There are common features of George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard. Each has patently lied about the reasons for going into the Iraq War - and many would argue, cogently and with a true basis for saying so, that each of the 3 men can be characterised as war criminals for their actions.
John Howard, Australian PM at the time of the invasion of Iraq - and if ever there was a toady to the USA he was one, alongside the chameleon Tony Blair - is now attempting to explain away, and defend himself, for any fault on his part in being involved in the attack on Iraq. It's all rather delusional of course.......
"Former prime minister John Howard has hotly rejected the claim that he led Australia into the 2003 Iraq war on the basis of a lie.
Mr Howard said the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the allied invasion was ''unexpected'' and that some of the key assessments of Western intelligence agencies proved wrong.
But he told the Lowy Institute in Sydney, in a speech marking the 10th anniversary of the conflict, that this was a ''world away from those [intelligence] assessments being the product of deceit and/or political manipulation.'' Mr Howard said the belief that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD's was ''near universal'' at the time.
He said the bloody conflict between Sunni and Shiites which broke out in Iraq after the war ''did more damage in my judgment to the credibility of the coalition operation … than the failure to find stockpiles of WMDs''. The circumstances of the time, he said, ''necessitated a 100 per cent ally, not a 70 or 80 per cent one''.
Mr Howard said it was ''implausible'' to think the overthrow of Saddam had ''no relationship of any kind'' to the recent Arab Spring. He acknowledged the close relationship with the US was key to his government's decision to go into Iraq, saying, ''There was a sense then that a common way of life was under threat.''
John Howard, Australian PM at the time of the invasion of Iraq - and if ever there was a toady to the USA he was one, alongside the chameleon Tony Blair - is now attempting to explain away, and defend himself, for any fault on his part in being involved in the attack on Iraq. It's all rather delusional of course.......
"Former prime minister John Howard has hotly rejected the claim that he led Australia into the 2003 Iraq war on the basis of a lie.
Mr Howard said the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the allied invasion was ''unexpected'' and that some of the key assessments of Western intelligence agencies proved wrong.
But he told the Lowy Institute in Sydney, in a speech marking the 10th anniversary of the conflict, that this was a ''world away from those [intelligence] assessments being the product of deceit and/or political manipulation.'' Mr Howard said the belief that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD's was ''near universal'' at the time.
He said the bloody conflict between Sunni and Shiites which broke out in Iraq after the war ''did more damage in my judgment to the credibility of the coalition operation … than the failure to find stockpiles of WMDs''. The circumstances of the time, he said, ''necessitated a 100 per cent ally, not a 70 or 80 per cent one''.
Mr Howard said it was ''implausible'' to think the overthrow of Saddam had ''no relationship of any kind'' to the recent Arab Spring. He acknowledged the close relationship with the US was key to his government's decision to go into Iraq, saying, ''There was a sense then that a common way of life was under threat.''
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