G’day. I feel that knowing the detail of prisoner of war law is the key to emerging evidence that Australia has connived in the abandonment of the Geneva Conventions. The government seems to have attempted to contract out of its solemn responsibilities under the Conventions by not knowing, or pretending not to know, what the Americans have been doing in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. It’s like children overboard – just about every public servant in Canberra knew long before election day 2001 that no kids had been thrown overboard, but somehow, some way, a corrupt pact between senior public servants and the government allowed the latter to argue that it had never been told. Rewards followed for the public service and government staff conspirators.

Today I publish the official document setting out the agreement between the invaders – The U.S., the U.K. and Australia on the Geneva Conventions in Iraq. We learned in Senate Estimates this week that an unwritten side deal was made between Australia and America that when our soldiers detained an Iraqi, we would hand him over to any American we could find and pretend the American had detained him, thus artificially avoiding our obligations as the “detaining power” to ensure that the “transferring power” not torture our prisoners of war (see the postscript to Did our government lie to us to protect America?) This was taken, it seems, to ludicrous lengths. For example, Australians on HMAS Kanimbla detained and transported Iraqi prisoners, but Cosgrove argued in Senate Estimates that somehow, some way, the prisoners were actually detained by “US coastguard personnel”.

We have also sought to avoid our responsibilities by claiming that Australia is not an “occupying power”, which imposes obligations to protest at abuses which come our to our attention and, if necessary, request the return of prisoners we’ve detained to our custody. See Our ‘special responsibility’ betrayed at Abu Ghraib for the legal opinion of one of Australia’s leading international lawyers, Professor Don Rothwell, that Australia IS an occupying power. Most international lawyers agree, and it will come as no surprise that the government has not released its legal advice to the contrary.

In my view, one reason for the cover-up of Australia’s knowledge is the desire to avoid the appearance of having abandoned the Geneva Conventions, when Australian military lawyers were intimately involved in preparing untenable legal assertions that torture at Abu Ghraib did not breach the Conventions. Australian officers also played the central role in dealing with the Red Cross during its visits to Abu Ghraib.

Rothwell is one of many international lawyers incredulous that military lawyers would not have immediately reported as a matter of utmost urgency to Canberra the details of multiple serious breaches of the Geneva Conventions detailed by the October Red Cross report. Remember, that report preceded more shocking abuses in November photographed for the world by some of the perpetrators. And remember that the Americans only got stuck into at least appearing to clean up their torture palace in January, after a brave American soldier slipped some torture pornography under a senior officer’s door. Could we have made a difference? Maybe not, but it had to be worth a bloody good try.

The Australian military knows very well that the safety of Australian prisoners of war could depend on our record – indeed, that our compliance with the Geneva Conventions is the only real power we have to reduce the risk of torture of our people.

Was there an instruction to close eyes? Or did the entire public service know, after Howard’s refusal to protest in any way about the illegal detention of Hicks and Habib in Guantanamo Bay that they’d be hung, drawn and quartered if they dared tell Defence Minister Hill, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer or Attorney-General Amanda Vanstone about it? It is so convenient that Howard now says he SHOULD have been told and that OF COURSE he’d have protested if he had. Far too convenient.

Because of what is claimed to be the failure of these minister’s departments to draw the pending debacle at Abu Ghraib to political attention, Robert Hill can smugly give evidence in Senate Estimates suggesting that Australia complies not only with its legal obligations, but its ‘moral’ – remember that word? – responsibility to ensure to the best of its ability that the Geneva Conventions are complied with by our partners in war.

He acknowledged that the abuses reported by the Red Cross in October last year were serious, and continued:

“Our interest is really the interest of a party that believes in the Geneva Convention and humanitarian treatment of individuals, not only according to the law but in the spirit of those documents. We talk at a political level…to other parties who have authority or influence in these issues.”

So we’re assured that if they’d been told, Hill and Howard would have queried the senior American military and occupation officers they met in Iraq this year before the scandal broke. Believe that, and you believe pigs fly. The fact that there are no casualties in the public service or the government after this debacle is testament to Howard and co’s real feelings on the subject.

The interest of this government is always about appearance, not reality. Let’s hope no Australian ends up paying an awful price for that policy.

AN ARRANGEMENT FOR THE TRANSFER OF PRISONERS OF WAR, CIVILIAN INTERNEES, AND CIVILIAN DETAINEES BETWEEN THE FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, AND AUSTRALIA.

This arrangement establishes procedures in the event of the transfer from the custody of either the US, UK, or Australian forces to the custody of any of the other parties, any Prisoners of War, Civilian Internees, and Civilian Detainees taken during operations against Iraq. The Parties undertake as follows:

1. This arrangement will be implemented in accordance with the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War and the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, as well as customary international law.

2. US, UK, and Australian forces will, as mutually determined, accept (as Accepting Powers) prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees who have fallen into the power of any of the other parties (the Detaining Power), and will be responsible for maintaining and safeguarding all such individuals whose custody has been transferred to them. Transfers of prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees between Accepting Powers may take place as mutually determined by both the Accepting Power and the Detaining Power.

3. Arrangements to transfer prisoners of war, civilian internees. and civilian detainees who are casualties will be expedited, in order that they may be treated according to their medical priority. All such transfers will be administered and recorded within the systems established under this arrangement for the transfer of prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees.

4. Any prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees transferred by a Detaining Power will be returned by the Accepting Power to the Detaining Power without delay upon request by the Detaining Power.

5. The release or repatriation or removal to territories outside Iraq of transferred prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees will only be made upon the mutual arrangement of the Detaining Power and the Accepting Power.

6. The Detaining Power will retain full rights of access to any prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees transferred from Detaining Power custody while such persons are in the custody of the Accepting Power.

