John Watson (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that the President has received the following letter, dated 6 December 2006, from Senator Allison:

Dear Mr President,

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move—‘That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Australian Government to develop its own plan to withdraw all Australian troops not involved in personal security roles from Iraq as soon as practicable, given that:

(a)

The March 2003 invasion of Iraq and Mr Bush’s 2005 ‘Victory in Iraq’ strategy paper has demonstrably failed and, as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, former United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and former Iraqi Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, have all said, Iraq has descended into civil war;

(b)

The Bush Administration-appointed Iraq Study Group report, due 6 December 2006, is tipped to recommend that the United States begins a phased withdrawal of combat brigades in Iraq, starting in 2007 and ending in 2008;

(c)

The United Kingdom announced its intentions to hand over security in Basra in 2007;

(d)

A poll by the University of Maryland found 71 per cent of Iraqis now want the United States out of Iraq; and

(e)

Former US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, suggested that the United States should consider an accelerated draw down of bases.’

Yours sincerely

Lyn Allison

Senator for Victoria

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

The Acting Deputy President:

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:The need for the Australian Government to develop its own plan to withdraw all Australian troops not involved in personal security roles from Iraq as soon as practicable, given that:

(a)

The March 2003 invasion of Iraq and Mr Bush’s 2005 ‘Victory in Iraq’ strategy paper has demonstrably failed and, as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, former United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and former Iraqi Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, have all said, Iraq has descended into civil war;

(b)

The Bush Administration-appointed Iraq Study Group report, due on 6 December 2006, is tipped to recommend that America begins a phased withdrawal of combat brigades in Iraq, starting in 2007 and ending in 2008;

(c)

The United Kingdom announced its intentions to hand over security in Basra in 2007;

(d)

A poll by the University of Maryland found 71 per cent of Iraqis now want the United States out of Iraq; and

(e)

Former United States Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, suggested that the United States should consider an accelerated draw down of bases.

Three years and nine months ago, Australia joined the United States in invading another country based on a lie. Last month, finally, a US committee on intelligence said that there was little or no evidence to support claims by US intelligence of weapons of mass destruction or links between Iraq and al-Qaeda—something that weapons inspectors and intelligence analysts had been telling anyone who would listen well before the invasion. The strike was all over within weeks. Iraq not only had no weapons of mass destruction but had very little by way of military defence in the face of the firepower from the world’s most heavily armed country.

When you keep changing the rationale for pre-emptive strikes—one day weapons of mass destruction, the next day liberation of the people from an evil dictator—the problem is you never know when the job is done. Now the talk is about the need to protect the fledgling democracy we imposed on Iraq to stop Iraq tearing itself apart. Of course there are many ways of liberating a country. Usually the residents of that country rise up and liberate themselves. That is how America did it. Citizens also do it through non-violent, mass civil disobedience. That is how India did it. You can get the world to boycott a regime until they are so ostracised they capitulate. That is how South Africa did it. Or you can just wait them out and sooner or later the king’s legions simply leave. That is how Canada did it.

Against the advice of the United Nations Security Council and the Australian parliament, and despite the biggest mass demonstrations ever seen in our streets, our Prime Minister decided we would join in the invasion of Iraq—and it turns out that he made that decision well before he told us.

The Democrats strongly opposed this invasion of Iraq. However, we did recognise that once the bombing had stopped we had an obligation to help rebuild the massively damaged infrastructure. Three years and nine months on, the postwar death toll is higher than that caused by the invasion—all up an estimated 600,000 people. Heroic assumptions about bringing democracy have all but failed. Basic services are still a pipedream. The reputation of the United States has been sullied by Abu Ghraib and massacred civilians. Oil supply arrangements and lucrative rebuilding contracts have benefited the occupier.

It is little wonder that our presence is doing more harm than good, regardless of how necessary our work might be, or might be seen to be. Fourteen hundred Australian soldiers are still there as an occupying force. According to the University of Maryland, more than two-thirds of Iraqis want us all out. Richard Woolcott, former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, says that the world and Australia have been less safe since the invasion and occupation of Iraq and terrorism has increased in Iraq and beyond, including in Indonesia. Although it was a minor terrorist target before the invasion, he says Australia is now a much higher profile target than it was. Dr Scott Burchill says:

The war was lost 2 years ago, and the insurgents have been celebrating their victory ever since by attacking coalition troops and tormenting the civilian population. It cannot be won now by extending or intensifying the occupation. Many insurgents presumably want US, UK and Australian troops to stay on where they can be further humiliated. As US General Casey admitted last year, the presence of coalition troops fuels the insurgency. A withdrawal, on the other hand, removes its raison d’etre.

