OK. We can�t believe the Prime Minister. We can�t believe the Defence Minister. We can�t believe the head of the Australian Defence Force. We can�t believe the head of the Defence Department.

 

But we already knew that, didn�t we? We knew that for sure after the children overboard inquiry revealed Howard, Reith, Admiral Barrie and Allan Hawke as serial liars, dissemblers and/or cover up artists. We KNOW that our public service ethics lie in ruins, across the board. We know that our senior public servants no longer see themselves as having any duty to the public interest, and that their �duty� is solely to protect the government�s political interests. They�ve sold their souls, no less, and by doing so have sold the soul of Australia.

So there�s nothing new in the Abu Ghraib cover up in that sense. What�s new, or at least newly exposed, is the systemic downgrading of human rights behind the scenes � even the protection for prisoners of war established after World War II in disgust at the treatment of POW�s by the Japanese. I put these human rights above all others in a purely practical sense, because an absolute insistence on compliance by civilised nations is all that protects our soldiers and our citizens from horror if they are captured by our enemies. It allows us to prosecute perpetrators hard, with the full force of international law, and it�s that threat that weighs on the minds of our enemies if they capture us. Breaches of the Geneva Conventions are called war crimes.

The defence force knows this better that anyone else, and that�s why our soldiers are trained thoroughly in the Geneva Conventions.

So let�s look at the real scandal revealed this week in Senate Estimates. Let�s examine the behaviour of Howard, Hill, Cosgrove and defence department chief Ric Smith. If Howard is innocent, all the rest of them are as guilty as sin, and all should leave public life in shame. None will.

JOHN HOWARD

Howard says he knew NOTHING about prisoner abuse by the Americans until April, when the public saw the photos. NOTHING. Imagine a Prime Minister concerned with Australia�s reputation as a member of the Coalition of the Willing and the utter necessity of winning the Iraqi people�s hearts and minds to win the war.

He wonders why he didn�t know, right? Surely the Americans would have briefed us long ago. And we have officers in Baghdad HQ. What did they know? If nothing, then lines of communication between the Coalition partners are seriously flawed. Were any of our soldiers involved in investigating the abuses, had any reports been sent up the line? He would have liked to have been in the loop by Anzac Day at least, when he was in Iraq being briefed by the heavies of the occupation who knew all about it. He listed them all yesterday: �I met General Abizaid when I was in Baghdad, I met General Sanchez when I was in Baghdad, I met Paul Bremer when I was in Baghdad, I met two people in the Iraqi Governing Council, I met the Australian Commanding Officer in Baghdad � I met all of these people and nobody mentioned it to me.�

Item one on his agenda, if he’s in good faith – find out who knew what and when, and if nothing, then why not, and if so, why the hell wasn�t he told?

Note that Howard didn�t even lodge a formal protest with the Americans when the torture was revealed. Without any inquiries of our forces, it seems, he blindly ran the George Bush �few rotten apples� line now so thoroughly discredited by subsequent revelations in America.

ROBERT HILL

At yesterday�s press conference, Howard was asked: �If you had known about this earlier, would you have expressed your concerns at the time to the Americans?�

Howard: “Well, I mean, look I would have done the right thing, and of course if I had known about it, of course I would have expressed my concern. Of course I would have.”

So why the bloody hell wasn�t he told � if he wasn�t?

On May 11, Robert Hill persistently avoiding answering direct questions in the Senate on when he knew of the February 2004 Red Cross report � the one which details the torture and abuse � the war crimes � which were in April revealed to the rest of us via the photos. �Defence� knew in February, he said at first. And finally:

�The government became aware of that report in February. I accept the responsibilities that flow from that.�

Why did Hill prevaricate? Most likely answer � he had been briefed but did not want to say so. And what responsibilities might flow from that? Labor knew one of them, and Labor�s defence spokesman Chris Evans said it to Hill�s face: �So you lied to the ABC?�

On May 5 on the 7.30 Report, Hill denied any knowledge of the abuses before he saw the pictures:

�If this had of come to my knowledge other than through the public domain, I would have made my inquiries and expressed my views.�

The Howard defence!! But he did know, it seems, two months before, and did nothing. Why not??? And if he did know, what can we make of this comment in the same interview?

