Littlest War Lord Flees To Philippines As Noose Tightens
Harold Hark
14 July 2003

America's Viceroy in Australia, John Dubya Howard, left today for the Philippines, South Korea and Japan to drum up support for a nuclear war with North Korea and to promote terror at home, while the majority of servile Australians continued to shove their heads ever deeper up their own arseholes. They don't want to know about children behind razor wire or the latest scandal issuing from this pathological liar, that of knowingly sending this country to war on behalf of false intelligence. But the rest of us do.

Former UN Special Commission head of Iraq weapons inspections, Richard Butler, has called on Howard and Alexander "The Bellicose Ponce" Downer to resign, citing the Westminster system of government, whereby ministers must resign when Parliament has been misled.

This Government sent young Australians overseas to kill and be killed. It is in this context that we are being told by ministers that they made decisions on information that was false, but that they didn't know it was false.

If this is so, then either the Government is running a lousy and out-of-control public service, or the public service is in collusion with the Government and is prepared to take the rap for lies.

This is a dreadfully serious moment for Australian democracy. It is a crisis," he said. For ministers to blame the public service for the deceptions was "wrong, wrong, wrong in terms of everything we stand for."

Last week former intelligence officer Andrew Wilkie said of the intelligence fiasco:

There is something wrong with this whole story, it reeks of dishonesty, it reeks of children overboard, the fact that the prime minister is claiming he was unaware," he said.

"I just find that story unbelievable.

"This was either a terrible act of dishonesty or it was a monumental blunder, a blunder so serious that it calls into question our whole intelligence relationship with the US and Australia's intelligence processes."

Mr Wilkie said he had enormous respect for ONA officers, including The Agency's director-general Kim Jones, and did not believe they would make such a significant mistake.

"I think some sort of failure within government is a much more likely scenario rather than a failure within ONA," he said.

In the Weekend Australian, Phillip Adams has compared Howard to Nixon:

Howard is Australia's Nixon. Many observe in him the same traits of bitterness and bigotry, of cunning and vengefulness ­ and he certainly shares Dick's legendary trickiness.

Howard, like Nixon, is a deeply suspicious man, filled with the same resentment of intellectual elites. Like Nixon, Howard keeps a "hit list" of enemies who are to be punished for real or imagined insults.

Sometimes leaders grow in the role. The pomp, the circumstance, the media focus inflate their self-confidence. That didn't happen with Nixon and hasn't happened with Howard, to the extent that neither man looked convinced by his role. It's as though they felt that, deep down, they didn't deserve the highest office in their respective lands.

In Saturday's Age newspaper, Hugh Mackay lamented, "Look around, is this really Australia?"

...the Federal Government - our Government, the one we freely chose in a democratic election - is proposing to go to the High Court in an attempt to keep five children, aged six to 14, in an immigration detention centre.

The Family Court had ruled that it had the power to set the children free, on the grounds that their detention was unlawful. But the Federal Government, via the terminally tragic figure of its Immigration Minister, wants to overturn that ruling. It wants to keep the kids locked up, like the rest of the 100-odd children who are still behind razor wire and, in some cases, have been for years.

When the story of these children is finally told - when (if we live long enough) we finally learn the whole truth about the physical privation and psychological damage inflicted upon the children in these camps - it will become clear that this was a shameful period in our nation's history.

And the letters keep coming to the dailies:

Dear esteemed Prime Minister of Australia,

It is with confidence that I write to you as a national leader who has been recommended to us by a major security organisation with one of the members of the coalition of the willing.

We know you to be a man of trust and loyalty, who will not be swayed from your true course by mischievous campaigns of disinformation about our honest intentions.

I am the chief accountant to the President of Niger, Mamadou Tandja. In 2001 this Government received from the then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein $US200 million in payment for uranium ore as part of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Before we could deliver this ore, the brave coalition of which you were a proud member overthrew Saddam's regime, and there is now no legal authority in Iraq to whom we can refund this money.

We need a respected central bank in which to deposit this sum, pending the establishment of an appropriate Iraqi authority. Once you agree to receive this money, we will discuss with you a generous percentage commission.

In your reply, please forward your central bank account number and other particulars, as well as your password. As soon as I receive these details, I will immediately transfer this sum to you for safekeeping.

I remain your trusted servant.
Jeremy Gilling, SMH

It seems clear we were lied to by Messrs Bush, Blair and Howard about the reason for war with Iraq, the deception made worse by their pathetic attempts to blame faulty intelligence.

Despite this, Mr Howard remains proud that we helped rid the world of a ruthless dictator. Perhaps, but no twinge of conscience for the collateral damage? More than 2000 civilian dead plus an unknown number of young Iraqis unfortunate enough to be trapped in Saddam's army.

