Howard rejects Iraq war 'lie' claim

Former Prime Minister, John Howard, has rejected claims Australia went to war in Iraq based on a lie.

FORMER prime minister John Howard has emphatically rejected the "most notorious claim of all" about his government's conduct - that Australia went to war in Iraq based on a "lie" about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

After Sydney protesters forced a last-minute change of venue for his speech on the 10th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, Mr Howard said there was a "near universal" belief that Iraq had WMDs, including from former Labor leader Kevin Rudd.

IRAQ, THE WAR AND HOW WE GOT IT WRONG.

"After the fall of Saddam, and when it became apparent that stockpiles of WMDs had - to me unexpectedly - not been found in Iraq, it was all too easy for certain people to begin claiming that Australia had gone to war based on a lie," Mr Howard said.

"Not only does (that claim) impugn the integrity of the decision-making process at the highest level, but also the professionalism and integrity of intelligence agencies here and elsewhere.

Hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets of Sydney in February 2003 to protest against a US-led war against Iraq, continuing a massive anti-war protests around the world. Source: News Limited

"Some of their key assessments proved to be wrong, but that is a world away from those assessments being the product of deceit and/or political manipulation."

A staunch ally of then US President George W. Bush, Howard angered many Australians by sending 2,000 troops to invade Iraq.

The anger lingers. Around 100 anti-war and anti-Howard protesters rallied outside the venue, their chants clearly heard by Howard's audience as he spoke.

WAS THE GULF WAR WORTH IT?

Former Prime Minister John Howard marked the 10th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad with a speech to the Lowy Institute in which he defended his decision to send Australian troops to war in Iraq and criticized US handling of the bloody aftermath of dictator Saddam Hussein's overthrow. Picture: AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

Howard has no regrets about committing Australia to the war, but detailed mistakes made after Saddam's defeat three weeks after the invasion.

A decade after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, few Iraqis mark the day as they face political and economic woes. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

Mr Howard said  that disbanding the Iraqi Army "was a mistake" and that efforts to remove Saddam's Baath Party from civil service "went too far."

The American interim administration that replaced Saddam, the Coalition Provisional Authority, "held sway for too long" and the US cut troop levels too soon, Howard said.

"The post-invasion conflict, especially between Sunnis and Shiites which caused widespread bloodshed, did more damage, in my judgment, to the credibility of the coalition operation in Iraq than the failure to find stockpiles of WMDs," Howard said in a speech delivered to the Lowy Institute foreign policy think-tank.

A statue of Saddam Hussein is toppled in downtown Bagdhad. Picture: Jerome Delay/AP Source: AP

Disbanding the Iraqi Army converted many Iraqi veterans into "eager recruits for the insurgency," he said.

"As well as denying coalition forces a home-grown vehicle through which to help maintain order, disbanding the army put on the streets tens of thousands of unemployed and disgruntled Iraqis," Howard said.

Howard said it was too early to gauge the extent that democracy had taken root in Iraq or the impact of the country's transition from tyranny on the Middle East.

But he said Iraq was a probable influence on the Arab Spring, the popular revolutionary uprising that has forced regime changes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen since 2010.

"Unlike most of its region, Iraq's polity has not been roiled by the Arab Spring," Howard said. "That must surely have something to do with the democratic framework which has been established there in recent years."

"To my mind ... it is implausible that the events we now know as the Arab Spring bear no relationship of any kind to the overthrow of Saddam's regime in 2003," he said.
 

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