Tony Kevin is a former Australian diplomat who has led the campaign for answers on the sinking of SIEV-X during the 2001 election, drowning 353 people. He is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. This piece was first published in the Canberra Times today, and is republished with the author’s permission.

 

The latest conventional wisdom says we are “at the tipping point” in Iraq. The US experiment in “democracy-building” in Iraq is now finely poised between success or failure. The UN has brokered a diplomatic solution, winning unanimous UN Security Council support. It is now said to be “up to the world to support it”. But actually, from now on, the views and policies of foreign governments have little relevance. This is a rare moment when the course of history will be determined by ordinary people: by how Iraqi resistance fighters and their American military adversaries handle themselves in the cities and towns of Iraq.

It is down to the Shia militiamen of Muqtada al-Sadr and their Sunni counterparts, and to the notoriously trigger-happy US soldiery in Iraq.

Under the compromise UN Security Council resolution passed on Tuesday, the US-led occupation formally ends on June 30, replaced by a claimed-to-be-sovereign interim Iraqi government under appointed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. US troops (renamed the MNF, or multinational force) will remain as security support. Following elections by end of 2005, the MNF must leave.

Letters exchanged between Allawi and US Secretary of State Powell establish a new “security partnership” between the Iraqi Government and the MNF, promising coordination between the two sides.

This is not full sovereignty, but the proof of this pudding will be in the eating.

Even the most senior Shia religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who commands public respect, while not joining this new government, is giving it his provisional cautious endorsement.

How will the MNF respond to insurgent provocations under the new order? What will happen if large numbers of US troops go on being killed by insurgents?

The MNF will have to be out there in the streets, because the Iraqi interim government has no credible security forces – previous efforts to train and motivate Iraqi forces failed. If militarily challenged, Allawi will have to call in the MNF for support. The MNF does not have the option of sheltering in a cantonment.

Yet if US forces go in again boots-and-all Fallujah-style, the present fragile credibility of the interim administration will be lost for good. If the interim Iraqi administration is unable to restrain more Fallujahs, it will be seen correctly as a hollow occupiers facade, a Vichy or Quisling administration.

Will the interim Iraqi leadership use the security consultation powers the UN Security Council has negotiated for it, to restrain US military over-reaction in Iraq? If the interim administration can convince the Iraqi people that it is using its limited powers to hold back abusive use of overwhelming US military power, it may slowly earn some respect and confidence. A general peace – punctuated by insurgent incidents of violence – might gradually consolidate.

But it is hard to believe that after so many gross blunders, US political and military commanders can suddenly discover the necessary tact and military restraint so obviously lacking in their conduct as occupiers in Iraq to date. Can the people responsible for Abu Ghraib and the recent missile attack on a wedding party suddenly change their behaviour so radically?

I would not mortgage the house on it, but then the stakes now for President Bush are very high, and this fact must concentrate administration minds. The collapse of the Iraqi interim administration’s credibility in Iraq in new rounds of major violence involving massive engagement of US armed force would certainly mean the end of the Bush presidency.

The Bush administration may be learning. There is a new (and welcome) US leadership reticence. The aggressive rhetoric barometer is down. We have seen little lately of Paul Bremer. There is acceptance of the need to confront the horrors of Abu Ghraib at the judicial level.

But this may be too late. In the end now, it will be decided on the streets. The battle-hardened and embittered men fighting for the Iraqi resistance, impatient of diplomatic hair-splitting and deal-making in New York, will use their guns and bombs to test the will and patience of the occupiers and their vulnerable local supporters. There will be major violent incidents and more US casualties.

And the men and women soldiers and junior officers of the US Army, with their sophisticated weaponry, will probably want to respond in kind against suspected insurgent concentrations.

These two groups will decide Iraqs fate now. The people of Iraq will observe, and will make up their minds. The test will not be good intentions. It will be military behaviour on the ground.

Tony Kevin is the former Australian diplomat who was intrumental in forcing the defence force to explain its failure to find SIEV-X before it sank during the federal election, drowning 353 asylum seekers.

 

The story of Australia�s initiation of secret illegal preemptive combat in Iraq from 18 to 20 March 2003, which I have been exploring since January 2004, got a re-start in the media after the release of Bob Woodward�s new book on the Iraq War, Plan of Attack. John Howard and Australia are minor players in Woodward�s book, but interesting new material in revealed.

