reek of hypocrisy, Foreign Minister, on this question. This government stands condemned, it stands censured, for taking this country into a war in Iraq which has not improved our national security circumstances but worsened them—a war in Iraq which has left 50,000 Iraqi civilians dead and almost 3,000 American troops dead. According to the Lancet, up to 600,000 Iraqi civilians lie dead. Foreign Minister, as your last challenge today when you answer this censure, how about this: what is the government’s figure on the number of Iraqis who now lie dead as a consequence of your policy? (Time expired)

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

Can I thank the honourable member for Griffith for describing me as a ‘lion of democracy’. Can I thank the honourable member for describing me as a ‘champion of democracy’. Can I thank the honourable member for describing me as a ‘fearless foreign minister’. I think on all of those three points he is absolutely right, but I think the speech of the Leader of the Opposition is the one we need to focus on.

I thought the proposition put at the beginning of the Leader of the Opposition’s speech was reprehensible; that is, that the Prime Minister and I—of course we are both identified as the architects of the Iraqi strategy—have done this for popularity reasons on the back of opinion polls. Whether the Labor Party likes it or whether the Labor Party does not like it, it is important to understand in the context of this debate that both the Prime Minister and I believe that the course we are pursuing is the right course. We believe that, and we believe that although alternative courses are superficially more popular. The opposition rush around the press gallery with the latest Lowy poll and an ACNielsen poll, I think it was, on Iraq and say, ‘Look, the government’s position is unpopular.’ They are the people who have been running around saying that, not us. I accept that, but I also accept the proposition that when you are in the position of the Minister for Foreign Affairs—or, more importantly, the position of Prime Minister—you must sit down very carefully and make judgements and decisions that you think are going to be in the best interests of Australia and in the best strategic interests of the international community.

There is a great battle going on around the world, as the Prime Minister put it, for the soul of Islam. There is a battle between moderates, who are spread throughout the Islamic world and who are the vast majority of Muslims, and the extremist Islamists, particularly epitomised by Jemaah Islamiah in our own region and al-Qaeda in the Middle East. They are of course linked up. The challenge for the international community, whether they are the Western countries, Muslim countries or a combination of both, is to make sure that moderate Muslims and moderate leaders in the Muslim world are triumphant and ultimately able to suppress and defeat the extremist Islamists. There are other great challenges that the world has to face, like climate change, but in international security that is the single most important challenge.

This issue of Iraq has to be considered in that context. What can we do to assist people like President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or President Musharraf in Pakistan—great moderate leaders in the Islamic world—or governments in countries like Turkey and, indeed, the secular community of Turkey? We have a Turkish minister here with us today. During the day I joined him in opening the new Turkish embassy. What can we do to help those great communities around the world? There are a lot of things we can do, but if we were to aid, abet and allow the Islamist extremists to win a truly great victory the consequences for that struggle for the soul of Islam would be catastrophic. It would be the greatest single thing that could happen to advance the interests of al-Qaeda and, in South-East Asia, Jemaah Islamiah.

The opposition criticises the government for saying, ‘Whatever you think about the original decision, you have to work out what you think is the right thing to do now.’ I think the Australian public would understand that that is a commonsense proposition. I know a lot of people thought it was the wrong thing to overthrow Saddam Hussein but, suffice it to say, the Prime Minister and I, and the coalition members and senators, believed it was the right thing. There was enormous support throughout the Liberal and National parties from one end of this country to the other to see the passing of Saddam Hussein’s regime, even if it did not win the overwhelming approbation of the Australian people. But we think that was the right thing to do and we believe that, if you analyse what would have happened had Saddam Hussein had a great victory, the consequences become rather apparent. But we have to deal with the here and now and, in the here and now, if we were to grant the Islamist extremists a victory in Iraq, it would be a simply massive setback in the struggle for the soul of Islam and for global security. Some people say, ‘That is what the Liberal Party here would say.’

I thought it was interesting and coincidental that the Iraqi oil minister happened to be here today. He was meant to be here yesterday but he got delayed because of a sandstorm in Iraq. He had a press conference this morning and was, of course, asked about these issues. Here is a man who, in repudiating Saddam Hussein many years ago, spent—I think I am right in saying this—15 years in the Abu Ghraib jail. The Leader of the Opposition may think he is some grand strategic analyst. That is the way he rather pompously presents himself, despite chopping and changing his position the whole time. As the Prime Minister demonstrated, if you sit down and analyse what he says you find he has a lot of conviction very weakly held. The Iraqi oil minister lives in Iraq. The Iraqi oil minister knows what it was like under Saddam Hussein’s regime because he was imprisoned by him for 15 years. His story is a rather more important story than the sort of latter-day General McClellan that we have opposite us. Those of you who understand Lincoln and the American Civil War will know the reference.

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

Yes!

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

Obviously the Prime Minister does. He said this today—the Iraqi oil minister, not Abraham Lincoln:

We expect the international community to stay with the Iraqi people in this war against international terrorism because if these people are allowed to succeed—God forbid—in Iraq, then they will be a threat to the whole world.

He went on to say:

Until we overcome this insurgency, we don’t think it’s wise for the international community to withdraw their support.