The invasion of Iraq has been very costly in humanitarian, economic and environmental terms too. The cost to Australia of the Iraq war will be $1.6 billion by the end of the year. Two thousand nine hundred and six American soldiers are dead. Luckily, Australia has had no deaths in action but hundreds around the world have died in retaliatory terrorism incidents. The cost to Iraq and innocent Iraqi civilians is incalculable. An estimated 655,000 civilians have died since the invasion. Amnesty suggests women are no better off now in terms of safety than under Saddam Hussein, with increased murders and sexual abuse, including by US forces. Former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and former Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, say that Iraq has descended into civil war. Kofi Annan says the situation in Iraq is worse than civil war, that the ordinary life for Iraqis is far more dangerous than it was under Saddam.

The majority of Iraqis see us as part of an occupying force that is delivering nothing but instability and violence and not liberation. Sixty-one per cent of all Iraqis support insurgent attacks on US troops. It should be a lesson to us that you cannot bring peace by force, that you cannot always impose the Western notion of democracy—with its many flaws—and that you cannot impose cultural change from without, particularly from a Western nation that is so clearly at odds with the norms and the religious bases of its warring factions. The international chorus has been joined by a growing number of Australians from across the political spectrum and within defence, but this government has nothing to say.

We will not be with President Bush and Tony Blair, who are meeting in Washington tomorrow to talk about a phased withdrawal, starting early next year. In a classified memo leaked over the weekend, former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld laid out a series of policy options that included a modest withdrawal of US troops. The UK defence secretary announced on 27 November that the number of British troops in Iraq will be ‘significantly’ reduced by a ‘matter of thousands’ by the end of 2007. The Iraq Study Group report, due today, is tipped to recommend that America begin a phased withdrawal of combat brigades in Iraq, starting next year, saying this should pressure the Iraqi government to clamp down on sectarian violence.

The Prime Minister may be incapable of admitting his terrible mistake. Indeed, he said a week or so ago that he still holds the view that the decision to invade Vietnam was right. The least he can now do is show some clear leadership rather than wait for instructions from Mr Bush. We should not be stuck here waiting for the US to tell us what to do next, waiting for the next piece of hollow rhetoric from President Bush about victory and staying until the job is done. He is apparently not going to cut and run. Apparently Mr Howard said a couple of weeks ago that he would pass on ‘some ideas and information about how to reduce the violence in Iraq’ but what this is is anyone’s guess. Is he ready with a plan? It does not seem so. I hope Mr Bush gives the Prime Minister a heads-up before he announces the US withdrawal; otherwise we will still be there when everyone else has gone.

More violence never stopped violence. Only talking, diplomacy, agreement and sorting out the issues have delivered long-lasting peace. The Democrats say that the way to peace and stability in Iraq, as elsewhere, is to withdraw Australian troops other than personnel essential in protecting diplomatic staff, encourage engagement of the warring factions and the Iraqi people in ceasefire talks, and divert the billions that are currently spent on keeping troops in Iraq to rebuild essential services and schools and hospitals.

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think that in almost the decade that I have been here I have heard a more anti-American or un-Australian speech from anyone in this place. I want to disassociate myself from that speech by Senator Allison—that limp-wristed, hollow-chested, unwashed, left-wing rubbish that she has just spoken about. I find that speech absolutely and totally appalling. Let me go through some of these items that Senator Allison has brought before us as a matter of importance today.

She spoke of the need for the Australian government to develop its own plan to withdraw all Australian troops not involved in personal security roles as soon as practicable. I guess she changed ‘practicable’ from ‘possible’ at some stage. Of course there is always a plan to withdraw the troops—when the job is done. Senator Allison did not mention Saddam Hussein once, one of the most heinous killers this world has ever seen. She railed against America and Australia and those allied troops and those young men and women that went to Iraq to defend the rest of the free world. She talked about the Western democracy with all its flaws; has she talked about Saddam Hussein and the people that he has killed, the people he has been responsible for? Has she talked about the democracy that we are trying to establish in that part of the world? Has she talked to other people that come to this country from Iraq? Today in this country we have the Minister for Foreign Relations, the Hon. Falah Bakir, who is in this house at the moment, from the Kurdistan Regional Government—not in the chamber, but in the house. If she wished to talk to him, he would tell her something about Iraq. He would tell her about his own relatives that have been slaughtered in Iraq. He would tell her about the thousands of people that have been slaughtered there.

