This is Laurie Brereton’s speech to federal Parliament yesterday on war with Iraq.

 

(For Brereton’s foreign policy approach – and to see how drastically the Coalition has transformed our foreign policy – see Brereton’s pre-election speech as Labor’s foreign affairs spokesman at Brereton Vision.)

When this House debated the prospect of war with Iraq on 17 September last year, I was in New York, representing the Parliament as part of Australia’s delegation to the United Nations. There I had an opportunity to observe the working of the Security Council, the principle UN body charged with keeping the peace.

Outside the entrance of the Council, the place where Security Council representatives make statements to the press, there hangs a reproduction of Pablo Picasso’s most celebrated work Guernica. The story of Guernica is well known but deserves to be told again.

On 26 April 1937, German bombers attacked the town of Guernica in northern Spain. The village was left in ruins with sixteen hundred civilians killed or wounded. This act of terror – the first large scale aerial attack against a civilian population centre – outraged the world. It compelled Picasso, then living in Paris, to begin the work that would become his testament against the horrors of war and one of the greatest artworks of the twentieth century.

I’m told that the UN’s Guernica was donated by the philanthropist Nelson A Rockefeller in 1985. Unfortunately, it is now no longer on display. According to press reports, on 27 January this year a large blue curtain was hung to cover it up. Questioned why the painting had been covered, UN press spokesman Fred Eckhard said the blue curtain was a technically better background for the cameras covering statements being made outside the Security Council.

This may be the official explanation, but the same media reports quote unnamed diplomats observing that it would not be appropriate for the US Ambassador at the UN John Negroponte or Secretary of State Colin Powell to talk about war with Iraq against a backdrop depicting images of women and children and animals crying with horror and showing the suffering of war.

Whatever the reasons, there is a profound symbolism in pulling a shroud over this great work of art. For throughout the debate on Iraq, whether at the UN, in the US, or here in Australia, there has been a remarkable degree of obfuscation, evasion and denial, and never more so than when it comes to the grim realities of military action.

Our Prime Minister denies, of course, that he has committed Australian troops to war.

He denies that he shares the Bush Administration’s goal of “regime change” in Baghdad.

He doesn’t rule out supporting a unilateral attack, an attack not authorised by the UN, even though this would constitute a gross violation of international law.

The Prime Minister has nothing to say about the long-term implications of invading and occupying Iraq – either for the stability of the Middle East or for terrorist threat to Australia.

And the Prime Minister has only platitudes to offer about the humanitarian cost of war. He has nothing to say about the thousands of lives that may be lost, the homes, hospitals and schools that will be destroyed or the hundreds of thousands of refugees who will be forced to flee their homes.

All along the Prime Minister dissembles, denies and evades. From the very beginning of this debate he has sought to pull his own curtain of deceit over his war diplomacy.

We are certainly on the brink of war. Matters will probably come to a head in the second half of this month. The US and the UK will seek a measure of endorsement for military action from the Security Council. Given the immense US leverage, this may be forthcoming. It appears more likely than it did some weeks ago. Failing that the US and the UK will attack Iraq anyway.

But the case for war has not been made.

Of course, Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator, responsible for appalling war crimes and abuse of human rights. But overthrowing the government of a sovereign state is an extraordinary undertaking. I haven’t seen much evidence to suggest that human rights is a driving element of US or UK policy.

Nor is this part of the war against terrorism. Despicable as he is, Saddam Hussein has not been linked to the events of September 11, 2001. Nor has evidence been presented indicating Iraq has given or plans to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organisations.

Secretary of State Powell will apparently present new information to the Security Council, but I think we would have already heard of any definitive evidence linking Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The Americans are already telling the world they haven’t got a smoking gun.

Nor has the international community exhausted all the diplomatic options to secure the elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capability. Iraq has accepted the resumption of UN weapon inspections and has so far not restricted their activities. It is argued, that Iraq should cooperate more positively. This may well be so, but a lack of pro-active cooperation is no case for war.

It must also be recognised that Saddam Hussein’s overwhelming interest is in survival. Why would he unleash a weapon of mass destruction that would invite overwhelming US retaliation? Paradoxically, a military effort to eliminate Hussein is precisely the circumstance most likely to prompt Iraq to use any capability it possess. It may indeed be the circumstance in which Hussein hands chemical and biological agents to terrorist networks.

But this is a risk the United States is apparently prepared to take in order to impose its will.