7. The Accepting Power will be responsible for the accurate accountability of all prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees transferred to it. Such records will be available for inspection by the Detaining Power upon request. If prisoners of war, civilian internees. or civilian detainees are returned to the Detaining Power, the records (or a true copy of the same) relating to those prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees will also be handed over.

8. The Detaining Powers will assign liaison officers to Accepting Powers order to facilitate the implementation of this arrangement.

9. The Detaining Power will be solely responsible for the classification under Articles 4 and 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of potential prisoners of war captured by its forces. Prior to such a determination being made, such detainees will be treated as prisoners of war and afforded all the rights and protections of the Convention even if transferred to the custody of an Accepting Power.

10. Where there is doubt as to which party is the Detaining Power, all Parties will be jointly responsible for and have full access to all persons detained (and any records concerning their treatment) until the Detaining Power has by mutual arrangement been determined.

11. To the extent that jurisdiction may be exercised for criminal offenses, to include pre-capture offenses, allegedly committed by prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees prior to a transfer to an Accepting Power, primary jurisdiction will initially rest with the Detaining Power. Detaining Powers will give favorable consideration to any request by an Accepting Power to waive jurisdiction.

12. Primary jurisdiction over breaches of disciplinary regulations and judicial offenses allegedly committed by prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees after transfer to an Accepting Power will rest with the Accepting Power.

13. The Detaining Power will reimburse the Accepting Power for the costs involved in maintaining prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees transferred pursuant to this arrangement.

14. At the request of one of the Parties, the Parties will consult on the implementation of this arrangement.

Done at Camp As Sayliyah, Doha, Qatar on this 23rd day of March 2003.

For the United States of America: John P. Abizaud, LTG, USA, United States Central Command

For the United Kingdom of Great Britain And Northern Ireland: B.K. Burridge, Air Marshall, United Kingdom National Contingent Commander

For and on behalf of Australia: M. R. McNarn, Brigadier, Commander Australian National Headquarters

The plot thickens. The chief of the defence force General Cosgrove has been caught misleading the people yet again. He told Senate Estimates this week that Australia had an agreement with the Americans that they would detain POWs in Iraq on our behalf so we could avoid our responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions to ensure they were not tortured. Today, �Defence Minister� Robert Hill � the bloke so desperate to avoid the truth coming out about our increasingly obvious complicity in American war crimes at Abu Ghraib that he banned the key witness, Major O�Kane, from telling his story – admitted there was no such agreement.

 

There was an agreement for Afghanistan, a vastly different war – which the ADF now can�t find, Hill says – but nothing for Iraq. That means there is no legal basis for us to palm off our responsibilities. That means, perhaps, that the agreement made for Iraq on March 23, 2003requiring detaining powers to meet their Geneva Convention obligations stands. And that would mean that we did have a duty to protect the 59 Iraqis even Hill admits Australians captured from American torture, and that we did have a duty to do what we could to stop the blatant American breaches of the Geneva Conventions once they came to our attention last November. (Although we do anyway according to most international lawyers – see Our ‘special responsibility’ betrayed at Abu Ghraib.)

Bloody hell!! Sometimes, just sometimes, politicians who want the people to believe the opposite of the truth get trapped by their own spin. Let�s hope it�s not too late for our proud and honourable military tradition to be saved. Come on, whistleblowers, now�s your best chance to clean out the yes men from defence ‘leadership’ and expose the political monsters who�ve misused and humiliated the force ever since �Tampa� and children overboard and relentlessly co-opted it to bolster their political fortunes.

For those of you who remember your ‘unthrown children’ history, the progress of this scandal is deja vu. Last time, Howard ordered an inquiry by his own department, which, of course, produced a cover-up of the cover-up. So the Senate called an inquiry, which found out lots, but couldn’t nail the real culprits – Reith and co – because the government banned staffers and key public service witnesses from giving evidence. We’re at the second stage now – the farce of a Defence force and department ‘Fact Finding’ inquiry into themselves. Why not an independent inquiry to get the bloody truth! Because truth hurts a government which ditched truth as a concept a long time ago. Revolting.

Tonight, long time Webdiarist Peter Funnell in Canberra, an ex soldier whose Dad was a POW in World War 11, lets fly.

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Peter Funnell

Look mate, I have written this while I am white hot. It may not be worth much, but I reckon I know what these buggers have been up to. Whenever I think it can’t get any worse with the Howard Government, they top their last effort. Where is all this taking our nation? You know, sometimes things get so bloody broken they don’t go back together. How much more of this crap is there to find.

I am not a lawyer, but I was soldier for a long time. My father was a POW of the Japanese and I met plenty of his POW mates over many years. I can’t imagine any of them supporting what has gone on in Iraq jails while we helped hold the keys to the doors. This is how I see it.

It begins with illegal arrangements at Guantanamo Bay, arrangements that are so unfathomable that the US courts have great difficulty working out the status of those inside and whether they have rights in the US legal process. The US does not call them prisoners of war, they are detainees. The “detainees” were out of sight if not out of mind and the practices that would follow in Iraq were established there, then exported as acceptable operational practice to operations in Iraq.

As participants in the Afghanistan war, we were a party to all of this process. Two of our citizens are detainees. The Australian Government has made no effort to challenge this grotesque distortion of the accepted intentions conventions for the handling of those enemy combatants captured during operations. Our Government has now most reluctantly acknowledged the plight of our citizens, concealing their real intentions behind the proposition that there is nothing they can do. They care to do nothing.

It is against this background that the framework for operations where POWs were concerned in Iraq was established. Bad, wrong and illegal was about to get worse.