I have been to Iraq on several occasions and I must say that I have learned to have a great affinity and in fact a great affection for Iraqi people, knowing as I do that which they have suffered. I do find this one of the more disturbing speeches that I have heard from the left-wing rhetoric of Senator Allison. It was a disgraceful speech, one I am appalled by, and I am ashamed that it should have been spoken in this house. Senator Allison spoke of and condemned America and Australia, but she did not condemn Saddam Hussein. Hasn’t Senator Allison heard of that killer? Hasn’t she got something bad to say about the 20 or 30 years he spent in power and the hundreds of thousands of people he was responsible for killing? She never mentioned once his invasion of Kuwait and the tens of thousands of people that were maimed and lost their lives in that particular takeover of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. She never mentioned once the appalling war between Iran and Iraq where thousands upon thousands of young men and women lost their lives in a conflict that ended in both parties drawing apart with no ground gained and nothing lost, an abortive situation there.

What does Senator Allison believe we should do to defend democracy, to defend our colleagues who have always come to our aid—the Americans? Does she honestly believe that after the appalling thing that happened on September 11 we should have done nothing? Does Senator Allison believe that the damage being done to Iraq is coming from people inside Iraq? She must know, if she reads anything at all about the truth of the Iraqi war, that the allies, of which Australia is a significant part, are attempting to rebuild the country. We are not in Iraq to fight and kill people. We are there to defend democracy, to re-establish the democracy that has been missing from Iraq for generations. We are there to assist in the rebuilding of Iraq and in the re-education of the Iraqi people, who suffered for so long under Saddam Hussein—but I heard no condemnation of that by Senator Allison.

I have been to Iraq and I have seen its magnificent renaissance, not around Fallujah or Tikrit or the green zone or the so-called Sunni triangle but in the state in the northern part of Iraq known as Kurdistan. Great things are happening there. There are more children at school in Kurdistan now than there have ever been before in Kurdistan’s history. For the first time in generations, in perhaps 100 years or more, Kurds are safe and secure within the boundaries that have been set by international recognition. There are new hotels being built in Kurdistan, particularly in Irbil and Sulaimaniyah. There are also new universities being built in those towns, Sulaimaniyah and Irbil, as well as in other places. There are more female university students than male students in the three universities in Kurdistan. There is a whole new world opening up. That new world opened up because Australia and America came to the aid of a people who were suffering the most appalling actions, hundreds and thousands of them losing their lives each month.

I have been to Iraq several times and I intend to go there again early next year, making it my fourth trip. I have been to Baghdad too. There are things that need to be done, but there are things that are impossible to do because of the insurgency. But these insurgents—these killers, these people who kill in the name of God—do not come from inside the Iraqi borders. They come from Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser degree, Yemen, Syria and Turkey—all of the countries that abut Iraq. They do not come from inside Iraq. They are people who are trained to kill. They are people whose brains have gone. They are people who, if there is a God, will never get into heaven under any circumstances. These people who kill in the name of God are condemned to hell forever. They certainly will not get any rewards.

But Senator Allison did not say any of those things. She did not condemn Saddam Hussein, who—I might use the expression ‘God willing’—will shortly be despatched from this earth. She said that the Iraq Study Group appointed by the Bush administration is ‘tipped to recommend’. What does she mean by ‘tipped’? Does she have inside information? I do not think she has. I do not think any decent person who had inside information on Iraq would talk to Senator Allison. That she would use something as emotional and ambiguous in this urgency motion quite surprises me, even coming from Senator Allison.

She went on to say that the UK had announced its intention to hand over security in Basra next year. But Basra and Umm Qasr, in the south of the country, are not under threat like areas around the capital, Baghdad, or the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, Tikrit, or Fallujah, with its radical mullahs. Basra is a place where security could easily be handed over. And, once the job is done, all of the foreign troops—American, Australian and others—will be withdrawn. They will stay there until then, by invitation of course. South Korea has 3½ thousand people in the northern part of Iraq who are there at the invitation of the democratically elected Kurdistan Regional Government. There are lots of things to do in Iraq. Once the job is done, our plan is to withdraw. That has been said many, many times. To say, at the beginning of this motion, that there is no exit plan is completely and totally misleading.

Senator Allison also said that a poll by the University of Maryland in the United States found that 71 per cent of Iraqis want the US out of Iraq. What does Senator Allison mean by that? What was the standard of this alleged poll? Who did it question? Where was it done? Did it poll expatriate Iraqis? Did it poll Iraqis who are sympathetic to some other cause? Did it poll people who alleged they were Iraqi? How can Senator Allison have any credibility with a motion of this type and on this scale?

Lastly, Senator Allison said former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suggested that the US should consider ‘an accelerated draw-down of US bases’. Having been in the Army, I do not know what she means by that. The language, the interpretation and the words, to me, are strange—very strange. I understand what she wants to do: she wants to discredit Australia and the United States by bringing forward this motion here today. The motion has no credibility. It is appalling. I feel very sorry for the people of Iraq and I assure them that the sentiments that Senator Allison expressed here today have nothing whatsoever to do with the vast majority of people in Australia.