The truth is US policy toward Iraq is less about the threat of weapons of mass destruction than it is about redrawing the strategic map of the Middle East. As I have said on previous occasions, “regime change” is precisely what is says. It is about installing a pro-American regime in Baghdad. It is about changing the regime that controls Iraq’s oil wealth. It’s about putting in place a regime supportive of the US military presence in the Middle East.

And in the process, the US may unleash events with unpredictable consequences – especially in the longer term. The US is already engaged in an open-ended commitment in Afghanistan. The occupation and reconstruction of Iraq will be a vastly greater undertaking with unpredictable consequences for the whole Middle East.

Rebuilding Iraq under a new pro-American government will be a task fraught with difficulty. It will require the support of the broad international community – support the US has failed so far to mobilise.

Coupled with the ongoing horror of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a US-led assault on Iraq will fuel Islamic extremism and provide many new recruits for terrorist groups.

The US may rapidly achieve its military objectives, but these may prove to be steps into a strategic and political morass.

Here in this debate, the Howard Government hasn’t anything to say about the long-term implications of military action and the prospective occupation of Iraq. Our Government will support whatever action the US takes – it’s as simple as that.

And while Australia’s military commitment to an attack will be but a small part of the US-led force, our Government’s rhetoric has put Australia in the very front rank of George Bush’s cheer squad. With all this flag waving for Bush, comes an increased risk of future terrorist attacks against Australians both overseas and at home.

Since the US President asserted his right to take unilateral military action against any threat he perceived to his country’s interests, only the UK and Australia have declared enthusiastic support. And now the Prime Minister is preparing to scurry off to Washington, hoping to make the Bush-Blair duo a triumvirate.

Australia’s outspoken identification with the US and the UK as global enforcers places us at substantially greater risk of terrorist attack. By his rhetoric and his actions, the Prime Minister has incited and invited extremist attention towards Australia.

The danger will be greatest for Australians overseas – for Australian embassies and consulates, for Australian businesses and our tourists as we have already seen so tragically with the Bali bombings.

If the Government were honest in its anti-terrorism advertising campaign, it would warn Australians very clearly and directly of the increased risk of further terrorist horror if we are involved in a US-led attack on Iraq.

And where should Australia be standing on this whole issue? I put it to this House that we should be standing for the rule of international law. We should be standing with the collective authority of the United Nations. We should be arguing against unilateralism. We should be making it clear that the case for military action has not been made out. We should make it clear that there can be no case for military action while weapons inspections are continuing.

In the event of Iraqi obstruction, military action should only follow with explicit authorisation by the Security Council. A further Security Council resolution is essential for military action to have any legitimacy.

For our part, Australia should not support military action without this explicit authority. Nor should we support military action that extends beyond the terms of an explicit mandate.

In the event that the UN does authorise military force, it is my firm view that Australia’s involvement should be limited to the present naval enforcement of UN sanctions and our bilateral logistical and intelligence cooperation with the United States.

UN authorisation should not be the determining factor in whether Australian ground troops are committed. Nor does our strong alliance with the US oblige Australia to automatically lend our ground troops in direct support of each and every American military action.

Australia did not commit ground troops in the 1991 Gulf War – and that was in response to the invasion of Kuwait. No compelling case has been made out for Australian troops to fight in Iraq now.

And we should all be mindful of what will follow any invasion. Pentagon planning provides for an extended occupation and administration of Iraq. The degree to which an occupation force and interim administration would operate under UN auspices is unclear.

The US will be anxious to maintain a broad coalition in the post-attack period. Washington may well press its allies to rotate our military contingents and replace strike forces with units more suited to occupation duties. Australia could well be asked to contribute transport and logistic units, medical support units and possibly regular infantry. This is an issue that has to date received virtually no attention.

Australian involvement in a longer-term US-occupation of Iraq has the potential to cause significant international and regional problems for us. Adverse reactions will likely follow in both the Middle East and South East Asia.

It is an absolute tragedy that our Prime Minister has taken Australia such a long way down this road to war. And its all been done through dissembling and deceit.

Hopefully today’s debate will not be the last before the Prime Minister announces that our troops are going into action and that a state of war exists between Australia and Iraq. Hopefully this won’t be the last opportunity for debate before we see demonstrated the enormous devastation that can be wrought by the world’s most advanced bombers and missiles.

We may well live in the age of the so-called “smart bomb”, but the horror on the ground will be just the same as that visited upon the villagers of Guernica sixty-five years ago. Innocent Iraqis – men, women and children will pay a terrible price. And it won’t be possible to pull a curtain over that.