The real operational problem for the Australian military is that some elements of the forces deployed in Iraq would be very likely to capture Iraqis in battle. It could happen tonight if the small protection element gets into a fire fight with militia or others who may try to attack the personnel they are there to protect. They will go straight to the US yet you can bet there will not be a US soldier in sight at the time of capture. The whole business is too cute by half. But I get ahead of myself.

Australian military commanders obviously did not want to have full responsibility for POWs. That is to say, they did not want to run POW holding camps, so they made arrangements to had them over to the US who were going to establish these facilities. All correct so far – someone had to do it. (Margo: It now seems they didn’t – why not?! Did they agree on something they didn’t want to put in writing?) As expert contributors to Webdiary clearly point out, Australia still had continuing obligations to those they captured and handed over. It is inconceivable to me that these obligations were not known to Australian military commanders and planners. The Minister’s hazy recollection of an arrangement indicates it was planned for and covered in briefings.

I would suggest that the Army legal corps officers in place with the coalition headquarters knew exactly what was required in these matters. The conventions with regard to handling of and obligations to POWs are not hard to read and comprehend. The handling arrangements for POWs is a standard component of battlefield orders down to the smallest infantry unit – the rifle section. It is that basic!

But things had changed. The operational framework for POWs and their subsequent handling and interrogation was now well established. That is not to say that any one individual would support the foul goings on in the Iraqi prisons, but it does mean that everyone had become accepting of the US led approach to the abandonment of those parts of the international conventions for the handling of POWs that no longer suited. This was a juggernaut in motion.

When I first heard that an Australian army officer from the legal corps had been to the prison and made comment up his chain of command and that the information had not got to Minister or government I thought � that poor bastard, he’ll be hung out to dry. He’s conveniently expendable.

This is a fit up! When Cosgrove did his usual arm-in-arm with the Minister and PM and damned the officer with faint praise by referring to him as a junior officer (not correct by any means), I just knew the fix was in. The mystery to me was why the defence department Secretary and the Chief of the Defence Force were prepared to let defence and the ADF take such a fierce hit, to be made to look so deceitful, unprofessional and untruthful. Why?

The idea that some misguided military officer stuck the crucial October Red Cross report delivered by O’Kane after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in the bottom draw of a filing cabinet and no one was the wiser is not believable.

Revelations about the army officers concerned did in Iraq plumbs darker possibilities. The fact that more than one officer visited Abu Ghraib many times can only be interpreted two ways. They were alarmed by what they saw and kept going back to verify the situation, or they understood the operational environment and were part of the wider process by which it all happened. It seems these officers were involved in preparing responses to the Red Cross, they were on the inside of this business.

It’s astonishing, for it clearly implies that this really was something to which we were a willing party.

This is where the credibility gap widens enormously. The likelihood that this aspect of the war in Iraq was confined to a few (like who by the way?) is just so much crap. It’s not the way the Army or the ADF works. People have to tell and do and they tell others that need to know.

If the CDF really didn’t know, he should leave the Service tomorrow. If the Secretary didn’t know, he should find other employment. If they knew and concealed it they have no excuse. If they knew and concealed it because they mistakenly thought they were acting in the nations or the ADF’s best interests, they were wrong and have no right to hold the offices they presently occupy.

The truth is probably as simple as it is dangerous for our democracy. It’s not unreasonable to conclude the worst. There has been too much spin, and it�s been too hard to get information out of these the flow accordingly, or that the same senior leadership is grossly incompetent. The lone incompetent is not a runner!

Nothing excuses the PM, his Minister for Defence and his Minister for Foreign Affairs. Nothing. But their fate can be settled at the next election, as it should be.

The Nuremberg defence is ever present. Our PM relies on his version of it – he was never told, so he is not to blame. It’s no excuse. It’s a rotten betrayal of everything that is good about our nation, but it does illustrate just how far down the slippery slope we have come in the Howard years. You see versions of this �going along to get along� in every Federal department.

Every time I hear the Minister(s) or the PM talk of this rotten business, they are so quick to say none of our troops were involved in the mistreatment of the POWs. That is probably true, but it was never the question. It makes me ill to hear the pathetic cowering and whining.

You see, we are responsible; because we callously or stupidly dismissed our obligations to those people we captured in battle, disarmed and had imprisoned. We are responsible! It is shameful.

The only good to come out of it all is that our Parliamentary system of accountability did work, because a few good Senators got stuck in and demanded answers. There is hope yet.

G’day. The latest Iraq scandal to engulf the government is bloody difficult to get your head around so I thought I’d set out my preliminary understanding and seek your input. Calling all legal experts on the Geneva Conventions and what our obligations are under them!!! For a great Aussie timeline, see southerlybuster. We need to blend a timeline of events in America with those in Australia too. Then, the transcript of Howard’s press conference yesterday, where, for once, the press gallery wiped the floor with a bloke who is very close to being exposed, finally, as a Prime Minister without shame leading a bureaucratic hierarchy without honour. For my first take on the scandal, see Did our government lie to us to protect America?

To begin, the fact is that The Sydney Morning Herald’s Tom Allard’s breaking story on Thursday inArmy knew months ago has proved accurate in almost every detail, including Australia’s involvement in drafting interrogation technique protocols in Abu Ghraib, investigating abuses and drafting replies to the Red Cross. Layer upon layer of denials of his story by Howard, Hill, Cosgrove and Smith have been stripped away in the days since, partly because the Herald later revealed the official reply to the Red Cross last year, the draft of which the government also had in its possession. You’d think Tom would have got such a detailed, accurate story from someone in government who knew what he or she was talking about, which would mean Australia has its Abu Ghraib whistleblower, like the junior US soldier who blew the whistle at Abu Ghraib and the person who leaked General Taguba’s devastating report to Seymour Hersh. So you’d assume that whoever leaked the truth to Allard knew there was disgusting stuff happening in government to cover it up. Could the Herald know and the government, the defence force and the defence department not know? We’re supposed to buy this?