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

I think we all agree with Senator Lightfoot that we are sorry for the people of Iraq but, unfortunately, he does not address any of the key issues about resolving the situation. Labor does not support this urgency motion. As it stands, the motion does not reflect the entirety of Labor’s policy position, but it is an important debate and I am happy to join it.

There are elements in the motion that reflect Labor’s position, and I am going to concentrate on some of those. Let me say from the outset: Labor has always been opposed to this 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. Our position on the war has never changed. Our position is on the public record.

Labor’s position, and that of the millions of Australians who opposed this war, has been vindicated by the horrific events that have occurred every day since the invasion. The motion before us today is important because it asks the question: what is John Howard’s strategy for the future of Iraq? This question is vital as Iraq descends into a quagmire. It is a civil war. Iraqis are dying at a rate of 100 a day; the Pentagon has estimated that over 50,000 have died as a result of the war. According to the Lancet, perhaps 600,000 Iraqis are dead from the war and its effects.

Iraq has a population of some 26 million people. We know that over 1.6 million Iraqis have been internally displaced and an additional 1.8 million have fled their homeland. The security of the civilian population has clearly diminished—and it is not enough to say that Saddam Hussein was a butcher; we have to deal with the reality now. Overnight, the new US defence secretary, Robert Gates, testified that he believed the war was being lost. His statement before congress was not a surprise; but it is welcome for its acknowledgement of the reality of the situation facing the Iraqi people and the coalition.

Of the 18 provinces in Iraq, the handover of security responsibilities has only occurred in two provinces despite a police force of some 130,000 trained police, other police units of 176,000 and an army of 130,000. The multinational force in Iraq of some 140,000 troops and the trained Iraqi security forces have failed to curb an insurgency by Sunni Muslims, and it has failed to curb the violence by Shiite Muslim militias linked to religious parties in the majority Shiite dominated government.

The United States is moving to reassess its Iraq strategy. Secretary Gates’s testimony came a day before the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James A Baker, releases its recommendations. Mr Baker briefed President Bush on the findings on Tuesday, and we can anticipate what the Iraq Study Group will recommend. Secretary Gates, of course, was a panel member of the Iraq Study Group but quit after President Bush nominated him to become the new defence secretary.

We know that two days before resigning as defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld informed President Bush that the US strategy was not working and adjustments needed to be made. This is the man that helped plan and engineer the war. He referred to possible troop withdrawals and an accelerated draw-down in the number of security bases in Iraq: from 55 bases to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007 and to five bases by July 2007.

Unlike the United States, John Howard is refusing to face up to the reality of our Iraq engagement. Many Australians now acknowledge that this government is guilty of changing its story on Iraq to suit its political interests, not the Australian national interest. Many Australians now reject the government’s glib use of slogans such as ‘cut and run’ or ‘stay till the job is done’, which are still used to justify our participation in the quagmire in Iraq.

The core issue in the urgency motion is correct. It refers to the strategic plans that the government has for Iraq’s future. It is about what has been discussed with other allied governments and it is about working out the priority of our efforts, our objectives and the manner of achieving them. It is about the clarity of the message, not the ambiguity of concealment.

As Kevin Rudd said some weeks ago, the question is how this government proposes to stabilise Iraq’s security and how this government will bring about political arrangements in Iraq that give the Iraqi people hope for the future. It is about John Howard’s plan for overcoming the problems that were generated from the effects of the war and the abject failure of postwar planning.

Many Australians now accept that this government was guilty of taking Australians to war for the wrong reasons. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The prewar intelligence was flawed. There was no reconstruction plan for the postwar period. Many Australians now criticise John Howard’s decision to commit our troops to the war because it has made Australia a bigger target for terrorists. The evidence is clear that even more jihadists are being trained in Iraq—trained to unleash terror on any part of the world in the years to come. The Iraq war has generated a more militant Islamism, which may never have eventuated in different circumstances. But the Prime Minister refuses to admit that this is the outcome of the Iraq war and to accept any responsibility for this.

So where is the government’s strategy for Iraq’s future? It has definitely not been made clear by John Howard. The Prime Minister recently admitted that ‘democracy has a reasonable chance if that is the wish of the Iraqi people’. That is a long way and a huge backdown from the euphoric speeches on how the democratisation of Iraq in the postwar period would lead to the eventual democratisation of the Middle East. Remember those heady days? No-one talks that talk anymore.

On 19 October this year, Mr Howard indicated that Iraq may turn out to be a split state. This was probably the first public utterance from our Prime Minister that acknowledged the reasons for the civil war and the chaos that has engulfed Iraq. He recently stressed on ABC radio that ‘a signpost for determining Australia’s troop withdrawal will be the handover of security responsibility to the Iraqi forces’. What does that mean? Does this mean after the Iraqi security forces have taken responsibility for eight, 10, 12 or 18 provinces? Why doesn’t he inform the nation? It is time that he laid out for the Australian people what is to happen and when, and what the conditions of play are.