Earlier, Mr Howard expressed his vision for Australia as a place where we would feel relaxed and comfortable. In the face of such breathtaking cynicism I cannot. I weep for my country.
John Wood, SMH

I am sickened by this Government's use of half-truths or misinformation, by its scare-mongering and by its assumption of our gullibility. I am extremely worried by the implications of many of its actions and the directions it is taking us. And I am greatly saddened by what is happening to this country.
Gail Ford, The Age

I must ask how such important facts as the truth about Iraq sourcing uranium from Africa could have been ignored? There are only three possibilities:

• John Howard didn't know about the doubts concerning the uranium.

• John Howard didn't want to know this intelligence.

• John Howard knew about and ignored the information.

The latter two possibilities call the personal integrity of our Prime Minister seriously into question.

And the first? If, as he says, Mr Howard wasn't aware of doubts over the intelligence, he should have been. There is no question that the intelligence agencies have an obligation to apprise the Prime Minister of all the facts - but so, too, does Mr Howard have an obligation to ensure he is in possession of all the facts. He wasn't. And Australia went to war . . .
Matthew Lowe, The Age

The Prime Minister cannot be allowed to get away with this arrant nonsense any longer. It is of absolutely no relevance whether he was told or not. The only relevant question is: "Why did he not ask?"

As taxpayers, we underwrite the entire cost of providing the agencies that advise him. Mr Howard treats our Parliament with contempt if he fails to have them check the veracity of statements he subsequently makes on the floor of the House. He treats us, the voting public, with contempt if he fails to use the agencies we provide to assure the veracity of the statements he makes in the media.

Two lines in 86 pages or whatever it was of ONA reports may not have been underlined. But remarks about the uranium that are a key point in a short speech would most certainly not have escaped the attention of the appropriate agency if the speech had ever been vetted by them - as, indeed, it should have been. That is what we are paying for.

In disclaiming responsibility, the Prime Minister is being utterly irresponsible. He alone is at fault in this matter.
Graham Wills-Johnson, The Age

I am just an ordinary Australian, a senior citizen and almost full-time housewife. I have no access to information from ASIO, ONA or the DIO. Yet, well before we went to war in Iraq, I was fully aware of the rumour that Iraq was allegedly buying uranium from Niger. This rumour had been around for several months and many sources available on the internet had strongly squashed the rumour as being fraudulent and based on forged documentation.

If I knew of this information, how is it possible that Bush, Blair and Howard remained in ignorance? Was it because I was desperate to know if our reasons for committing an act of invasion were justified and so sought out all sources of information - while our three leaders had already made up their minds to go to war and any excuse was grist to their mill? It seems to me that our democracy is in sad decline when the one person who can decide that the country goes to war is so ill-informed.
Vicki Payne, The Age

My greatest concern about this whole affair is Mr Howard's lack of concern over not having been told important information. I realise one man cannot be across every minor detail; but this, and the discredited "children overboard" report before it, are not minor details. Surely he should be more concerned that there are other pieces of information of which he is not aware that may change his thinking? He seems more worried to protect his image than in finding out what else is being kept a secret.
Bob Graham, The Age

First it was the "children overboard" and now it is the intelligence doubts about Iraq's weapsons where John Howard was not fully notified. Does this make him the worst advised PM in Australia's history?
Emilio Bedin, The Age

Never has so little been known about so much by one man on so many crucial occasions.
Peter Russo, The Age

The latest revelations about the so-called misinformation the Prime Minister received about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction has resulted in me concluding that the PM has no understanding of the importance or implications of his position.

The simple facts are that he is the leader of our country and it is unacceptable that he should seek to distance himself from responsibility.

Whether he received the right advice is irrelevant. The simple principle of leadership, in my opinion, is that the "buck stops here". This is unequivocal ­ the responsibility is the Prime Minister's. Until the Prime Minister accepts that the ultimate responsibility is his, I will not be able to accept that he deserves respect as our leader.
Royden James, The Australian

Bush wasn't informed, Howard wasn't informed, Blair wasn't informed. Turn it up. Are we, the dumb masses, seriously expected to believe that government agencies around the world simultaneously had information regarding WMD, or lack thereof, but didn't bother to tell their leaders? Let's get it straight, if the department knows facts about a major issue, the Government knows. Simple. What they tell you after that is whatever variance of the truth best suits their agendas.
Stuart Loughton, The Australian

Intelligence? What intelligence? The constant string of cover-ups or admissions of error continue to flow from these intelligence agencies, the same agencies that did not pick up on the events leading to September 11 and October 12.

Also the same agencies that supplied the information for going to war with Iraq because it has WMD.

Now these same agencies are saying that there is enough evidence to warrant a blockade of North Korea because it is peddling WMD to terrorists.