1. The Red Cross – the authority authorised by the United Nations to act as custodian of the Geneva Conventions against torture of prisoners of war – reported to Baghdad military HQ in October last year that serious breaches of 12 articles of the Conventions were taking place, detailing men being forced to walk the corridors naked wearing women’s underwear on the their heads and being handcuffed to cell doors. Robert Hill now admits this. Yet on the day of Tom’s story, Howard denied it in Parliament, saying the October report referred only ‘food clothing and communication opportunities’ and that Australian officers in Baghdad military HQ knew nothing of serious breaches until January.

2. Several Australian military officers were involved in preparing a response to the October report. Australia’s Major George O’Kane and an unnamed Colonel visited Abu Ghraib several times after the report was received in 2003 to investigate the allegations. In fact, Australian military legal officers acted as the liaison between the Red Cross and the Coalition of the Willing on its report, and O’Kane drafted the response to its October report, which denied that the Geneva Conventions were completely applicable to prisoners in Iraq and insisted that the Red Cross cease making unannounced inspections. And the worst of the torture, from what we know so far, occurred in November, 2003, AFTER Australia knew breaches of the Geneva Conventions were rife at Abu Ghraib.

3. Australia, as a signatory of the Geneva Conventions, is legally and morally bound to abide by them. An agreement between the invading powers – The US, The UK and Australia – confirmed that the Geneva Conventions would apply to prisoners of war in Iraq. Question: Once Australia was aware of breaches, were its legal obligations triggered? If so, is that why the government pulled out all stops to deny knowledge of the breaches before the photos were published in April? And if so, WHY did O’Kane and his superiors in Baghdad not send a red light warning to Australian immediately? Or did they?

4. To me, the crucial piece of evidence indicating that we’re not talking about mere stuff up here is that after weeks of a purported investigation after the torture photos were publicly released, ADF chief Cosgrove and defence department chief Smith certified in a joint statement last Friday that “No Defence personnel were aware of the allegations of abuse or serious mistreatment before … January” and that “it is understood from Major O’Kane that the October report raised general concerns,” NOT abuses (in retrospect, the “it is understood” weasel words give the game away). Therefore, Australia did NOT have a copy of the October Red Cross report, which DID document serious abuses detailed serial abuses of the Geneva Conventions.

Yet Defence Department chief Ric Smith testified yesterday that he was told that same Friday night of “two working papers” prepared by the ICRC (the International Red Cross) which had been in the hands of a senior ADF officer since early May since their delivery to him by O’Kane himself. In these circumstances, ALL department secretaries and ALL defence chiefs, unless there are hidden agendas yet to be revealed – would IMMEDIATELY inform the Prime Minister through the Defence Minister that he may have misled Parliament. Failure to do so would normally result in instant dismissal, for good cause. TWO DAYS LATER, John Howard repeated the false story onSunday Sunrise, repeatedly, falsely, denying that Defence had the October report. He said the Red Cross had refused a government request for a copy, and so Howard’s ambassadors would now ask the USA and the UK for a copy. He was super, super meticulous in saying, over and over, that he was relying on the Smith/Cosgrove advice. For example, “I haven’t seen the report and I’m told once again – and I’m relying on what the Defence Department tells me – that they don’t have a copy of it either.” In retrospect, classic weasel words used routinely by politicians covering themselves.

Placing a Prime Minister in such a humiliating position would, in normal circumstances, be a clear dereliction of duty by Smith and Cosgrove unless, as I say, there were undercurrents which have not yet come to light. If John Howard is telling the truth – that he knew nothing of war crimes in Abu Ghraib until he saw the photos along with the rest of us and that he learned only late Sunday that he’d been misinformed about the knowledge of the government – he’d have dealt with the unacceptable behaviour of Smith and Cosgrove, whether by design or ludicrous incompetence, by sacking them if they failed to resign.

But no. At his press conference yesterday he said: “If you’re asking me whether I have confidence in them, yes of course I do. I have great confidence in the three of them.” (Hill, Cosgrove and Smith).

It gets worse. Smith now claims more than 10 officers worked all weekend to work out the exact status of the “working documents” (And yes, they did include the damning October Red Cross report). Why the hell didn’t they just ask O’Kane???

Smith claims they’d finally worked it out by Sunday, so he and Cosgrove would, of course, immediately issue a correction. NO. They waited until lunchtime Tuesday, after more than a day of exhaustive questioning by Senate Estimates kept dragging truth out of obfuscation and misleading evidence and forced revelations of the involvement of yet more Australian officers in the Red Cross visits to Abu Ghraib and their aftermath last year, to do so. Sorry guys, it won’t wash.

This saga stinks to high heaven. I’d bet my bottom dollar that there’s much more to this than meets the eye. I’d really appreciate stuff from lawyers who know about the Geneva Conventions to tell Webdiary what THEY think is going on.

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THE PRIME MINISTER THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP, PRESS CONFERENCE, PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA, MONDAY, MAY 31, ON THE EVE OF HIS TRIP TO SEE HIS MATE GEORGE BUSH

JOURNALIST: Mr Howard, will you apologise to the Parliament and the Australian public for misleading them over Australian knowledge of the extent of serious abuses of prisoners in Iraq?

PRIME MINISTER: I did not mislead the public or the Australian public or the Australian Parliament. The advice that I gave the Parliament and the public was based on the advice I’d received from the defence department.

JOURNALIST: The Defence Department now concedes that advice was wrong.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s what I will be indicating, as I have already, that everything I’ve said was based on the advice of the Defence Department. I did not set out to mislead anybody. It is impossible in a situation in which I am placed for me to have direct personal knowledge. I wasn’t in Baghdad. I have to rely on the advice of the department. I regret very much that I was given the wrong advice, I regret that very much.

