The 'difficult' war: Howard reflects on Iraq

Updated

War 'highly likely' John Howard says 10 months out from when Australia's mission in Iraq began, war seemed "highly likely". 'Following the US' Simon Crean, who was Opposition leader when Australia went to war in Iraq, maintains it was the wrong decision. The 'right decision' Former prime minister John Howard says even though the Iraq war was difficult and unpopular, it was the right decision. Legitimacy of force Simon Crean questions the legitimacy of using force just to change a regime. Not based on 'lie' Former prime minister John Howard says the Iraq war was not based on a lie even though no weapons of mass destruction were found there. Based on 'fallacy' Former Opposition leader Simon Crean says Australia committed to the Iraq war based on a "fallacy" which was the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

Former prime minister John Howard says he has no regrets about the war in Iraq or Australia's involvement in it.

Mr Howard says he knew war was likely 10 months out from when Australia and the coalition of the willing invaded Iraq, but he maintains he did not commit troops until much later.

"I make no secret now nor did I make any secret of the fact 10 years ago that we had people involved and knowledgeable about the planning stages of any operation that might materialise," he told the ABC.

But he says his full cabinet was not brought into the loop until the decision was made to commit troops.

"The national security committee of cabinet met continuously throughout 2002, although in the end, when we decided to commit our troops I did have a full cabinet meeting," he said.

In an extensive interview with the ABC this week, Mr Howard reflected on the lead-up to the war, the politics surrounding it and the consequences of a conflict that many still believe was based on intelligence that was manipulated and misused in an effort to make it look like Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Ten years on, Mr Howard stands by his decision to send Australia to war.

Timeline: war in Iraq Take a look back at the major events in Iraq since Saddam Hussein took power. Take a look back at the major events in Iraq since Saddam Hussein took power.

"It was a time when there was a genuine concern that Saddam had WMDs," he said.

"The fact that they were not found did not alter the fact that the Iraq survey group found that Saddam's intention all along was to reconstitute his programs once he'd secured an end to the UN sanctions."

It is easy to forget just how feverish the international atmospherics were at the time.

September 11 had changed the geopolitical landscape, and while the world largely supported the US pursuit of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, there were very different feelings abroad about US intentions towards Iraq.

'Axis of Evil'

The case for war had been building for years.

In early 2002, then US president George W Bush famously declared Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, part of the "Axis of Evil".

In November 2002 the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1441, giving Saddam Hussein one final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations.

There is no doubt the fear about Iraq's weapons capabilities and its intent to develop WMDs was widespread, but the decision to go to war was taken without a final UN resolution authorising the use of force.

The failure to secure a final resolution came despite efforts by the then US secretary of state, Colin Powell, to sway the UN with props and satellite pictures to back up claims that Hussein's son had ordered WMDs removed from the family palaces and that bio-weapons warheads were being hidden in palm groves.

Just over a year later, Mr Powell admitted the intelligence was not as "solid" as he had been led to believe.

Just the week before Mr Powell's UN speech, Mr Bush declared in his State of the Union address that the British government had learned that Hussein had "recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" and that the Iraqi leader had "tried to purchase high-strength aluminium tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production".

Both claims turned out to be wrong.

Both Mr Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair have subsequently been accused of misusing the intelligence and it is now a matter of history that no WMDs were found.

But Mr Howard rejects the suggestion that the war itself was based on a lie.

"To say that it's based on a lie is to say that those people who thought that Iraq had WMDs deliberately invented the intelligence that was made available," he said.

"I think many of the attacks that have been made both on Tony Blair and George Bush about the misuse of the intelligence are wrong."

Preparing for war

But what is clear is that the preparations for war were being made well in advance of the final 48-hour ultimatum given to Hussein on March 17, 2003.

It is also now clear that Australia was intimately involved in that planning.

Australian officers were embedded with the American military planners in the headquarters in Tampa for months before.

Bob Woodward details in his book Plan Of Attack that as far back as September 2002, Mr Howard had assured Mr Bush that he would support him in his efforts to remove Hussein.

"I'm with you. We need a resolution," Mr Howard is quoted as telling Mr Bush.

Simon Crean, who was opposition leader at the time, accuses Mr Howard of lying to the Australian people about his intentions.

"John Howard didn't tell the truth to the Australian people", he said.

"We did question [Howard] on this point: 'Have you committed to take us to war regardless of what the UN says simply because the US says?' He said no."

Mr Crean says there was already a UN process in action to identify whether the justification for war existed, whether Iraq did have WMDs.

"But we simply did what the Americans asked us to do. Didn't question it," Mr Crean said.

Mr Howard rejects the accusation that he was always prepared to commit to the war, but according to Woodward in Plan Of Attack, Mr Bush rang Mr Howard on March 17 to tell him he was going to issue the 48-hour ultimatum .

"George, if it comes to this, I pledge to you that Australian troops will fight if necessary," Mr Howard is quoted as saying.

With the ultimatum still running its course, special forces from Australia, the US, Britain and Poland were already active in Iraq securing key infrastructure sites.

Bungled

Like many of those who championed the war, Mr Howard is also of the view that the planning for post-war Iraq - known as Phase 4 - was inadequate and bungled.

The policy of de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi army was wrong.

It is this, he says, that is mostly to blame for the subsequent sectarian violence that has wracked the country.

Mr Howard says he believes Iraq is a better place albeit still a dangerous one.

"By all measures and all acknowledgments, Saddam was a brutal dictator who murdered people, he used poison gas against the Kurds, he used poison gas against the Iranians, he slaughtered the Marsh Arabs, he put down in a very brutal fashion an uprising by the Shiite majority.

"So there is little doubt that if Saddam had been left in place, more people would have died, there would have been more suffering and Iraq's economy - while it is not perfect or booming - it is getting better, and it's had the highest oil production and exports for 30 years very recently," he said.

Since the war began, millions of Iraqis have been displaced, the estimates of Iraqi dead are imprecise and difficult to gauge, but most of the more conservative estimates put the figure well over 100,000.

More than 4,400 US soldiers died and more than 32,000 were injured.

In 2011 the US Congressional Research Service estimated the war in Iraq had cost $806 billion.

Topics: federal-government, world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, iraq, united-states, australia

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