How is it that these people still have a job? As a taxpayer my money and every other taxpayer's money is supporting people who are falling asleep at the wheel.
Tam Le, The Australian

I Am not surprised Mr Howard, that not only our own intelligence agencies have conveniently served you with the required misleading information, but also your cohorts Mr Bush and Mr Blair were coincidentally served the same.

I am not interested as to why the agencies of these three separate Western democracies have acted so, my heart provides the answer.

Neither is this scandal, as you state, blown out of proportion; I remind you that you were engaged in the business of justifying killings.

What is blown out of proportion is a Westminster system that provides for an unfettered executive discretion to wage war sans parliamentary check. Who do we blame if we hand over in trust to one male a loaded weapon?
Hisam Sidaoui, The Australian

Dear John: You know, as I know, that you knew. So let's stop all this ONAnism, hey?
Jim Forbes, The Australian

Today, former Liberal Party PM Malcolm Fraser has weighed in on the direction Howard is taking us with his article in The Age, "The end of our independence?":

It is clear The Australian Government has determined that Australia's interests will be best served by avoiding any argument with the US and supporting American policy. This change in Australian foreign policy is even more fundamental than the Government's announcements some weeks ago would indicate. It goes to the heart of what we are about as an independent nation. It raises more starkly than ever the question of identity and purpose.

Are we indeed able to stand for Australians who may need the protection of their nationality? The present answer is clear: not if such actions cut across relations with the United States.

Some would believe we are now a completely subservient ally. It is time Australians started to ask what additional interests we are going to forsake in our support of this present American Administration.

The US has become a fundamentalist regime, believing fervently that what it judges to be right is in fact right, and that others do not have anything much worthwhile to contribute. Such an America will not make friends.

The US is not prepared to comply with international law carefully drafted and supported by legal authorities from many countries. It is prepared to assert, and I believe to enforce, its law well beyond normal US jurisdiction, if America perceives this to be in its interests.

Do we really serve Australia's interests by such uncritical support and by such an apparent loss of our own sense of purpose and independence?

Allen Behm has written in The Australian, "How we got Iraq's WMDs wrong"

...the public service has been marginalised, neutered professionally and struck dumb by a Government averse to inconvenient counsel.

...perhaps ONA's lapse in professionalism and the seemingly tenuous policy advice provided by the policy departments is not the issue. The core issue is whether the flimsy patchwork of strategic, foreign policy and intelligence arguments concocted to support the decision to join "the coalition of the willing" reflected the Government's inability ­ or unwillingness ­ to deal with the politics of the relationship between the Howard Government and the Bush administration.

It is inconceivable that any modern prime minister could echo Robert Menzies in saying "Britain is at war, therefore Australia is at war" or Harold Holt in declaring "all the way with LBJ". Yet the Prime Minister's response to the September 11 terrorist attacks was at once profound, emotional and very political.

A good case might be made for supporting the "coalition of the willing" in terms of Australia's long-term political relationship with the Bush administration and, more broadly, the US as a whole. Such argument has yet to be put.

So, perhaps the real reason for the Prime Minister's leniency towards ONA is that its intelligence failure is, in effect, peripheral. A more plausible explanation for the continuing expressions of confidence in ONA and the intelligence collectors by senior ministers is that, like strategy and diplomacy, intelligence has no relevance to the political factors validating Australia's uncritical commitment to the strategic policies of the Bush administration.

That is where the Government's problem lies.

Labor is putting the pressure on. Simon Crean and Kevin Rudd know they have Johnny by his little-boy balls, but will they squeeze hard enough to make him cry "uncle"? It's not certain. Labor has shown for a number of years now that there is little reason for anyone to have faith in them.

Yet, it is inconceivable that "Children Overboard Mark II" will not bring John Howard down. The pattern of deceit which is Howard's hallmark is now so painfully clear for all to see. The influence that Howard has had over a majority of Australians can only be described as evil, in all of its gnashing, fulminating Biblical aspects. If there were any decent people associated with him at the beginning of his ruinous tenure, then he has surely destroyed them by now. Just look at the servile mob that sits on his side in Parliament. (Look at the "terminally tragic" figure of Philip Ruddock, the man who sold his soul to John Howard to become a Minister.) For seven long years they have cowered in the self-interested shadow of his electoral power, willingly turning their backs on ethics and principles. But watch them emerge from under their rocks as soon as the knife of public outrage starts to turn in his miserable gut. They will be forced to open their lily-livered mouths. Suddenly, like the obsequious vermin who have preceded them historically, they will start blurting that they were only following orders!

The stench of deceit coming from the intelligence scandal, will gain momentum until John Howard can no longer deflect opprobrium with his mind-numbing weasel words. He is on his way to a place in Australia's history books all right.

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