JOURNALIST: Mr Howard, why didn’t you insist on being better briefed, especially when the man involved who had all the knowledge was just down the road? (Major O’Kane.)

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’m sorry, Michelle, it is simply not possible for somebody in my position to talk to every single person in a department. Its just that is an unreasonable proposition. It is not unreasonable for a prime minister to rely on a written brief from a department in relation to a matter, I do it every day. And if in future I have to personally sit down and talk to each person in a department who provides that written brief and to interrogate the people in that department my job becomes quite impossible.

JOURNALIST: – at least one minister have known before April?

PRIME MINISTER: Not according to the advice that I have, no.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what do you think about the quality of that advice? I mean, what does it say about the competency of defence, given they had these reports with a senior defence official on May 11 and what does it say about the motives of defence that they didn’t bring it to the attention of the Government until Sunday as I understand?

PRIME MINISTER: Let me say this I am very unhappy that I was misinformed by the Defence Department, so is the Defence Minister. I have, as you know, an extremely high regard for the men and women in the Australian Defence Force. We’re dealing here with what was clearly an inadequate briefing, not only of me, but bear in mind that the Chief of the Defence Force and the Secretary of the Defence Department themselves were equally poorly served by the advice they received from the Department.

JOURNALIST: Are you confident that it won’t happen again?

PRIME MINISTER: Jim, I can’t give a guarantee that a department in the future wont give inaccurate advice to a Minister. I can’t, I can’t.

JOURNALIST: What are you doing to ensure that it doesn’t happen again?

PRIME MINISTER: Well the Minister will be, at my request, making a detailed statement to the Senate when it meets again about the chain of events, the knowledge of and involvement in and communication with the ICRC (Red Cross) , the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority), communications back to Australia and the timelines involved in all of that. I have asked the Defence Minister to make that detailed statement to the Senate. But I’m plainly unhappy because the information I gave, I believed to be correct, and it was based on a brief I had from the Defence Department. And this proposition that I have to sit down with individuals who originate that advice, particularly when I have to preposition any advice I give with the comment that this has come from the department, I mean no Prime Minister has the capacity, given the other demands on his time, to do that.

JOURNALIST: If you had known then, would you have expressed your concerns…

PRIME MINISTER: Had I known what?

JOURNALIST: If you had known about this earlier, would you have expressed your concerns at the time to the Americans?

PRIME MINISTER: Well if I had known, if I had known what back in October? Well I didn’t know about it until April. That remains…

JOURNALIST: (inaudible)

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

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) didn’t go up the chain and back to Canberra in October when it was first clear that there were serious problems and allegations being raised about the conduct of the coalition in Iraq…

PRIME MINISTER: Well the response…

JOURNALIST: …so we could have done the right thing?

PRIME MINISTER: Well ok, well one question – can we have questions and not speeches? The response that has been given to that question, and it has been asked, is that it wasn’t passed up the chain because it didn’t involve Australians. It was believed that the issue was being responded to and dealt with by the Americans, particularly in relation to the January report. And as I understand it, and I choose my words carefully, as I understand it, the working papers that were referred to in the Senate in October, which clearly contained references to unacceptable behaviour and unacceptable treatment of prisoners, that they fed into the February report. The February report, as I am told, has been commented upon in the Senate by Senator Hill and General Cosgrove and Mr Smith. The February report, when presented to the relevant people, caused a great deal of concern, and that the response of the British and the Americans was satisfactory to the Red Cross, and that is another reason why it is claimed, it is said, that the material was not passed up the line.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, will you apologise to the Sydney Morning Herald after you said that we conflated reports and were involved in a despicable slur?

PRIME MINISTER: Well I withdraw the claim that you deliberately conflated the report, if you feel I made that claim. I do not withdraw what I regarded as the more serious allegation or implication in the story, when you said that a claim by Senator Hill that quote, as best I can remember, there was no association of Australians with the abuses, I think that is a paraphrase of it, that that might appear to be misleading.

JOURNALIST: But the association I was referring to was the deep involvement of…

PRIME MINISTER: Well can I say if you say that somebody is associated with an abuse, it means that they are in some way an active participant in it. The idea that because you’re investigating something, youre associated with it, is the equivalent of saying that a police officer investigating a robbery is in some way associated with it. That was the bit…

JOURNALIST: But the report also clearly says that he did not witness, endorse or participate.

PRIME MINISTER: Yes, but you use the expression associated and I think that… I thought then that was unfair, I still think it’s unfair, and I think its very important that I stick up for the reputation of the Australian Defence Force, because however what is being written and reported may be explained, the danger is that some will imply a guilt by association, and to my knowledge no men or women in the Australian Defence Force have been in any way involved in abuse or have in any way condoned that abuse, and that is why I feel quite strongly about this.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what’s the point of having Australian military officers attached to the coalition command in Iraq if they don’t keep their own Government and their own department and their own hierarchy informed, abreast of developments?

PRIME MINISTER: Jim, that generally is a fair observation and its one of the things that in the aftermath of this, that I will be expecting a response to.

JOURNALIST: Do you think its a bit peculiar, Mr Howard, that a couple of Labor Senators can get all this information out in a day and a half, and the Prime Minister couldn’t get it, being charitable, in the last two weeks?

PRIME MINISTER: Yes, but Michelle, in the last two weeks there have been a lot of other things that I have been dealing with, and the truth of the matter is this that there has been never any allegation of Australian involvement, never. There is no suggestion of Australian involvement. The allegations are against the Americans. Theyre not against Australians. I mean you… many of the questions are asked as if the inquiry is whether or not Australians were involved. Were talking here about knowledge of allegations in the context of those allegations being responded to by the people against whom the allegations were made, and I think the context of that, with respect, is being missed by some people, yourself included.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, is the O’Kane affair another example of the bureaucracy telling the Government what it wants to hear to suit its political ends?

