{"id":4988,"date":"2013-04-02T12:30:16","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T02:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=4988"},"modified":"2013-04-03T09:01:10","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T23:01:10","slug":"no-split-decision-on-iraq-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/no-split-decision-on-iraq-war\/","title":{"rendered":"No split decision on Iraq war"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the risk of testing the patience of Strategist<\/em> readers I think a brief reply is in order to Derek Woolner\u2019s post<\/a> on the Iraq war anniversary. A point of contention between Derek\u2019s post, Graeme Dobell\u2019s offerings (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) and my reply<\/a> has been about the role of the public service and the claim that key advisers were \u2018silent\u2019 in making the case against against the war. This seems to imply that there was a deep wellspring of opposition to the war in the public service and therefore a failure on the part of officials not to bring their opposition to the government\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

The reality of the situation is actually well captured by The Australian<\/em>\u2019s Paul Kelly in the article<\/a> cited by Derek. A few lines after Ashton Calvert\u2019s comments quoted by Derek we read:<\/p>\n

Calvert, who died in 2007, and [then Defence Secretary Ric] Smith made clear the current generation [of officials] had not opposed the war. Calvert said: “I personally was satisfied with their (Howard and Downer) strategic judgment on Australia\u2019s commitment.<\/p>\n

Mr Smith said: “I think the key officials involved felt an Australian commitment was right. I was not aware of any senior official advising against it in my time. We accepted the advice on WMD and understood the alliance\u2019s interests that were involved, although there was continuing concern about the state of planning for \u2018phase four\u2019 (after Saddam Hussein\u2019s fall).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There you have it. For good or ill\u2014and reasonable people can argue which\u2014the senior bureaucracy largely shared the government\u2019s strategic judgements about Iraq in February and March 2003.<\/p>\n

I am still left puzzled by what Graeme and Derek think the public service should have done if (contrary to the reality) there really was a strong official-level opposition to deploy forces. Public servants can resign if they find themselves unable to tolerate government policy, but in our political system fighting rear-guard actions against government decisions is neither professional nor acceptable.<\/p>\n

Derek\u2019s post then takes an unexpected turn, criticising the later deployment of ADF forces to al Muthunna for not finding ways to get into the combat action. I can well understand the enthusiasm of young officers to be involved in operations\u2014that\u2019s why many people join the ADF\u2014but it would be the height of irresponsibility for government\u2019s simply to look for ways to blood soldiers. I wouldn\u2019t call avoiding unnecessary combat \u2018institutional cowardice.\u2019 It\u2019s very much to the Army\u2019s and Defence\u2019s credit that they conducted that operation without any Australians killed in action. Our forces did an important job providing overwatch in a province that was far from safe and at the same time helped build a stronger relationship with Japan\u2019s Self-Defense Force by protecting their deployment. I call that a job well done.<\/p>\n

Peter Jennings is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the risk of testing the patience of Strategist readers I think a brief reply is in order to Derek Woolner\u2019s post on the Iraq war anniversary. 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