�Well it’s a bad story, it’s a bad story in that it doesn’t reflect the values that we are seeking to apply in Iraq and secondly it’s a bad story in that it’s certainly counter productive to winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.�

So, Howard says he should have been told. Hill didn�t tell him. Yet Hill will now brief the Senate on what happened and when. It�s all so old hat, isn�t it? Just before the election Peter Reith was told in no uncertain terms by the acting defence force chief Angus Houston that NO CHILDREN WERE THROWN OVERBOARD. Reith SAYS he didn�t tell the PM, allowing him to continue the falsehood until election day. Then, Reith�s successor Robert Hill masterminds the cover up at the unthrown children inquiry, banning a department officer who handled the photos which Reith falsely used to prove the lie from giving evidence. And Cabinet bans Reith�s staffers from giving evidence. And Reith refuses to give evidence. And all of his staff are rewarded with plum posts, as is Reith. The rot set in then, and the defence force�s integrity has been rotting away ever since.

If Howard is telling the truth that he should have been told, then he should sack Hill if he knew and wouldn�t tell him.

Let�s assume � as we have a right to do since Hill won�t say � that Hill knew in February. Why didn�t Hill tell the PM, if we believe the PM that he wasn�t told? The usual protect-the-prime-minister�s arse reason? I hope so. Because the other two explanations don�t bear thinking about.

The first is that he – or, if he didn’t know, senior officers in the military and the defence department – didn�t think the matter was important. That is simply impossible to believe. Howard himself had admitted that the scandal has refelected badly on Australia, as a member of the Coalition.

The second is that the defence force, the defence department, and perhaps Hill, were involved in a systematic cover up to try to protect the Americans. Remember, after the photos, Bush and co madly insisted that a few reservists had got out of control and that was it. It took a few days before Seymour Hersh blew that out of the water by publishing the scathing report of General Tagula, and ever since the rotten apples lie been buried with more and more evidence that America deliberately avoided its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. So read O’Kane role attracts US legal teamsin today�s Sydney Morning Herald and have a think about it:

US defence lawyers for some of the prison guards at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq facing court-martial will attempt to obtain documents written by the Australian military lawyer Major George O’Kane about abuse complaints by the International Committee of the Red Cross while he was working in coalition headquarters in Baghdad.

“We’re very interested in this Australian officer,” said Gary Myers, the lawyer representing Sergeant Ivan Frederick, a military police officer.

“We have already asked for the relevant documents in a discovery request,” he said. Major O’Kane’s numerous reports to his Australian commanders about his dealings with the ICRC between November and January is one of the few clear paper trails that has emerged in the Abu Ghraib scandal despite weeks of hearings by the armed services committee of the US Senate.

Major O’Kane worked in the legal office attached to the head of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, when the Red Cross made detailed complaints about abuses at Abu Ghraib and another Iraq detention centre, Camp Cropper.

Those complaints were given to the legal office, headed by a US colonel, Marc Warren, over two months before photographs of torture at the jail were uncovered and handed over to US army investigators.

Most of the US military police who have been charged over the abuse depicted in the photographs say they were instructed by military intelligence officers to “loosen up” detainees for interrogation and were encouraged in their behaviour.

Evidence to Senate hearings in Canberra this week confirmed that two working papers from the Red Cross spelling out its concerns about Abu Ghraib and Camp Cropper were given to Major O’Kane in November.

As a result, Major O’Kane visited Abu Ghraib on December 4 to discuss the allegations with US military police and military intelligence officers.

Until the Senate hearings, Major O’Kane’s activities had not surfaced anywhere in the US media or during lengthy evidence given to the US Senate Armed Services Committee, which has been investigating the scandal.

On May 19 General Sanchez told the committee he was unaware until February that the Red Cross working papers had been sent to his headquarters in November. He said the papers were sent to his staff legal officer, Colonel Warren, but he did not recall seeing them. Colonel Warren said the Red Cross reports were handled by his legal staff but came into the office “in a haphazard manner”.

However, Senate committee evidence from Australian military officers in Canberra this week suggests that Major O’Kane handled the Red Cross complaints more systematically…�

Any chance, you reckon, that the lot of them covered up everything about Australia�s deep involvement in investigating the abuses and replying to the Red Cross to help the American defence force cover-up?

GENERAL COSGROVE AND RIC SMITH

There is nothing on record to indicate Hill did anything to get the facts from February. He did so in April after the release of the photos. And the result, after weeks of �investigation�? A series of bare faced lies, or an utterly incompetent investigation by Cosgrove and Smith which should result in their instant dismissal. As late as Sunday, Howard claimed Australia couldn’t acess last year’s Red Cross report, when Defence already had it! For proof, read Tom Allard�s backgrounder atSearch that failed to find the answers.