PRIME MINISTER: That is an absurd proposition Tom. I mean there is no reason why I wouldn’t want to know the full story on this, no reason at all, absolutely no reason at all. I first became conscious of these allegations about behaviour by the Americans and to some extent the British, although just exactly what happened in relation to the British appears unclear, after I came back from Baghdad. I mean to give you an illustration of my state of mind, nobody mentioned this to me when I was in Baghdad. 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. The journalists who were travelling with me didn’t pick it up. I mean if it was all around and it was the subject of a lot of conversation, and if there were widespread concern about it, why wasn’t it mentioned to me? (MARGO: Because there was a cover up!!!)

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) failure of Defence to appropriately brief you, what do you Prime Minister then…

PRIME MINISTER: Look I don’t know the answer to that.

JOURNALIST: And for their failure to…

PRIME MINISTER: Mark, I don’t know. I am unhappy. I mean I don’t enjoy being misinformed. I am very unhappy with it.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you satisfied…

PRIME MINISTER: But I am, you know, I am equally… I can’t in this, you know, early winter morning or afternoon just sort of declare precisely why it happened. Of course I’ve asked Senator Hill…

JOURNALIST: You’re obviously telling us how unhappy you are about it. From your preliminary inquiries, what reason…

PRIME MINISTER: It’s too early. They are too preliminary because bear in mind that over the past couple of days the three people principally concerned and to whom I would speak have been tied up in Senate Estimates. I mean, I had the opportunity last evening of having a very brief discussion with Senator Hill, with General Cosgrove and Mr Smith before I went off to have a Monday evening chat with Kerry O’Brien.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you satisfied with the way those three people have handled this?

PRIME MINISTER: If you’re asking me whether I have confidence in them, yes of course I do. I have great confidence in the three of them.

JOURNALIST: …down the line to the junior people who cant speak for themselves?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, Michelle, I’ll find out what happened and before then I’m simply not going to respond to those sorts of questions…

JOURNALIST: General Cosgrove (inaudible)…?

PRIME MINISTER: Look, I’m not going to canvass what General Cosgrove said to me. I have a tremendous regard for General Cosgrove. I think he’s one of the outstanding military figures that this country has had for a number of years and I have very strong regard for the administrative skills of Mr Smith and, of course, Senator Hill is a very close and very senior member of my Cabinet…

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, in view of what we know now about these matters is the Australian public entitled to hear directly from Major O’Kane what he saw and what he thought about what he saw and to whom he reported it?

PRIME MINISTER: I think it’s appropriate that the normal procedure in relation to these things be followed and that is being followed and what Senator Hill has said and done in relation to this is similar to the attitude that has been taken by Ministers on both sides of politics when similar situations have arisen. Thank you.

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.

G’day. The untruths they keep telling us, eh? The defence force, the defence department, the government. Now we’re supposed to believe that the government knew nothing about American war crimes in Iraq jails until April, when the pictures surfaced. This despite our man in Baghdad HQ Major O’Kane and his superiors knowing all about it from November. This despite O’Kane inspecting Abu Grahib several times, advising on the acceptability of intrrogation techniques and even claiming that the torture exposed by the Red Cross wasn’t really torture! No wonder Hill banned him from giving evidence to the Parliament. The truths he might tell!

 

If we believe that a matter so serious was not put before government then we’re forced to believe that bureaucracy and the defence force lost their collective minds or knew that, yet again, this would be something the government would not want to hear. But why mislead Howard and Hill until the deception was exposed by the Herald? Could it be that Australia actually condoned the torture? One thing we know after long months of revelations of the bad faith of Iraq’s invaders is that anything, ANYTHING, is possible. It’s that scary.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Tom Allard deserves a Walkley for his courage and persistence on this story. But what does he get? On the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, compere Barrie Cassidy tossed his story aside with a smirk and a smug president of the Canberra Press Gallery, Malcolm Farr, guffawed that he couldn’t understand what it was all about, except that some journos still followed the Carl Bernstein/Bob Woodward style of journalism – “What did they know and when did they know it”.

How terribly old fashioned of them. Much better to have a chat about the polls and who’s on top and when the election date might be.

How sad most the mainstream media is these days. How bloody sad.

Today Jack Robertson, a Webdiary columnist who argued the case before the war that it was all about oil, introduces us to the Carlyle Group, one the most powerful, best connected outfits in the USA, and how they do business with government. It’s stuff we need to know, because pollies here are fast becoming like their American counterparts – mere salesmen for the money men, the real power in our post-democracies. Check out this week’s Time magazine, for example. American Vice President Dick Cheney personally shepherded through a no tender Iraq contract to Halliburton, which he used to chair. Conflict of interest? Nothing wrong with that in the US military industrial complex. Halliburton is the company that’s overcharged the Pentagon for fuel and lots more besides, and cancelled an Australian company’s contract in Iraq allegedly because it refused to pay bribes to Halliburton. What’s the difference between bad old Saddam and good old America again? Seems like we, the people, have two enemies – the Islamic fascists and the Western fascists.

***

Meet the Carlyles, Australia

by Jack Robertson

“It doesn’t take an Einstein to recognise why Iraq is suddenly so important. A unilateral Saudi cut of even a few million barrels a day now – or the total overthrow of the government by extremist Muslim students and clerics, a revolution of the kind many current Bushies experienced up close in the friendly oil pump of Iran back in 1979 – would be globally, economically catastrophic.”Loony-Left anti-American Conspiracy Rant, Webdiary, 5 March 2003

“Oil Price Quakes as Hostages Killed” Loony-Left anti-American Conspiracy Headline” – Sydney Morning Herald, 31 May 2004.

