Now is the time for an Australian inquiry into the Iraq War

The 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq have been an unparalleled disaster for the Iraqi people, with estimates as high as a million plus who have died directly as a result, over 4 million people who have been displaced out of a population of 23 million, and a country ripped apart by sectarian violence. All a product of an invasion and occupation that Australia was proudly a part of. So proud, in fact, that it was willing to commit military forces to the invasion, one of only four nations to do so along with the US, UK, and Poland.

That war crimes were committed by the coalition in Iraq is beyond dispute. The 'Shock and Awe' of the invasion itself, the torture scandal of Abu Ghraib, the war profiteering and corruption of the occupation, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians and excessive use of force by coalition forces are just some of the many incidents of war crimes that have received intense international media attention. Further revelations of coalition support for or direct participation in torture and indiscriminate killings were revealed in the massive cache of classified military documents released by Wikileaks in 2010.

Nor are the consequences limited to Iraq. Australia, as well as the rest of the world, is significantly less safe. Our civil liberties have been severely impinged by wave after wave of anti terrorism legislation supposedly designed to protect us.

The Howard Government's decision to not only support but to participate in the invasion was not, as we all vividly remember, without significant opposition. Howard was warned repeatedly that a military invasion of Iraq was illegal and would contravene the United Nation's charter. Countless experts refuted alleged intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and ties to Al Queda; many warned that invading Iraq would only inflame anti-western radical Islamic sentiment. And Australians took to the streets in mass protests not seen since the previous national debacle of following the US blindly into a brutal and unjust war in Vietnam. We now know of course that there were no WMD's or ties to Al Queda; even more importantly, we know that Howard, Bush, and Blair knew at the time that there was no evidence. Put simply, they lied.

The British Chilcot Inquiry has largely focused on the legality of the invasion, and what then British Prime Minister Tony Blair knew, and when he knew it. This is somewhat of a moot point; the leaked Downing Street memo of July 2002 established that Blair knew then that the US had already decided to invade, and that the UN Security Council debate and attempt to secure a new resolution justifying force was all theatre. But it is not nor should it be a moot point for Australia.

As revealed in the 2006 Cole Inquiry into the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) kickback scandal, in early 2002 John Dauth, then Australia's ambassador to the United Nations, told AWB Chairman Trevor Flugge that US military action to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein was inevitable, and that Australia would support and participate in such action. Flugge then dutifully reported this to the AWB Board of Directors on February 27, 2002. And so AWB was given advance notice of the Howard Government’s intention to participate militarily a full year before the invasion took place and well before any sort of informed debate had begun. Issues of legality, justice, the rule of law, and innocent civilian lives clearly never entered into the decision making process, but Australia's wheat exports to Iraq did. That revelation alone should have prompted an Inquiry years ago.

An excellent starting question for John Howard testifying at an independent Inquiry would be why and how his Government had already decided a year in advance to participate in an invasion. The follow up question would be why he felt it appropriate for this decision to be divulged to Trevor Flugge and AWB. We all remember Trevor Flugge, right- famous for the grinning, bare-chested, pistol-toting photograph taken of him while he was serving as co-Head of the post-invasion Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture. The photo appeared on the front pages of newspapers throughout Australia in 2006, when Flugge was revealed to be a primary architect of the nearly $300 million in kickbacks that AWB paid to Saddam Hussein to guarantee Australian wheat contracts under the UN Oil for Food program.

One would think that running the post-war Ministry of Agriculture would be about ensuring that Iraq could return to some semblance of food security after years of war and devastating sanctions. But that wasn't it at all. According to Howard, he appointed Flugge 'because our principal concern at that time was to stop American wheat growers from getting our markets. We thought Mr Flugge would fight hard for the Australian wheat industry.' Flugge did work hard- he worked hard to eliminate subsidies, tariffs, and any other agricultural protections that could have helped Iraq provide its own food security. Instead, Iraqi agriculture was decimated and became dependent on foreign imports- like Australian wheat.

Considering the closeness of the Howard-Bush friendship, it is not too far-fetched that the decision to invade could have been as simple as a ten minute conversation between the two. It might have gone something like this: Bush said the US was going to depose Saddam, Howard replied you know we are with you but this would be much easier for me politically if we could be guaranteed our wheat exports and some other concessions, Bush said okay I'll take care of it. And that, sickening as it is to consider, was very possibly that.

