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The Prime Minister has admitted there may be some doubt about the veracity of pre-Iraq war intelligence. Is this reasonable doubt? Should the government have done more to determine the validity of intelligence? Was the public misled about the reasons for going to war?

Tell us what you think.

This topic is now closed - this is what you said.

If this concerned another dictator in another country the Australian people would be screaming for his downfall. We`re a weak lot aren`t we?

Fred Sykes

The UN charge John Howard, George Bush and Tony Blair for War Crimes.

Bush, Blair and Howard took us into this war without UN and legal backing.

Iraq's protestation before the invasion that they had no WMD fell on deaf ears. Bush, Blair and Howard dismissed them outright.

Instead, they sent our soldiers to kill other people's (soldiers and civilian) in our country's name.

Ten of thousands died. Now the country is unstable and many are killed everyday. Not only that, but there is no WMD.

If Iraq or another country had done what they had done, we would all demand their leader responsible be tried for War Crimes.

Bush, Blair and Howard should be held to account for their actions.


Look forwards not backwards


Speaking of Chomsky, he actually penned our present situation very accurately as long ago as 1978:

"If we hope to understand anything about the foreign policy of any state, it is a good idea to begin by investigating the domestic social structure: Who sets foreign policy? What interests do these people represent? What is the domestic source of their power? It is a reasonable surmise that the policy that evolves will reflect the special interests of those who design it. An honest study of history will reveal that this natural expectation is quite generally fulfilled. The evidence is overwhelming, in my opinion, that the United States is no exception to the general rule?a thesis which is often characterized as a ?radical critique,? in a curious intellectual move?Some attention to the historical record, as well as common sense, leads to a second reasonable expectation: In every society, there will emerge a caste of propagandists who labour to disguise the obvious, to conceal the actual workings of power, and to spin a web of mythical goals and purposes, utterly benign, that allegedly guide national policy. A typical thesis of the propaganda system is that ?the nation? is an agent in international affairs, not special groups within it, and that ?the nation? is guided by certain ideals and principles, all of them noble?A subsidiary thesis is that the nation is not an active agent, but rather responds to threats posed to its security, or to order and stability, by awesome evil forces."

Isn't this exactly what happened in the case of the Iraqi war?

James A

The REAL reason for the war was quite simple. The US and Britain had missed out on lucrative contracts the Iraqi government had awarded to the Russians, Germans and the French (which are now null and void) which was precisely the reason those countries opposed it.

None of these countries gave a fig for the people of Iraq, otherwise Saddam would have been removed in 1991.

Very Noam Chomsky I know, but its the truth.

James A

Once again Howard treats the Australian people with contempt - through his refusal to hold an inquiry into the validity of WMD intelligence. In 2003 that intelligence, now proved to be seriously flawed, was good enough for him to quickly send Australians off to war against a country that posed no threat to Australia (and as it turns out no threat to its neighbours or anyone else).

In recent years Howard has developed an art of re-writing history on the run and is too often loose with the truth. For how long will the Australian public accept that?

Howard, Downer, Ruddock et al shame Australia. They are just lucky they haven't had to stand on the tarmac welcoming home several hundred body bags then having to look those families in the eye......

Brian Hood

Brian Hood

Were we misled? Of course. We were outright lied to. Howard took Australia to war for his own reasons and the decision to do so was probably made very early on. We would have ended up where we are now, whether the intelligence was "good" intelligence or not.

Tim Edgar

Regarding Alexander Downer's repeated assertion that the UN supported the US belief that Saddam had WMD - I wonder whether the UN came to this belief based upon the same discredited intelligence fed to the rest of us. And if so, whether 1441 would have passed in the first place had the UN known what we know now.


Tom Wilcox,

As I see you also watched the 7:30 report last night I?m interested on your views of Alexander Downers repeated quotations that the UN in fact supported the US belief that Sadam had WMD. My recollection fails me as to weather Downer asserted it was the actual weapons or the programs that the UN supposedly supported the US view.

I found Downers it potential very misleading in that he was trying to infer that the actions of the coalition had broad UN backing. However I could not decipher which on which view point the UN was the same as the Australian US and UK governments intelligence, when the UN had quite different views on specific issues.

Perhaps some more well researched reader could enlighten me as to the points of agreement and disagreement between the US and the UN.
Personally my recollections are that the UN security council, the UN weapons inspection team and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) did not support some of the more sensational of the US views. The UN were unconvinced of Collin Powells circumstancual evidence (or so called facts). The UN security council certainly did not specifically authorise the military action at the time of the US invasion.

If one remembers back to the time they will recall that the US withdrew its resolution which could have directly authorised military action because it most probably would have been defeated.
So from my recollection of the UNs view against the US view I found Alexander Downers attempts to hide behind a shield of UN support wrong. The coalition made the decision to invade Iraq based on their own assessment not that of the UN and must now stand up and be counted for their mistake.

Tim Constable

Happy migrant: to quote Ghandi "what difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

James A

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