Senator Natasha Stott Despoja
Portfolio: Foreign Affairs
Related: Defence & Veterans
| Dated: 4 Feb 2003
Location: Parliament House - Canberra
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Senator Natasha Stott Despoja speaks to the Prime Minister's Statement on Iraq |
Senator STOTT DESPOJA (South Australia) (7.02 p.m.) —Like many, I came to parliament this week acutely aware of my responsibilities as an elected representative of South Australians. Surveys and polls over the last few months, including today, have demonstrated that the vast majority of Australians are opposed to Australia's involvement in a US led war against Iraq. Today I speak together with those Australians. I share their deep concerns and I share the many, many questions that they and others in this chamber have.
I want to make two things very clear from the outset. Firstly, I deplore the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and I am appalled by the atrocities that have been committed in the name of that dictatorship. I want the Iraqi people to be democratically governed and to have their fundamental human rights respected. I also want the Iraqi people—as I want the people of Zimbabwe, North Korea, China, Tibet and Burma, among others—to be protected from human rights abuses and to have the opportunity to freely elect their political representatives. Secondly, I am unequivocally opposed to the development, storage and use of weapons of mass destruction—whether by India, Pakistan, Iraq, France, Russia or indeed the United States of America. Yet despite my very strong feelings on these issues I do not support Australia's involvement in military action against Iraq.
War is not just another strategy to achieve desired ends. War is a desperate measure. Only the most exceptional circumstances can ever justify the killing of other human beings. Not only must war be eminently justified but its objectives must be clear and precise. The objectives of military action against Iraq are anything but clear at this stage. The reasons given by Tony Blair, George W. Bush and, indeed, our own Prime Minister for such military action do not assist us. In fact, they simply raise more questions. These are questions they have failed to answer and questions that I know many Australians would like the Prime Minister to address. It is disappointing that we did not have question time today as that would have enabled us to ask the government some of these questions. In the absence of question time, I am going to put on notice and put on the public record a number of the questions that we have.
We know that Iraq has consistently failed to meet its obligations relating to disarmament and weapons inspections following the Gulf War. Of course it is vitally important to ensure that Iraq complies with these obligations. But, if the war is about forcing Iraq to comply with international law, why are we contemplating illegal military action to achieve this compliance? It simply does not make sense to break the law, in this case, in order to enforce it. Nor does it make sense to abandon the procedures of the United Nations in order to enforce the resolutions of the United Nations. The inconsistency—indeed, the hypocrisy—of this was illustrated in the recent State of the Union address given by President Bush. The President accused Iraq of being in contempt of the United Nations. He then went on to make it clear that the United States would not depend on the decisions of others.
We do not need to rely on the words of President Bush to understand the attitude of the United States towards international law on occasions. If the United States is so committed to international law, as outlined by President Bush, then how does it explain the imposition of embargoes on the supply of food and medicine to Cuba when such embargoes have been repeatedly condemned by UN resolutions and described as `serious violation of international law'? The United States has also ignored international law, specifically the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Beijing rules, when it has executed people who were under the age of 18 when they committed a crime. What legal or moral authority does the United States have to make other countries comply with their international obligations when this is its own track record?
The Prime Minister has consistently stated that the purpose of any proposed war would be to address the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. If this is the purpose, then why are we not also going to war against North Korea? Many nations around this world have weapons of mass destruction. The United States, as we know, has an abundance of such weapons. For a nation which professes such a strong opposition to weapons of mass destruction, it is interesting to note that the US remains the only nation which has ever resorted to the use of nuclear weapons during military warfare. It also refuses to sign the protocol to the biological weapons convention.
Yet the fundamental distinction that is relied upon is that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of so-called rogue states, which has been referred to repeatedly today, present a particular threat to international security. There is no doubt that Iraq is a rogue state. What is not clear, however, is what exactly defines a rogue state and why we are not pursuing military action against other rogue states that possess weapons of mass destruction. If a rogue state is one which is not democratically governed, then what about North Korea? If it is a state in which human rights abuses occur, then what about China? How does the United Kingdom justify the exportation of key nuclear weapons-grade material to Iran? If the US and the UK are so opposed to weapons of mass destruction, why is it that neither country will rule out the use of nuclear weapons in military action against Iraq? If the war is really about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, why has President Bush said that the voluntary exile of Saddam Hussein would be one way to prevent the war?
This brings me to the issue of regime change. There are many reasons to abhor the regime of Saddam Hussein and to seek an end to the suffering of the Iraqi people under that regime. We have all heard the stories of torture and murder. They appal us all. The stories that we hear appal me; they anger me; they grieve me. Yet while the United States and Australia condemned these practices in Iraq, neither country was prepared to support the optional protocol to the convention against torture. If the purpose of the war is really to topple a cruel and undemocratic dictatorship, then why aren't we also going to war against Zimbabwe? The Prime Minister will not even stop the Australian cricket team from playing in Zimbabwe as a sign of our opposition to that regime; yet he will risk the lives of Australians to put an end to Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
If the war is to save the Iraqi people, why does Washington intend to adopt a strategy in which 800 missiles could be launched on Baghdad, where almost five million Iraqis live? If the purpose of this war is to achieve regime change, what exactly are we hoping to change the regime to? How will it work? What is the post war assistance that we are going to offer Iraq? None, according to our Prime Minister, who told us last week that Australia would not be involved in any such rebuilding process.
It appears that none of the reasons given for this war really stack up, which begs the question: what is the real underlying motivation for this war? Some suggest oil; others suggest US imperialism. I am not going to speculate on those allegations, but one thing is clear: no persuasive argument has been made to justify any military action against Iraq at this stage. The Prime Minister tells us that the decision as to whether or not Australia should participate in this war weighs heavily on him. I say to the Prime Minister: this is not your burden to bear. When faced with such a grave decision, the Prime Minister should turn to the Australian people. That is what democracy is all about. That is what differentiates regimes such as that of Saddam Hussein and those of democratic governments.
It is time to change the rhetoric in this debate. It is time we stopped restricting the debate to the terms dictated by George W. Bush, our Prime Minister or even Tony Blair. Going to war against Iraq does not demonstrate leadership. It demonstrates failure. The Prime Minister risks associating his premiership with a rush to failure. War represents failure because it gives up on those things that characterise decent civilisation: negotiation, rational discussion, persuasion, the use of international goodwill and the offer of help in return for cooperation. If the combined brains of the international community cannot avoid war, we have failed desperately. John Winston Howard should have regard to another Winston—Winston Churchill. Despite his great reputation as a wartime leader and warrior chief, despite the glory that came his way, Churchill said it best when in the fifties he said: `To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war.' He said this in Washington. Let the Prime Minister go to Washington and jaw-jaw.
We the people do not want war. We do not want to send our younger or older Australians to terrible fields of conflict to use disgusting weaponry against each other, against their fellow human beings, and to risk them returning to their homeland injured, limbless and demented by the horrors they have witnessed or coming home dead. We want people to live peacefully without the deaths of thousands, if not millions, on our conscience. We want to face the problems that we have; we do not want to create new ones. We want to write our history. We want to say sorry. We do not want to create more and more reasons for being sorry. There are no sufficient reasons for being involved in this conflict. There are no reasons to include Australians; bring the troops home.
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