The Prime Minister and I, and the members and senators of the Liberal and National parties, feel passionately about this in the teeth of opinion polling. We have seen opinion polling in the last two or three weeks showing our position is unpopular, so I was not quite sure what the Leader of the Opposition’s explosive point was supposed to be. We believe that this is the right thing to do.

The Leader of the Opposition speaks very loudly about American strategy and how President Bush is about to change his policy. The Prime Minister and I know President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Nick Burns and various other people in the US administration by virtue of the offices we hold. We know that, although the Americans will constantly be refining, adjusting and improving their tactics, they are not about to abandon the people of Iraq, and nor are the British. No matter what quotes the Labor Party may dig out, nor are the British. Why? Because the Americans and the British know the consequences.

In the case of the Italians, which the Leader of the Opposition asked about in question time, I was in Italy three weeks ago and I discussed the issue of Iraq with the Italian foreign minister, Mr D’Alema. It is true that the Italians are leaving Iraq by the end of this year, but the Italian government’s view is at variance with the Labor Party’s view. The Italian government made an election commitment to leave, but the Italian government do not believe that international forces should immediately pull out of Iraq. That is not their view.

That brings me to the next point I wanted to make. When Mr Latham was the Leader of the Labor Party, he said that Labor would pull Australian troops out of Iraq by Christmas. The present Leader of the Opposition—who did not, in my view, hold that view—has a different position from Mr Latham’s. The position of the present Leader of the Opposition is actually more extreme than the Latham position. The present Leader of the Opposition says that, if he were to become Prime Minister, he would immediately pull the Australian troops out—but there is an extra bit to it. He wants all of the international troops to be taken out of Iraq. He has said that he would go to Washington and tell the President that the United States should withdraw immediately from Iraq, and go to London no doubt and tell Tony Blair, or Gordon Brown or whoever succeeds Tony Blair, the same thing. I only make this point: even Mr Latham did not think pulling all of the international troops out at once was going to be a great idea for Iraq. But the present Leader of the Opposition thinks it is going to be the right strategic decision. I simply could not disagree more. Regardless of what the polls might say, I could not disagree more.

What is more, we heard something more absurd from the Leader of the Opposition today. He said he wanted to see all of the troops taken out, but I wonder how many members were listening to the other thing he said—that he would then send in an aid program. So, in an environment where the Islamist extremists and the insurgents have taken over Iraq, who is going to be sent in from Australia? Aid workers. Unarmed aid workers are going to be sent into that sort of environment.

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

Mr Rudd interjecting

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

Order! The member for Griffith will withdraw that remark.

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

To assist the chair, I will withdraw.

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

No, you will withdraw without reservation.

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

I withdraw.

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

I thank the honourable member for Griffith.

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

When you get into analysing this, it is a completely absurd proposition. The last point I want to make is a broader point about the region. I have made the point I wanted to make about the soul of Islam, but I want to make a point specifically about the Middle Eastern area of operations, as we sometimes call it. The opposition argues that we should keep troops in Afghanistan because if we do not the Taliban will take over Afghanistan again, and that will be a catastrophe in the war against terrorism. Whether or not that is popular, I agree with it; that is right. But what is the logic of arguing, what is the intellectual logic of saying, that it makes sense to keep troops in Afghanistan so that the Taliban do not take over Afghanistan again and the democratic government of President Karzai can remain in office but that it does make sense to pull troops out of Iraq so that the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Maliki will collapse in the face of Islamist extremists and insurgents? What is the logic of that?

The Leader of the Opposition goes on to argue that Labor thinks we should bring our troops back from Iraq—that is 1,400; I suppose it would be fewer than that because we would still have to leave some of the support over there for the troops remaining in Afghanistan—in order to fight terrorism in South-East Asia. Excuse me as the foreign minister if I ask: where, pray, are those troops going to be sent? Are they going to be sent to Yogyakarta or to Jakarta itself? Are the troops going to be inserted into southern Thailand, or would Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi welcome an Australian company or even a battalion into Penang or somewhere? All of this is a political stunt, because when you dissect what the Leader of the Opposition has been saying, for all the blown-up pomp and ‘I am such a great strategic expert’—when you actually dissect it all—there is no logic to it. He has not done any homework.

I know I can be a bit cruel sometimes about the Leader of the Opposition. I can be a cruel person sometimes and I feel bad about it, really, because they are always so lovely to me! I really appreciate the charming expressions I hear at the dispatch box about ‘my parents’ and so on! The simple fact is that the Leader of the Opposition is intellectually lazy. This has not been thought through. This is a stunt for this week, and it has gone on every day this week. Throughout this week the Labor Party has argued a completely incoherent case. Let me make this point: whether or not our position is popular, the Prime Minister and I, the Minister for Defence, the cabinet and the parliamentary parties think it is right. The fact that something is right is enormously important to us, and we will stick the course. We will not surrender; we will not ask our partners and our allies to surrender. The Leader of the Opposition thinks that to lose is the right strategy. I think to lose would be disastrous.

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion (Mr Beazley’s) be agreed to.) be agreed to.