First, the stories themselves (my highlightinh) then my analysis.

1. Marian Wilkinson, Book reveals Howard�s early commitment to overthrow of Saddam, Sydney Morning Herald:

“On March 16 [Washington time � 17 March Canberra time] Bush phoned Howard from Air Force One as he flew from the Azores summit with Blair and Aznar. Bush explained that he would deliver a speech the next day in which he would issue a 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam.

“Apparently concerned, Howard asked Bush whether this was going to be the declaration of war speech. “No,” Bush assured him. “It’s an ultimatum speech”.

“Howard then told Bush he needed “one last official word” before the war started. “Otherwise, it would look to the Australian people like Bush just started the war without even telling his biggest allies.”

“No, no,” Bush assured him. “This isn’t the last call you’re going to get from me.”

Louise Dodson writes from Canberra:

“A spokesman for John Howard said yesterday: ‘As the Prime Minister indicated at the time, he was in regular contact with President Bush on the eve of the outbreak of hostilities. The Prime Minister made it very plain to President Bush that there would need to be cabinet authorisation before Australian troops could be taken to war.'”

2. Phillip Coorey, Bush’s call to Howard from 39,000 feet (used by various News Limited papers on 21 April):

“THREE days before the war began in Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard told US President George W.Bush he was worried about public opinion in Australia and urged that he be informed in advance when the war would start. Details of conversations between Mr Howard and Mr Bush are chronicled in the new book Plan of Attack by veteran Washington Post journalist, Bob Woodward.

“The book also reveals how Australian commandos began secret operations in Iraq before the war officially started.”

Mr Woodward has pieced together the blow by blow account of the march to war.

Mr Bush rang Mr Howard on the night of Sunday, March 16, while flying back to Washington. He told him that the next day – Monday in America – the US was likely to withdraw a UN resolution authorising war because of the threat of veto from France. He said he would instead give Saddam Hussein an ultimatum. “Is this going to be a declaration of war speech?” Mr Howard is quoted as asking. “No, it’s an ultimatum speech,” Mr Bush replied.

“Woodward writes: ‘Howard was worried about Australian public opinion and said he needed one last official word from Bush before the war started.’ “Otherwise it would look to the Australian people like Bush just started the war without even telling his biggest allies,” Mr Howard is quoted as telling Mr Bush. “No, no, this isn’t the last call you’re going to get from me”.

“At 2pm on Monday, March 17, Mr Bush rang Mr Howard again to tell him he was going to give a speech that night issuing a 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam. “George, if it comes to this, I pledge to you that Australian troops will fight if necessary”, Mr Howard said.

Special forces troops from Australia, the US, Britain and Poland used the 48-hour delay to slip into Iraq and secure key infrastructure sites like oil wells, scud missile launchers and dams.

At 9am on Wednesday, March 19, about 12 hours before the ultimatum expired, 31 special forces groups were in the country. “The Aussies are in,” the White House chief of staff reported to Mr Bush at 2pm that day…“The Aussies are in,” the White House chief of staff reported to Mr Bush at 2pm that day�.. 3. Roy Eccleston, Bush’s war call to Howard, Washington correspondent, The Australian:

“… On March 19, the first of Australia’s 2000 troops entered Iraq. By 1pm Washington time, nine hours before Mr Bush announced that the opening stages of the war had begun with an attempted strike on a Saddam hideout, 31 US special forces teams had entered Iraq secretly. The Australian SAS was not far behind.

Some time after 2pm, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card told Mr Bush: “The Aussies are in.” Australian commandos had moved into the west, heading for a dam (presumably to prevent it being blown up by Hussein’s forces, although this is not explained)…”

4. John Howard was asked about this on Melbourne Radio 3AW yesterday morning and the ABC program The World Today at 12 noon carried this radio story:

MATT BROWN: On Melbourne radio 3AW the Prime Minister has confirmed this morning that Australian troops entered Iraq before the deadline George W. Bush set for Saddam Hussein to surrender expired.

JOHN HOWARD: I think Senator Hill has indicated that that did happen.