Saudis, oil, war n’ terror, lawyers, guns and money

Now that the mainstream media has caught up and it’s permissible to chat about the reason for the Iraq invasion – which has always been oil – we loony lefties at Webdiary might get away with talking about groups like The Carlyle Group without being labeled conspiracy theorists or Western self-blamers. Since an Australian was killed in the Saudi Arabian hostage tragedy, probably not, but let’s try anyway.

If you’re so inclined, the story of the Carlyle Group has everything any self-respecting Larouchian could wish for: money, arms, oil, political connections, involuntary taxpayer largesse, bloodied old warmongers, blown-out defence contracts, terrorist dynasties, corrupt Gulf Royalty, cold and blue-blooded Ivy Leaguers, the odd scheming cosmospolitan Jew, etc, etc, etc. But I’ve never claimed that there’s anything conspiratorial about the oily corner we Westerners have bowsered ourselves into over the last sixty-odd years. It’s just the way the big energy and arms businesses have developed in an commercially opportunist era and region.

The long overdue mainstreaming of the role of Saudi Arabian oil in the ‘war on terror’ will get a big boost from Michael Moore’s new film, but it should really begin with every commercial TV channel on the planet running this more measured documentary from the Netherlands, from mid-2003. (The January 2004 version is here.) Since the chance of that happening is roughly zero it’s worth watching online, even if it’s partly in Dutch. You can also check out the Carlyle Group’s website atthecarlylegroup.

All very respectable, isn’t it? ‘Global vision, local insight: Our mission is to be the premier global private equity firm, leveraging the insight of Carlyle’s team of investment professionals to generate extraordinary returns across a range of investment choices, while maintaining our good name and the good name of our investors…’

The defining point is that what Carlyle does is ‘legitimate’. Theirs is not some Enron or Worldcom-style transgression of the West’s ideal of globalisation, but its quintessential mode. To paraphrase Gordon Gecko: Carlyle is Good. Its executives don’t believe they are doing anything wrong. They make big profits for their investors. They break no laws outright. No doubt many Carlyle firms are even doing good things now in Iraq, too. Rebuilding, revitalising, providing employment, training, channeling trickle-down wealth, fostering new links with the West at microeconomic levels. Perhaps.

Because the problem is it didn’t work out quite that way in Saudi Arabia in the long-run. Nope; the Carlylian version of the West’s ‘free market economy’ was in fact what ushered in the new age of terrorism in the first place. And that’s the point – the Carlyle Groupers and their grubby mates might be about to do it all over again in Iraq.

Is Carlyle’s manner of doing business legal? Yes. Is it profitable? Very. But is it fair? No. Is it moral? Absolutely not. (Is it stupid? Yes – see Khobar.) And so what does that say overall about the newly fluid relationship between public policy (taxpayer investment), and free market enterprise (private profit-taking)? Answer: it’s one bloody great insider trading rip-off, and nothing better demonstrates this than the particularly loaded globalisation dice rolled by Carlyle. There’s little mention of George H.W. Bush himself in the Carlyle glossies anymore except to say that he stopped being a consultant in late 2003, but here’s just some of their team and what they do for Carlyle:

James A. Baker III: Former U.S. Secretary of State; Carlyle Senior Counselor. Mr. Baker gives strategic advice on Carlyle business matters and gives speeches at Carlyle events.

Frank C. Carlucci: Former U.S. Secretary of Defense; Chairman Emeritus of Carlyle. Mr. Carlucci provides strategic business advice to Carlyle management and investment professionals.

Richard G. Darman: Former Director of the Office of Management and Budget; Senior Advisor and Managing Director. Mr. Darman advises Carlyle senior management on strategic business matters; works on a range of venture capital and energy investments; and advises Carlyle investment professionals worldwide on venture capital activities.

William E. Kennard: Former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission; Managing Director in the Telecommunications & Media Group. Mr. Kennard works on telecommunications & media acquisitions and advises Carlyle investment professionals worldwide on telecommunications buyout and venture activities.

Arthur Levitt: Former Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; Carlyle Senior Advisor. Mr. Levitt advises Carlyle management on strategic business matters.

John Major: Former U.K. Prime Minister; Chairman of Carlyle Europe. Mr. Major provides strategic leadership and business guidance to Carlyle Europe’s investment operation, including buyout, venture, and real estate activities.

Thomas F. McLarty: Former Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton; Carlyle Senior Advisor. Mr. McLarty advises Carlyle management on strategic business matters.

Charles O. Rossotti: Former Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Carlyle Senior Advisor. Mr. Rossotti advises Carlyle on information technology-related buyout and venture investments.

Luis Tellez: Former Mexico Secretary of Energy; Managing Director and Co-head of Carlyle Mexico Partners. Mr. Tellez conducts investment activities in Mexico.

This barely scratches the surface. European ex-treasurers. Phillipines ex-Presidents. Prime Ministers. Chancellors. Energy Commissioners. Central Bank managers. Political leaders from South Korea, Thailand, the Middle East. All the ex-politician bases are covered by the Carlyle Group. And these bespoke-suited operators have the nerve to wonder why we highly-strung Lefties are up to our eyeballs in conspiracy theories?

What matters is not anyone’s grubby personal stake, but the grim fact that this might be what the future of globalisation looks like for the rest of us. Private wealth, public killing. To put it deliberately in its nastiest anti-American form, does being an ANZUS ally in a neo-conservative, free market age mean that our brave diggers must fight alongside white-trash Americans so that the cell-phone company in which the Carlyle Group has invested is the one that gets to turn Baghdad into Arabic text message central? Or re-build the roads? Or guard the Oil Ministry?