As the urgency motion indicates, during the next week the US administration may be forced to review and initiate a new Iraq strategy. This will come about because of the convergence of the Iraq Study Group report with the Pentagon’s ongoing internal revision of the operational and tactical use of US forces in Iraq. This convergence comes after the UK government confirmed that the security of Basra will be handed over to the Iraqis next year.

Where is our government in all this? Where is the Australian plan? Have discussions occurred with our allies? I do not know. Iraq has certainly entered a new phase. So how has the Howard government responded? On Monday and Tuesday this week Labor senators, including me, asked Senator Minchin these very questions. On Monday he responded by saying that Australia is:

... committed to remaining in Iraq while we believe that (a) we are welcome there at the invitation of the government of Iraq and while they profess the need for our modest forces to remain and (b) we are making a contribution. We continue to believe that we are making a contribution ... What we will not do ... is simply exit.

On Tuesday, Senator Minchin reverted to the familiar ‘staying the course’ assertion, with a number of ‘cut and runs’ thrown in for good measure and the declaration that the ultimate withdrawal of Australian troops ‘will not be based on some arbitrary calendar’.

Well, we know what it will not be, but what will it be? What is the plan? Or is it in fact the case that we are just waiting for the Americans to tell us? The aim, Senator Minchin added, is to bring ‘peace, order and good government to the people of Iraq’. Very laudable, but there was no mention that the Iraqi nation should be either unified or split before the withdrawal of our forces. There was no clarification of what the security of the people means in military terms, let alone political terms, and there was no indication of how good governance could be achieved for the Iraqi people. Indeed, the lack of specifics shows that the Howard government is playing the waiting game: waiting to see what others do, waiting to see how the political and military landscape will change before deciding on a course of action, waiting to assess the political fallout domestically. So much for the national interest.

It is time for the Howard government to face up to the reality in Iraq. It is time for the government to make some tough decisions. What is John Howard’s and the Liberal government’s plan for our troops in Iraq? It seems to me that there isn’t one.

Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens have opposed the war in Iraq from the outset and all the way through. I think we are the last party standing in terms of having that consistent position right the way through. We have seen wavering views expressed by the opposition and by the Democrats, but the Greens are pleased that more and more people are joining us in our view that the war in Iraq is a disaster and has always been a disaster. Indeed, just last month we saw millions of Americans vote that way. What we saw in the United States in their congressional elections was millions of Americans saying: ‘Wrong way, George Bush. The war in Iraq is a disaster.’

Americans know it and Australians know it, but the Australian government refuses to accept the inevitable. It refuses to take off the ideological blinkers and see the reality on the ground in Iraq—the quagmire that we are stuck in. It refuses to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have lost their lives because of this folly. That is the position of the Australian government. It refuses to accept the mistakes it has made and the responsibility that it bears for those mistakes.

In the United States, as a result of those millions of Americans voting to say that George Bush has done the wrong thing in Iraq, we have seen some change in leadership. We have seen a new US defence secretary. Donald Rumsfeld, who created the disaster, has been kicked out, and now we have a new US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, whose job I am sure none of us envies, coming in and trying to fix the disaster that has been created by the Bush administration and by Donald Rumsfeld. I do not know very much about this guy, but as he is a former head of the CIA we probably do not share the same ideological views.

We may not share the same ideological views, but I can say one thing for the new US defence secretary: at least he is honest. Overnight, we heard the new US Secretary of Defense being asked a number of questions by the congress. He was asked whether or not, given the information we know now, it was the right thing for America to have invaded Iraq. He did not say, ‘Yes, I’m a lackey of the Bush administration and I’ll say yes.’ He did not say that. He refused to say that they had made the right decision by going into Iraq. What he said was: ‘History will judge them.’

And history will judge this decision. History will judge the Bush administration, and history will judge John Howard’s government. History will judge whether or not these over 100,000 Iraqis should have died. History will ask: did the right thing occur? And I predict that history will find that the position that my party, the Australian Greens, has taken from the outset has been the correct position to take on this issue. It is a moral position; it is a just position—that is, that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis should not have to die.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don’t exaggerate.

Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have seen a number of estimates for how many Iraqis have died. They range from 150,000—the figure put out by the Iraqi government that this government supports—up to 650,000. Wherever you choose to put it, the Greens say that it is, at the very least, 150,000 too many Iraqi lives. That is why the Australian Greens have been consistent in our position in opposing this war in Iraq.