These men should have demanded a sweep of all available documents. They should have taken personal charge of the investigation. They should have interviewed relevant officers. What did Cosgrove do? Remove a picture of Major O�Kane visiting Abu Ghraib, for one thing. It tells the story, doesn�t it. Wipe out evidence of the Australian connection.

Remember, this cover-up unravelled only after the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that O�Kane was involved in investigating abuses at the prison, and helped draft the response to the Red Cross last year. So cover-up 2 � last year�s Red Cross report didn�t detail the abuses. Then the Herald proved that was false. And still, Cosgrove and Smith refused to lay out the truth, for nearly TWO DAYS of questioning in Senate Estimates until they had no choice.

I reckon it was a cover up from minute one. God knows what pressure O�Kane was put under to gild the lily and cop the blame. But Robert Hill is making damn sure we don�t get to hear from O�Kane. He is banned from giving evidence.

We do know that he helped prepare a response to the Red Cross last year which denied any breaches of the Geneva Conventions and even suggested it might not apply, in defiance of public pledges by America and Australia that they did apply. The response was legal rubbish, just as the government�s �legal advice� from low level compliant public servants that invading Iraq was legal was rubbish. Funny, isn�t it, that O�Kane is being scapegoated now. Small fry, just like the little people who the Pentagon is trying so hard to scapegoat for the Abu Ghraib atrocities.

Let�s be frank. The government has never taken responsibility for its decision to invade Iraq. Pay the insurance premium to the Yanks, but cut and run quick before the hard work begins and ensure Australian hands LOOK clean when bad things happen. Support whatever the Yanks say publicly and don�t raise a word of protest behind the scenes. Of course we are complicit in the American�s cover-up of the abuses and their extent before April. Of course we are.

We�ve lost our pride, Australia. And we�ve lost our moral authority. Howard wants to APPEAR faithful to our beliefs and our ideals while tossing them in the toilet. And his courtiers � Cosgrove, Smith, Hill and the rest of them, will do whatever it takes to preserve the illusion.

***

POSTSCRIPT

Webdiarist Mark Sergeant dug up this vignette of how we want to avoid all responsibility in Iraq.

In Senate Estimates yesterday, Cosgrove explained the surprising fact that our SAS boys hadn�t taken one Iraqi prisoner, despite their frontline role even before the war was officially declared.

You know why? Because when our blokes took someone into custody, we organised it so an American pretended to do so. If we�d taken someone in, we�d be responsible to ensure they were treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. This way, we washed our hands of them.

Here�s an extract from Hansard, pages 114 and 115:

Senator CHRIS EVANS: So there is a captain or a major leading the SAS contingent�20 or so of them and one American NCO is with them. But you tell me that the legal device you have agreed with the Americans has that one American NCO legally capturing those Iraqis, and that the SAS soldiers commanded by an Australian officer have no responsibility in that regard…

Gen. Cosgrove: Exactly, and we did it knowing that, in certain circumstances, there would be a larger number of Australians and a relatively small number of US or UK personnel present. Had there not been US, UK, et cetera personnel present, and had there been a need to detain the people in question, then the agreement that Senator Brown refers to [that the detaining power is responsible] would have been activated.

Senator CHRIS EVANS: And your evidence is that, on all occasions when Australians led contingents that captured Iraqis, there was at that time an American or UK person with them who took responsibility immediately for those prisoners?

Gen. Cosgrove: That is correct – I think, in each case, US servicemen.

Senator BROWN: How was that agreement arrived at?

Gen. Cosgrove: By practice to ensure that countries like Australia, which, by their very organisation, were not set up for the holding or processing of detainees, would not have a chain of custody when we had to send them into another person�s system…

Senator BROWN: But even where Australians alone capture somebody in Iraq, isn�t it true that, under this arrangement, they hand them across to the UK or the US and abrogate responsibility as the –

Gen. Cosgrove: – No, they carry the responsibility. If you read the instruction, they are supposed to monitor the further treatment, processing, care et cetera of the detainee.

Senator BROWN On what occasions has that provision come into play?

Gen. Cosgrove: It did not come in at all… under the arrangements that we had entered into, and by the circumstances of the event, there were US personnel available and present to become the detaining power.

Senator CHRIS EVANS: Is that based on legal advice?

Gen. Cosgrove: Yes.