ANDREW WILKIE: A STATEMENT REGARDING THE IRAQ WAR

Today (Monday, March 12) is the 10th anniversary of my resignation from the Office of National Assessments (ONA) over Australia joining in the invasion of Iraq. I was the only serving intelligence official from the Coalition of the Willing to break ranks before the war started.

Time has not diminished the shocking reality that Australia’s involvement in the Iraq War was not ethical, not necessary and not legal.

The Howard Government took us to war because it said Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that it was only a matter of time before some of those weapons were passed to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.

But no WMD or evidence of cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida were ever found. This was no accident, because the invasion of Iraq was based on a lie and no amount of Liberal Party revisionism of the reasons for the war will let the Howard Government off the hook.

That there has never been a proper inquiry into Australia’s involvement in the war continues to disturb a great many Australians. Two reviews have been completed, but they were deliberately restricted to narrow terms of reference and prevented from looking into the behaviour of Prime Minister John Howard, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer or their departments and political staffers, among others.

The Iraq War will remain a festering sore in Australia’s history until a proper inquiry into our country’s involvement is held, and those responsible for the misadventure held to account. Such an inquiry should include the still secret ONA assessments and reports, diplomatic cables and emails which clearly explain the thinking in Washington and London at the time, and which make a mockery of the Australian Government’s repeated official explanation for the debacle.

Nor has the more recent Gillard Government done the right thing by enacting legislation that would provide protection for public officials disclosing misconduct like we saw over Iraq. The Rudd Government is to be applauded for starting the process of creating federal whistleblower protection. But this work has stalled, the current government showing no genuine interest in encouraging and protecting officials, Members of Parliament and their staff who publicise misconduct. To that end I still have a private member’s bill before the Parliament which is endorsed by leading experts on whistleblower protection and regarded positively by a number of Members of Parliament.

Taking your country to war for fraudulent reasons is misconduct so serious as to be almost incomprehensible. But it happened in Australia just a decade ago. To paraphrase something I wrote at about the time, may the victims of the Iraq War rest in peace, and may those whose lies killed you be one day brought to justice.
Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent Member for Denison