What we need now is some honesty from the Australian government. I asked the Chief of the Defence Force at estimates whether or not we were losing the war in Iraq, and he did not give the same honest answer that I think we saw overnight from the US defence secretary. What we are seeing in the United States is an acknowledgement of the policy failure and an acknowledgement that we are losing the war in Iraq. I will be moving a motion tomorrow on behalf of the Australian Greens which calls on the government to acknowledge the inevitable, take off those ideological blinkers and see what the rest of the world has seen: Iraq is a disaster. (Time expired)

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can say this much: at least the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate made a measured statement, stating his party’s position, which I do not agree with, but at least the contribution that he made was rational. I will make some comments about it later. But I was appalled at Senator Allison’s contribution. It was full of mistruths. I have heard the Democrats described as ‘the fairies at the bottom of the garden’. I guess the best thing to say is that you would have to be a fairy at the bottom of the garden to believe some of the things that Senator Allison said.

Also, the only thing that I can draw from both Senator Allison’s contribution and Senator Nettle’s contribution is that they wish that Saddam Hussein was still in power in Iraq. I can draw no other conclusion. Because Saddam Hussein only murdered 300,000 or 400,000 people—cold-blooded murder! I am not surprised that Senator Nettle is leaving the chamber because there is one thing they cannot deny—that had these events not taken place there is nothing surer than that Saddam Hussein would still be in power and he would still be killing people at the rate that he was killing them before. So your 600,000 could be anything up to one million. Nobody believes that figure of 600,000.

As a matter of fact, at estimates the Chief of the Defence Force was asked, ‘Is there any official count of people who are killed in the Iraq war?’ I think Senator Nettle may have been there when that question was asked. The Chief of the Defence Force said, ‘No, there is no official count, but the most believable estimate is around 50,000.’ And you say over 600,000, because you only believe what you want to believe, Senator Nettle.

We had Senator Allison saying that they could have got rid of the Saddam Hussein regime by civil disobedience. Has she got any concept of what civil disobedience is and how people who used civil disobedience were treated in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? They were murdered. They were tortured. They were put through all forms of torture. And Senator Allison came here and said they should have overthrown the Saddam Hussein government by civil disobedience! I have never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.

She then talked about other methods and how other countries had managed to obtain their independence. I think she referred to the American Civil War. Before the American Civil War took place you did not have a dictator who was killing people at a rate of knots, which is what happened in the time of Saddam Hussein. I cannot believe some of the things that Senator Allison was saying in trying to justify her case.

She talked about the humiliation of Australian troops. It is an insult to say that our troops have been humiliated. Our troops have never been humiliated in Iraq. They have fought with distinction in Iraq. I am sure Senator Nettle would not go and see them, but in fact those who are there and those who have returned have all fought with distinction. They have never been humiliated. They have represented their country very proudly. It is an insult to talk about the humiliation of Australian troops.

Senator Allison talked about retaliatory terrorism. Retaliating to what? Was 9-11 retaliatory terrorism? It happened two years before the Iraq war even occurred. Was the Bali bombing retaliatory terrorism? It happened before the Iraq war even started. So we have this ridiculous statement from Senator Allison about retaliatory terrorism against the Western world when the most significant of these events started before the Iraq war even started. What a ridiculous argument from Senator Allison!

She talked about a whole range of other things. She mentioned Richard Woolcott and a whole range of other people, most of whom are leading left-wing commentators. Senator Allison dragged out those commentators that suit her argument—like most people do—but most of them are unbelievable.

I congratulate Senator Evans on his measured response. I am pleased to see that the Labor Party are not supporting this urgency motion. He said that the position of the Labor Party has been vindicated by the events that have taken place since the termination of the initial part of the Iraq war. If the Labor Party believe that their position has been vindicated, it is also fair to assume that they would have been happy to see Saddam Hussein stay in place, because there is no way that he could have been driven from office and taken out without these events taking place.

I accept Senator Evans’s arguments that from the start the Labor Party have never supported the Iraq war. They did not like the reasons for going. I accept the arguments that he put.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Faulkner interjecting—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know whether you heard him, Senator Faulkner. He gave very reasoned arguments but if you believe that the Labor Party position has been vindicated it stands to reason that you would have been happy to see Saddam Hussein remain in power. I would not have.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Regime change was never the reason for the war.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did not say anything about the reasons, but if you say that you believe that you have been vindicated then you must believe that Saddam Hussein should have stayed there.

I saw Mr Rudd on television some three or four weeks ago. I saw him asked four times a simple question about the ramifications of an immediate withdrawal, and four times Mr Rudd refused to answer the question of what would be the ramifications of an immediate withdrawal. So there is no point in coming into this chamber and criticising what the government have done if there are no other plans by the alternative government as to what their position would be.

