Australian PM Howard defiant over Iraq war involvement | ABC (Australia)

Howard defiant over Iraq war involvement


PM John Howard stands by his
decision to send troops to Iraq.
(ABC TV)

Prime Minister John Howard says he did the right thing in sending Australian troops to Iraq last year, despite new claims that the Gulf state did not have any so-called weapons of mass destruction at the time.

Chief weapons inspector David Kay quit last week, saying he believes Iraq probably got rid of its banned weapons some years ago.

And United States' Secretary of State Colin Powell has now conceded Saddam Hussein's regime may not have had any chemical or biological weapons when it was attacked.

But Mr Howard says he has no regrets about his decision to go to war.

More at ABC (Australia)

How is the public reacting in Australia to PM Howard's comments?

the Australian public doesn't give a shit. But that's basically because of 3 things:

1. We didn't lose any soldiers in the war (no injuries either, I think)

2. Nobody's told the public how much money this has (and will) cost.

3. When the international media talks about who misled the world, they blame Bush and Blair - Howard is never mentioned.

But I suspect Howard is finished this year anyway...the public is just tired of the old bastard.

An electoral defeat for a Prime Minister that can be tied to his support for Bush's war would be of great assistance to the effort to oust Bush here.

Bush is an international menace. We all must do our part to defeat him. Those who live in countries with governments that were complicit in Bush's war crimes must hold the guilty parties responsible.

More evidence of what an ignorant, pathetic, unscrupulous little man this guy is. The Australian public didn't believe in going to war the first time around and now that position has been justified, the fact that Howard still won't admit liability only angers me, and probably a significant number of other Australians.

The least he could do is express some "regret" over the number of innocent Iraqi's who have lost their lives, had their families torn apart and their homes and infrastructure destroyed. There have been no Australian casualties but he might also express some "regret" over the 500 American servicemen and women and the numerous British soldiers KIA. Perhaps he might also express some "regret" to the Australian people for deliberately lying to us, tarnishing our international reputation, putting our role within the UN in jeopardy, and making us certainly more of a terrorist target than we were before.

But that, of course, would require a shred of decency, which is far more than we can expect from "Honest" John.

All of these world mis-leaders will be taken care of forever by big corporations for their "brave" actions, they don't care what it means to their people or to the rest of the world.

Faux's Murdock made his millions by first conning Aussies before he moved to greener pastures of the US media. And if he has managed to gain influence over US politics, how much more influence must he have had in Aussie politics. It's payback time for the PM for the cause of the empire. Also, probably more than a little arm twisting from the pentagon because of "we saved you from Japanese invasion in WW2 so you better do this for us" coupled with existing military cooperation agreements - they've been having joint war game exercises for decades.

I'm sure that if any become "soft" they'll be placed in a cement
kimono...