Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I indicate at the start that Labor does not support the exact wording of this matter of public importance, but it is useful that the Democrats have put the matter up for debate today. I want to make some remarks about Labor’s views. I would like to start with one of the things that Senator Sandy Macdonald referred to towards the end of his speech, which is the fact that, while there is political disagreement in this country about our engagement in Iraq, there is cross-party 100 per cent support for our troops there. We know they are operating in very difficult circumstances with a very high level of professionalism. They continue to do Australia proud. Our argument is with the political decisions that govern their deployment.

Let me reiterate from the outset what Labor have been saying for many months. Labor have always been opposed to the war. We voted against Australian participation. We spoke out against the government’s refusal to abide by the United Nations charter and its defiance of the United Nations Security Council resolution, and we strongly opposed the Howard government’s haste to involve our military forces in the war. Labor’s position, and that of the millions of Australians who oppose the war, has in part been vindicated by the horrific events that have occurred since the 2003 invasion.

However, I would like to stress that the debate on this matter is very important not just because it is the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq but because the Howard government’s Iraqi policies continue to feed the civil war that we are now witnessing. The Howard government’s policies have to change. Indeed, the perspective of four years of violence since the invasion just reinforces how wrong the government’s decision has been. Remember the Prime Minister’s reasons for going to war in the first place? He submitted multiple reasons for the ill-conceived 2003 invasion, and each and every one of those reasons has been discredited.

The Prime Minister’s first reason for justifying the invasion was on the basis of eradicating Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. That has been totally discredited. Weapons of mass destruction were not found—they did not exist—and the invasion occurred before the United Nations was permitted to conclude its weapons inspection program.

The second reason for the war was justified by the Prime Minister when he said that military force was necessary because the international sanctions regime had failed. The Prime Minister stated:

The old policy of containment is eroding. Saddam Hussein has increasingly been able to subvert the sanctions.

That has been discredited. It is pretty rich when you realise that the Australian Wheat Board was one of those most active in discrediting those sanctions. The Australian Wheat Board rorted the UN sanctions regime to the tune of $300 million and, furthermore, allowed Saddam Hussein to buy guns, bombs and bullets with the proceeds.

The third reason that the Prime Minister advanced was that we needed to save the Iraqi people, stabilise the country and bring about democracy in Iraq and in the wider Middle East. There is no evidence that that has been delivered either. Iraq is a security mess. There is a violent civil war in Iraq. Almost half of the total violent civilian deaths that have occurred in Iraq over the last four years have occurred in the last 12 months. Mortar attacks have quadrupled since the beginning of 2006. Massive bomb blasts, killing more than 50 people at a time, have nearly doubled in the last 12 months. Fatal suicide bombs, car bombs and roadside bomb attacks have also doubled in the same period. In February 2007, weekly civilian casualties averaged nearly 1,000 a week. The Pentagon’s own statistics show that weekly attacks have increased by 15 per cent since January 2006. The Lancet estimates that over 600,000 Iraqis are dead from the war and its effects. These are terrible statistics.

What is the result? According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 1.6 million Iraqis have been displaced internally and more than 1.5 million have fled to Jordan and Syria. These are significant numbers from an Iraqi population of some 26 million. The security of the Iraqi people has been severely diminished.

The fourth reason the PM has given to justify our role in Iraq is to fight terrorists. Again, the rhetoric does not match the reality. What is disappointing is the reluctance of the Prime Minister to acknowledge what is happening right now in Iraq. Our Prime Minister continues to misrepresent what is happening on the ground. The United States Ambassador to Iraq recently said that the ‘principal force of instability for Iraq was sectarian violence’.

A recent US defence intelligence estimate concluded that parts of Iraq were in a civil war. The evidence is now overwhelming. The classic strategic indicators of a civil war are all present in Iraq: a weak political power of the central government, increasing refugee movements, a level of societal violence and a declining national economy. Iraqi society is enmeshed in a fight between the Shiite majority and the displaced Sunni minority for the geopolitical control of Iraq. That is why Iraq requires a political solution.

Achieving a political solution requires two things—neither of which the Howard government has addressed. First of all it requires the putting of pressure on the Iraqi government to make the necessary political compromises and start governing in the national interest rather than pandering to sectarian interests. There is little evidence that Nuri al-Maliki’s government is willing to take on the militias that have emerged. The Mahdi Army, for example, is his power base. His administration will need to cut links with the Shiah militia death squads and the equally compromising links with Tehran.

The primary way to put pressure on the Iraqi government is to initiate a phased withdrawal of troops that makes the government assume more responsibility for what is happening to Iraqi society. Filling the gap makes for real pressure. This is precisely why Labor endorsed the phased withdrawal strategy recommended by the expert and bipartisan Iraq Study Group, chaired by former Republican Secretary of State James A Baker.

The second way to achieve a political solution is through encouraging Iraq’s neighbours, the other states in the region—like Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia—to help stabilise the pressure on Iraq and take a responsible and proactive interest in bringing about a sustainable peace. This means Australia should have been engaged in the Baghdad security conference which was recently held over the weekend of 10-11 March. But, despite all its rhetoric about how important Australia’s role is in Iraq, the Australian government was not invited and did not attend. Note how little comment was forthcoming from Foreign Minister Downer on the Baghdad conference. It begs the question as to why Australia did not actively engage by participating. One would have thought that it would have been in the national interest to participate and protect the interests of the Howard government’s policy of military commitment.

Prime Minister Howard said back in May 2003 that Australia would be in Iraq for weeks and not months. He ruled out additional combat deployments during the 2004 election. Despite this, the Prime Minister has constantly moved the goalposts about the role of our commitment of troops in Iraq. First it was about dealing with weapons of mass destruction. Then it was about regime change. Then our engagement was about protecting the Japanese engineers in the al Muthanna province. And then the role of our combat troops became one of ‘security overwatch’. The bottom line is that there has never been a clearly articulated mission statement for our military deployment, just as there was never the careful post invasion planning that is essential to all military operations.

Iraq has been a disaster. The cost in monetary terms of the Australian military commitment is now over $2 billion and rising. The cost to the Iraqi people can never be measured. It is they who have suffered, and it is they who will continue to suffer unless policies change. The Prime Minister in his speech today will again claim that Australia must stay the course in Iraq—whatever that means. But he will not say how it is in our national interest to stay the course in the middle of a civil war. He will not say how he is putting real pressure on the Iraqi government to find a political solution. He will not say what the mission statement for our combat troops is. He will not say what the contingency plan is if the surge strategy fails and the United States decides to begin withdrawing its troops. Australia does not need rhetoric about the past or the future. We need the government to acknowledge the realities. What is John Howard’s plan for our troops in Iraq? Who knows? Certainly Australians do not know. (Time expired)