{"id":23273,"date":"2015-11-09T06:00:57","date_gmt":"2015-11-08T19:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=23273"},"modified":"2015-11-06T16:54:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T05:54:16","slug":"iraq-lessons-the-howard-fib","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/iraq-lessons-the-howard-fib\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq lessons: the Howard fib"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/a><\/p>\n

John Howard\u2019s decision to go to war in Iraq was constructed on a fib.<\/p>\n

The fib was used repeatedly throughout 2002 and almost to the very start of the invasion in 2003. The fib was that Australia still had an open mind on going to war. The Prime Minister\u2019s fib was that Australia was weighing all the options and had yet to commit to a US-led invasion.<\/p>\n

Even at the time it was used, the fib was transparent. In the history of the open secret, the Iraq fib is a fine example.<\/p>\n

Use the word \u2018fib\u2019 instead of \u2018lie.\u2019 This is a political distinction (not to be tried when disciplining children or giving evidence under oath).<\/p>\n

The fib in its political garb is designed to conceal or avoid the whole truth. There\u2019s a bit of truth within the fib but the assertion isn\u2019t wholly true. The fib is the politics-as-usual version of \u2018being economical with the truth<\/a>.\u2019 Neither a bent untruth nor a straight lie\u2014many shades of shadiness.<\/p>\n

The bit of truth in the fib is that if Saddam Hussein had totally and abjectly surrendered\u2014fully revealed that he had no Weapons of Mass Destruction\u2014Australia would, indeed, embrace the option not to go to war.<\/p>\n

Short of that, Australia was all in. And committed. Contemplate the neocon fervour of Bush and the boys in 2002 after the successful invasion of Afghanistan. Saddam\u2019s history and his weak and confused signals of compliance showed how hard it would be to get Washington to take Iraq\u2019s \u2018yes\u2019 for an answer. This was a war of choice that the Bush White House embraced. Australia\u2019s embrace was less enthusiastic but it was early and ardent.<\/p>\n

Now, examine the fib. We know it was a fib because John Howard tells us so. Howard’s brisk chapter on\u00a0Iraq\u00a0in his\u00a0autobiography makes explicit<\/a> the lack of any question, or much debate, about Australia joining the US in the war.<\/p>\n

Australia didn\u2019t keep its options open. It didn’t even explore the options. No questions asked of the US. No internal questions asked in Australia. Howard is explicit in exposing the fib without regret or repentance.<\/p>\n

The book recounts the White House talks in June 2002, where George W Bush understood that Howard \u2018would keep my options open until the time when a final decision was needed.\u2019 But the ‘tenor’ of Howard’s comments to Bush meant the US knew it could rely on Australia’s military commitment.<\/p>\n

The Australian Defence Force planners working with the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, through 2002 couldn’t have had too many doubts about Australia’s commitment to the Iraq invasion they were helping to devise.<\/p>\n

The \u2018tenor\u2019 of that White House deal was a Howard military promise that had already been clearly signalled by Canberra. Open secret, indeed. The pledge wasn\u2019t, however, the story Howard gave Australia all the way to the invasion on 20 March, 2003. For the whole time, Howard told Australia the \u2018options open\u2019 version.<\/p>\n

The fib was that Australia had the option of stepping back and not joining an American invasion. For Howard, the opt-out option was untenable\u2014almost unthinkable. But the public version was that Australia was thinking hard about the opt-out option. In fact, options were not explored or called for because such work might have produced dangerous negative answers, exposing the fib to dark truths.<\/p>\n

In reading Howard\u2019s autobiography, published in 2010,\u00a0note how the calculations required by that long-gone fib<\/a> still throb. See this in a characteristic bit of Howard caution in the use of language. Many years of listening to\u00a0John Howard as prime minister and closely parsing his transcripts can produce a habit of mind that notes what is avoided or redefined as well as what is said.<\/p>\n

Thus, Howard writes of the decision to join the US and Britain \u2018in the military operation against Saddam Hussein\u2019 or \u2018taking out Saddam’s regime\u2019. The word \u2018war\u2019 doesn’t appear.\u00a0Rather than invading Iraq, in the Howard telling the allies decide \u2018to go into Iraq.\u2019 By the end of the Iraq chapter, Howard can manage ‘invasion’ a couple of times while still preferring his \u2018go into\u2019 formulation, but he can’t use that \u2018w\u2019 word.<\/p>\n

Whether you prefer to call Howard\u2019s approach a fib, an open secret or politics-as-usual, it had a big impact in Canberra and an influence across Australia.<\/p>\n

The fib miasma held the government together, sidelined the public service and provided a fig leaf of cover as Australian public opinion turned decisively against the Iraq war. Next, the effects of the fib\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Howard\u2019s decision to go to war in Iraq was constructed on a fib. The fib was used repeatedly throughout 2002 and almost to the very start of the invasion in 2003. The fib was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":23274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1056,1539,191,509,1236],"class_list":["post-23273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-bilateral-relations","tag-george-w-bush","tag-iraq","tag-john-howard","tag-saddam-hussein"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIraq lessons: the Howard fib | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/iraq-lessons-the-howard-fib\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Iraq lessons: the Howard fib | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Howard\u2019s decision to go to war in Iraq was constructed on a fib. 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