The other thing that has been overlooked is the progress that has been made in Iraq in that time. The insurgents, and the killing of Arabs by other Arabs—those insurgents who come from outside Iraq as suicide bombers—receive all of the publicity. Think about all of the progress that has been made. I could name tens of projects that could only have taken place because the coalition of the willing is there protecting those who are building these projects for the people of Iraq.

There have been new water projects, where 4.2 million people can now receive potable water which they did not have before. There have been 36,000 new teachers trained. That would not have happened without the regime change and without the coalition of the willing being there. There have been 154 health facilities built. We never hear the Democrats or the Greens talk about the good things that are happening in Iraq at present. (Time expired)

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have just heard a speaker representing the government tell us about all the progress that has been made in Iraq in recent times, all the good things that are happening there. Let us have a look at the record. Let us try to see whether we can establish what is occurring in Iraq. These are some things that have happened in this calendar year. On 3 August, the outgoing British Ambassador to Iraq, William Patey, had a memo which was leaked. It was his final memo to the UK government. Ambassador Patey said:

The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy.

On 3 August, two senior generals warned the US Senate Committee on Armed Services about the risk of civil war. General John P Abizaid, commander of US military operations in the Middle East, said:

The sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it … If not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war.

The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, said:

We do have the possibility of that devolving to a civil war.

Is this the progress that Senator Ferguson is telling us about? Are these the good things that the government speakers wax lyrical about? Large numbers of tortured corpses, often headless and with hands bound, are being found on an almost daily basis in Baghdad, despite the launch of a joint US-Iraqi security operation in Baghdad, Operation Together Forward, on 7 August involving 12,000 US and Iraqi soldiers.

A secret intelligence report dated 16 August says that the US has lost control of Anbar province and there is almost nothing the US can do to regain control. The report that was leaked to the Washington Post finds that the Iraqi government institutions are inoperational and that the major political force in the province is al-Qaeda. Is this progress? Are these good things that the government tells us about? A Pentagon report to congress dated 1 September found:

Concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population and among some defense analysts has increased in recent months. Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq.

A United Nations report to the Security Council dated 1 September 2006 said that Iraq was now the most violent conflict in the world and that, on average, 100 civilians a day were being killed as a result of the conflict. There were 3,149 civilians killed in June and 3,438 civilians killed in July. Since February 2006 the United Nations believes that 200,000 people have been displaced. The United Nations warns that, if these trends continue, ‘The social and political fabric of the country could be endangered.’ Is this the progress that government speakers tell us about? Are these the good things the government speaks of?

According to a 1 September 2006 Pentagon report to the United States congress, Iraqi casualties increased by 50 per cent over the previous three months and insurgent attacks increased by 15 per cent. On 8 September this year the US Senate Intelligence Committee released a report which found that the US government knew before the war that there were no links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. On 21 September the United Nations released a report on the use of torture in Iraq saying that the use of torture today was worse than during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Is this the progress and good things that the government speakers speak of?

On 24 September the New York Times and Washington Post published reports of a leaked US National Intelligence Estimate, prepared by 16 intelligence agencies, which showed that the war in Iraq had increased the global terror threat. On 27 September the US released a declassified version of the key findings of the National Intelligence Estimate which said that Iraq had become a cause celebre for jihadists and that al-Qaeda was using the conflict to train recruits for other theatres. This is the progress and the good news that the government speaks of.

On 29 September former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw described the situation in Iraq as ‘dire’ and said that the US had made ‘mistakes’ in Iraq because it had not followed the advice of Colin Powell. On 11 October 2006 the British medical journal the Lancet published research conducted by the John Hopkins School of Medical Research showing that up to 654,965 Iraqi civilians had died as a result of the war in Iraq and that 601,000 of these had died as a result of violence.

On 13 October, the United Kingdom Army Chief of Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, told the Daily Mail that Britain should get out of Iraq soon and that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was exacerbating the situation. Is this the good news and progress that government speakers have the hide to come in here and talk about?

On 15 October, it was reported that General Cosgrove had said that he had apologised to the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, for publicly disagreeing with his comments on involvement in Iraq increasing the terror threat. General Cosgrove said that it was ‘pretty obvious’ that the jihadist movement had been energised by the war in Iraq. Shiah politicians have put forward laws proposing the break-up of Iraq into autonomous provinces. The UN Secretary General has said, following a tour of the Middle East, that most leaders in the region believe that Iraq is a disaster and that Iraq is having a negative impact on their own security. George Bush declared that Iran was part of the ‘axis of evil’, but the invasion and its aftermath have driven Iraq closer to Iran and to religious extremism.