I've written previously about how Australia's ongoing wheat exports to Iraq under the UN Oil for Food sanctions program would have almost certainly ended had Australia not participated in the invasion. AWB and other Australian corporations were rewarded handsome contracts under the Occupation, contracts handed out as spoils of war under a military Occupation with virtually no Iraqi participation. In addition to AWB, the usual suspects were involved, including BHP, which secured access to the massive Halfayeh oilfield.

But as horrible as all these things are, the worst thing Australia did was willingly and enthusiastically participate in the wholesale reaming of the Iraqi people by forcing a radical free trade neoliberal system of economic governance on the country. It participated in the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA) attempt to sell off Iraqi government assets- and since Iraq's economy was largely socialist, that meant pretty much every industry imaginable- to western investors. When that failed, it eliminated tariffs and duties on imports, thus facilitating the flooding of the economy with cheap foreign products and sabotaging any chance of Iraqi economic sovereignty and severely impeding the Iraqi people's right to self determination. In addition, the CPA established a constitutional framework that entrenched these laws for future Iraqi governments, and tethered the Iraqi economy and its oil production to the US dominated IMF, World Bank, and WTO. Iraqis had no say in determining these policies, but plenty of Australians did. At least 15 Australian officials were in senior Coalition Provisional Authority positions.

Australia’s actions regarding the CPA economic orders were clearly illegal as defined by international law. The Hague Regulations of 1907, Article 43 states that an occupying power “must re-establish and insure as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country."

But that is just the start of a long list of war crimes Australian government and military officials should be held accountable for. Any Inquiry should also address the innumerable allegations of horrific atrocities committed under the command of Australian General Jim Molan by coalition forces during the brutal assault at Fallujah in 2004 (see 'The reality of Australia’s collateral damage in Iraq', 4 August 2008 in Online Opinion), and evidence that the Royal Australian Air Force knowingly and deliberately provided cover for American ground troops firing cluster bombs on heavily populated civilian areas during the invasion. It should also include Australia's disgraceful role in supporting American torture and persecution of Australian citizens David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, and the overzealous persecution of anti-war protesters and perceived radical Islamic groups. Any inquiry should also cover Australia's shameful participation in ensuring the sanctions on Iraq continued to inflict horrific hardship, thanks in no small part to Australian Richard Butler's role as UN chief weapons inspector during that time.

Molan and other senior Australian military personnel's responsibility for Fallujah should also include what has happened to city inhabitants as a direct result of the assault in the intervening years since the city was militarily subdued in late 2004. An extensive peer reviewed study released in July 2010 found cancer, leukemia, and infant mortality rates to be higher in Fallujah from 2005-2009 than corresponding rates for survivors in the years following the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The epidemiological study, 'Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009,' was published in the International Journal of Environmental Studies and Public Health. Its examination of 711 houses and 4,843 individuals revealed a four-fold increase in cancer rates since the coalition assault occurred under Molan's command. The types of cancer were similar to the cancers resulting from radiation fallout at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The study also found heightened levels of birth defects, and infant mortality rates of 80 deaths out of 1,000 births; eight times higher than neighbouring Kuwait. Leukemia rates were 38 times higher, cancer in children 12 times more frequent, breast cancer 10 times more common than in nearby Arab countries of Jordan, Egypt, and Kuwait.

It is a sad statement of our political culture that many Australians cannot believe that their country is important enough in the doings of world affairs to matter. This is in part what allows the present Labor leadership to act as if Iraq simply never happened. Julia Gillard and former PM Kevin Rudd have continued to follow the US lead with every bit as salivating lap dog enthusiasm as Howard did, despite little having changed in US foreign policy under Barack Obama. Guantanamo Bay remains open and still houses what has now been revealed beyond any doubt innocent victims; torture still occurs; Afghanistan is a quagmire; and the US is every bit as much a sabre rattler at Iran under Obama that it was under Bush. After widespread exposure of torture, outright murder, and the near destruction of the world economic order due to its never before rivalled dedication to sheer greed, not to mention its refusal to provide universal health care to its own citizens as one of innumerable examples of the contempt America holds for most of its own people (can anyone say Katrina?), you would think any post Howard government would seriously reconsider its foreign policy alliances.

There have now been numerous attempts to hold Bush Administration officials accountable for their actions regarding Iraq, and there is now the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry in the UK, where both Blair and Brown have been forced to testily. Yet the Australian Government acts as if Iraq simply never happened.

We can't erase the past and restore those millions of Iraqis who have died as a direct result of a war that Australia is directly responsible for. We also, alas cannot guarantee that it will never happen again. But we can and we must try.