INTERVIEWER: But it was denied at the time.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, I think what we said at the time was that we did the right…that we went in, in…

INTERVIEWER: I remember asking you whether troops went in, after we’d been told they were, and you said no.

JOHN HOWARD: Did I say that?

INTERVIEWER: Not to your knowledge, yeah.

JOHN HOWARD: Not to my knowledge. Well, that could well have been the case at the time.

INTERVIEWER: How early did they go in?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, certainly after the ultimatum was rejected.

INTERVIEWER: No, but did they not go in before the deadline expired?

JOHN HOWARD: Yes, but once an ultimatum is rejected the deadline is irrelevant.

MATT BROWN: Mr Howard says the invasion was legal, and the decision to invade was not taken before the proper processes had been followed in Australia.

JOHN HOWARD: I certainly made it very plain to Bush that we needed to have a Cabinet meeting for a final authorisation, that I could not commit my forces, the Australian military forces to action in Iraq until such time as that Cabinet meeting had taken place.

And it did take place. He did ring me two or three times that week to inform me what had happened, and that’s what transpired. But I was certainly diplomatically very supportive, we did pre-deploy. And we made it very clear that we were putting ourselves in a position to be involved, but the final decision to be involved was not taken until after those conversations.

***

Howard was obviously floundering in the 3AW interview. This interview is the best public confirmation so far that this story is real and important, and yet to be fully admitted.

Meanwhile, the key sources are my three website pieces, the Defence Department briefing by Colonel Mansell on 9 May 2003, and the Defence Report on the Iraq War issued in February 2004 (pages 15 and 22 in particular).

Woodward�s book has the timelines too short by a full day. These are the correct timelines for Australian SAS action, give or take an hour or so:

The Bush ultimatum was given at 8pm on 17 March Washington time which is 4 am Iraq time on 18 March , close enough to 12 noon on 18 March Canberra time. The ultimatum expired 48 hours later, at 8 pm Washington time 19 March, ie 4 am Iraq time 20 March, close enough to 12 noon on 20 March Canberra time.

The SAS according to Mansell (9 May 2003 Defence briefing) went into Iraq in the first darkness hours after Howard’s “commitment” [ie his speech at 2 pm on 18 March in Parliament] . This suggests they went in about 1900 hours on 18 March Iraq time, or 0300 hours Canberra time on 19 March. That is 33 hours before the expiry of the Bush ultimatum. � not 9 or 12 hours. There is a big difference.

It appears that our SAS was the first coalition force to take up arms inside Iraq, in the evening of 18 March 2003 Iraq time (refer Mansell briefing). They went in around the same time � maybe a couple of hours after � Saddam announced he was rejecting the Bush ultimatum. (This is actually irrelevant � ultimatums are supposed to run their course because people often do change their minds, and obviously the insertion had been planned well beforehand.)

We have known since Robert Hill�s letters to the Age and SMH in January 2004 (after my first articles on this) that Cabinet NSC authorised those military actions on the morning of 18 March 2003 in Canberra, i.e., around the time Bush�s ultimatum was issued. Howard confirms this in his 3AW interview.

The issues now are:

1. Whether these substantial Australian military combat operations inside Iraq 18-20 March 2003 were preemptive acts of war initiated by Australian forces 33 hours before the expiry of a conditional coalition ultimatum? Were these operations contrary to the laws of war, as these are commonly understood by governments and military forces around the world?

2. That John Howard clearly misled the Australian Parliament and people on 18 and 20 March 2003 as to what his government had decided to do. He led us to believe that 18 March 2003 was a declaration of Australian readiness for “possible future action” in support of the Bush 48-hour ultimatum, and that 20 March 2003 was “the first public indication” of actual engagement of Australian forces in combat in Iraq. Howard knew from the beginning that his Cabinet had taken a dubious decision ordering Australian military action starting on 18 March, and he was trying from the beginning to hide this knowledge from the Parliament and people. It seems from the 3AW interview yesterday that he still is.

Careful press euphemisms about coalition special forces troops that “used the 48-hour delay to slip into Iraq and secure key infrastructure sites like oil wells, scud missile launchers and dams” blur the real truth about the major military combat character of these preemptive engagements by Australian military forces in Iraq. And this does matter.