And just today we hear from Robert Gates, the man President George Bush has chosen to replace Donald Rumsfeld as US defence secretary after the recent US election made it inevitable that changes would have to be made to the administration’s policy in Iraq. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr Gates was asked by Senator Levin, ‘Mr Gates, do you believe that we are currently winning in Iraq?’ Robert Gates replied, ‘No, sir.’ He was asked by Senator McCain, ‘We are not winning the war in Iraq; is that correct?’ He replied, ‘That is my view, yes, sir.’ This is not progress. This is not good news. And these are all the reasons it is time for the Australian government to face up to the reality and the responsibility and work out an exit strategy.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have heard some parts of the debate this afternoon. There is an interesting contrast amongst the speakers, in some way—a significant number of conflicting views. I guess, to a degree, that makes this place go round. But, when you are discussing an issue like the motion before us, I think it is probably more constructive to make the place go round, as it were, with less shrill and less political invective and perhaps with a more considered approach to some of the issues that are on the table before us.

I did listen to the remarks of Senator Evans, as indeed did Senator Ferguson, who remarked on that himself. I was interested in the approach and tone that Senator Evans took. I listened to the conclusion of Senator Faulkner’s remarks this afternoon. I do not think I would ever be described—hopefully at least not by those making a constructive description of me—as delusional, so I am not delusional about this issue either. I, for one, am not going to stand up in this chamber and pretend that all is good in Iraq in 2006, because that is clearly not the case. There is evidence clearly to the contrary, and it has been delivered to the chamber in a range of ways this afternoon.

But one of the bigger questions that I think faces us in addition to those horrors which are on the record is: what choice do we have? What choices are we left with if we contemplate leaving Iraq to those who would now perpetrate the acts that have been described, albeit laced with invective, by some of the other speakers this afternoon? What is the choice if our government remains fully committed to the security and the stability of Iraq? Our only choice is to stay and do the job we undertook to do some years ago now. What is the choice if there is still a job to be done in Iraq? And clearly there is. The choice is not to leave. To leave now would be to abandon the Iraqi people completely to the sorts of things that Senator Faulkner was placing on the record this afternoon. That is not a choice that I am prepared to contemplate.

The Prime Minister said towards the end of last month that the path ahead in Iraq lies in accelerating as much as possible the training of the Iraqi military forces and letting them assume as much as possible of the day-to-day security responsibility. And that is exactly what we are doing. That is exactly the commitment we have made in so many places, enabling the Iraqi security forces to do the job that obviously needs to be done but that cannot be done overnight. We are trying to create a strong security force out of a debilitated military and in many cases horrifically debilitated country and community, and that does not happen simply or easily.

If you talk about a timetable for withdrawal, what are you going to do? Are you going to say, ‘By next Easter that is it—we are out of here and that is the end of the story’? It does not work like that. It works on progress—the sorts of things that Senator Faulkner was referring to so disparagingly. It strikes me as ironic that you can be that disparaging about the ability of children to attend a school as a mark of progress. It strikes me as ironic that you can talk about freedoms advanced for women in those terms and in that context, even if you do not cite them expressly, because they are part of the marks of progress to which we refer. An independent press, the capacity to pay teachers to do the job of teaching children—I will not belittle those as marks of progress as others here have this afternoon in the context of this debate.

It is true to say, and I will agree, that horrors perpetrated on the community by insurgents and terrorists are not great marks of progress. They are not. But in the overwhelming number of provinces in Iraq there is significant progress. There are children enrolled in high schools and there are schools rebuilding so they can at least physically attend them after decades of horrors were wrought on them. Are we supposed to say, ‘That is it—we are going’? I do not think that is appropriate.

Look at the role that the Australian defence forces are playing—let us look at just one: the overwatch role in Dhi Qar province, where, at the end of October, we formally took over the operational overwatch role in southern Iraq from the Italian forces. That followed the transition of security responsibility in that province to the Iraqi security forces in the previous month.

That is the second province to transfer to Iraqi control after Al Muthanna province made the transition in July. Australia’s undertaking is to continue to support the Iraqi government and its security forces until such time as they can provide for the country’s security. That is an appropriate undertaking in this course in which we are engaged.

The Overwatch Battle Group (West) comprises about 490 Australian Army personnel. It is based at the Imam Ali Air Base in Tallil and it conducts the operational overwatch task for both Al Muthanna and Dhi Qar provinces. Those troops are required to provide support to the Iraqi security forces in a crisis if they are requested to do so by the Iraqi government, running their own business in that case, and the Multinational Force Iraq. That involvement is, of course, also subject to Australian government approval. The ADF will continue training Iraqi army personnel at the basic training centre in Tallil.

What frustrates me most is that, if you come to the debate sensibly and intelligently, I do not understand how you can say now, in December 2006, that because there are still significant problems—as there always have been with the building and creation of nations in the history of the world—it is appropriate for us to consider withdrawing. I do not understand how you can say that it is appropriate for us to disparage progress because it is undermined by some defeats.

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion (Senator Allison’s) be agreed to.) be agreed to.