Or defend the Iraqi government against the inevitable attacks by its own angry people – just as Carlyle sub-subsidiary Vinnell has helped the Saudi National Guard defend the repellant corrupt Royals against their own people for years?

But maybe I’m being too conspiratorial. Maybe all these public money defense contracts actually do get awarded strictly on merit. Maybe the Carlyle’s serendipitous investment eggs come before the chickenhawks make their policy moves. But who can tell anymore, and how? The whole point of Eisenhower’s premonition about the convergence of political defence policy and the commercial defence industry was that once the relationship had past a certain symbiotic point-of-no-return, you could never hope to define where legitimate strategic business advice ended, and policy-shaping inside dealing began. It’s no conspiracy, but it’s a hell of an anti-democratic tangle to unpick – if, like me, you’d very much like American voters to try, that is.

Not that they weren’t warned.

What sort of ANZUS do we want to be part of?

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell speech, 17 January 1961 .

The brain of man may devise wonders and the hand of man execute them, but they will all fall into evil and harmful uses unless the heart of man – the guide of conduct – is sound and true. The question we need to put to ourselves most frequently in these days is, ‘What do we believe in?’Robert Menzies in 1942. Menzies signed up to ANZUS, effective 29 April 1952.

The other night at the Institute of Public Affairs Mr Howard spoke about ‘seeing it through’ in Iraq. He talked about a battle of ‘wills’, of ‘values’, a fight to the death between ‘them’ and ‘us’. He was right, but he wasn’t speaking for you and me when he argued in support of the West, any more than Osama bin Laden is speaking for ordinary Muslims when he delivers his regular battle cries against us. Our Prime Minister was really only speaking for men like those at the IPA dinner, and like the men who run the Carlyle Groups of our globalising world.

Have a breeze around the IPA website and the Net to learn of its supporters’ views on the optimum free market relationship between economics and democracy, and the IPA’s intellectual debts to influential American think-tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and our old favorite theProject for a New American Century. IPA’s free market ideologue-in-chief Gary Johns will take you to the AEI, where he gave a speech on NGO’s in June 2003; it’s an easy step from there to PNAC. Or Carlyle. Or Halliburton. Bechtel. Kellog, Brown and Root. The Weekly Standard. Rummy. Cheney. Perle. Iran-Contra. Kissinger. Schultz. Vinnell. BCCI. The bin laden family

Yes, you can play conspiratorial games forever, but the less sinister reality is just that a lot of these wealthy businessmen and business groups have similar ideas about the way the world should (be) run, and a lot of them are quite naturally mates. So too the IPA simply believes strongly in a Carlylian vision of globalisation. Deregulate. Decentralise. Privatise. Reduce tax. Contract out. Minimise public scrutiny. Minimise checks-and-balances. Position yourself at the interface between politics and business. Schmooze. Make contacts. Grease the wheels of power. Keep the public at arms’ length. Use your influence quietly. Lobby behind the scenes.

Nothing illegitimate in any of that in itself. It’s what business people do.

But that our elected leader Mr Howard chose to update the Australian nation on the state of progress in Iraq at an exclusive, paying-guests only speech sharing such men’s hospitality is illegitimate, in my opinion. The IPA charged well-heeled insiders $4,000 for a public ‘product’ that rightly belongs to all of us: our Prime Minister’s honest and open update on a war our fellow Australians are fighting. You can’t ‘sell’ that information to a private audience. It’s not Mr Howard’s or the IPA’s to sell. That nobody so much as blinked an eye at this arrangement – one that Menzies would have despised – is a key to how far the corrosive, Carlyle-style symbiosis between politics and business has already developed under this allegedly traditionalist, Liberal PM, and where it will no doubt go if he wins the next election.

Could you afford one of those $4,000 top table tickets? Nor me. And were you at the PM’s 30th anniversary party at the Hordern Pavilion the next night? Neither was I. Ignore all the Menzian window-dressing at that ‘Westminster’ bash; like every other social conservative line trotted out by Mr Howard’s team these days, it’s simply convenient camouflage.

So at this next election, I think that Australia has to ask itself what sort of globalised future it wants to help America build. Which ANZUS ally do we want to be mates with? The America of the Carlyle Group? Or the America of those idealistic 800 plus GIs who’ve died so far in Iraq – who for all the responsibilities that must come with killing – are still closer to the America of Jefferson, Kennedy, Luther King, Spielberg, Springstein, Brubeck, Bart Simpson, Chomsky, the NYFD and Bill Gates. Theirs is the America I love; theirs is the America I want to be allied with.

Mr Howard on the other hand has put his ANZUS trust in the newer America, this not-quite-right convergence of political and corporate power to the exclusion of the wider citizenry. So as we sympathise with the grieving relatives of the hostages killed in Saudi Arabia – as we hear yet more condescending cant about why the terrorists murdered them (because they ‘hate us’) – just keep the Carlyle Group in mind. For all his exclusive bluster to the IPA the other night our own PM still hasn’t done his voting constituency the courtesy of explaining what’s going on in Iraq. And those $4,000 top table guests probably know more about Iraq than the average Liberal Party backbencher, too; just as almost no-one in the US Congress wants to mention the Carlyle Group, neither does anyone else in President Howard’s Rubber-stamping Department care to mention the Iraq War anymore.

We’ve moved on. It’s budget and election time. No doubt the PM and his neo-conservative hosts had a private chat about that the other night, too. Not to mention the obvious campaign fundraising whip-around. Money and politics; politics and war; war and money. And politics and war and money and politics and war and money. Honest John: meet Australia’s Carlyles. Aussie Carlyles: meet Honest John.

This is how you build an iron triangle. And it’s not a good look for Australia.