From the Opening Plenary of the Now We The People conference, 23.8.03, University of Technology, Sydney

Andrew Wilkie

What a real pleasure it is to be invited here and to speak before a group of people who are so obviously concerned, who have a real interest in finding out what is going on in the world, and what they can do to improve it.

This is in marked contrast to my experience yesterday, where in response to my attempts to explore the gap between what the government said before the war and the reality of after the war, the government's defence was to attack me personally again, to call me a malcontent, to call me hysterical. Even in the committee itself, one of the government's attacks on me was to focus on the fact that I had approached the media four days before resigning from ONA, as though that in some way discredited my ethics or my motivation. I'm not quite sure what they were trying to achieve.

It says a lot about the government that when confronted with the need to explain themselves, they continue to play the man and not the ball. It makes me think that they can't explain themselves, they can't explain the fact that we were sold the invasion of a sovereign state without UN backing, on the basis of that state having a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, or cooperating actively with the Al-Qaeda, and of the need to take immediate military action to resolve the issue. But yet the reality is that no large arsenal has been found and whatever will be found will in no way satisfy the Prime Minister's description.

It will be far more valuable and useful for this country if instead of attacking those who criticise it, the government sought to explain in a sensible and honest way why there is such a gap between their justification for the war and what we all now know for sure.
Enough of that. I've been asked to talk about things more to do with Australia and the US. I will offer some very brief thoughts on my perspective of the US strategic outlook. It may provide a useful backdrop for discussions that take place later today and tomorrow.

Please understand that I am not anti-American. I like the United States of America. I like Americans. I think we have a wonderful shared history and a lot of common values. My concern is with the reckless Bush Administration and where he is taking the United States.

It is very important to start my strategic overview by talking of the significance of 9 / 11. It was the terrible terrorist attacks of 9 / 11 that unleashed in the United States a real anger, a real desire to get even, to lash out at someone or something. More importantly though, it unleashed a terrible sense of vulnerability in the US, and a desire to deal with anyone or anything hat made them feel vulnerable. The problem then was the way that this anger and vulnerability was hijacked by the Bush Administration, and more broadly by those right wing elements in the United States. Remember, by 9 / 11, some people in the US felt that they had walked away, or turned the cheek, or not really won in Korea, Viet Nam, Lebanon, Somalia and so on. So 9 / 11 for some people was the final straw. They decided that it was time to deal with all that unfinished business, and all the things that made them feel vulnerable. It was tapped - not so much by the likes of Bush, who I think is a stupid and dangerous man - it was tapped by the highly intelligent and dangerous men and women who surround him, people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who are manipulating Bush to take the United States where they want to go.

The changed circumstances in the US post 9 / 11, and the US's response to it, were articulated very well in the document called The National Security of the United States of America, dated September 2002. I suspect many of you have read it. If not I suggest you get it on the web and have a read. It is not a big document. That lays out very clearly the US's current security strategy and its intention to defeat threats, based on a distinctly American internationalism. It lays down quite clearly the US's current doctrine of preemption and unilateralism, wherever and whenever required. The war in Afghanistan clearly reflected that new US security policy, the war on Iraq less so.

No one knows what the future holds. We certainly don't know what future US moves are going to be. But it seems to me that the mess in Iraq is set to overshadow US security policy for the foreseeable future. People in the US, including among the right wing, are genuinely shocked at the mess they have now created, genuinely shocked that the Iraqi people did not greet them with open arms as liberators, that there now is a true guerrilla war, that it has become a magnet for foreign fighters as was the case with Afghanistan against the Soviets. They are genuinely shocked too that for all of their know-how, their military is actually too small for what they want to achieve around the world. They have now got just short of 150,000 soldiers in Iraq, and they know that they need more. Of course, the number of troops in their military has been shrinking since the end of the Cold War. They are in a real bind and they know it.

This helps to explain why the US Administration is treading much more cautiously with Iran and North Korea. Certainly there is an increased awareness in the United States that they are powerful enough to win a war, but they need broad international support to win a peace.

In this environment, the United Nations is looking much more credible and much more important again, which is wonderful news for all of us who were so worried at the damage done to the UN in the lead-up to the war. I would go so far as to say that the UN Security Council's inability to agree on a war for reasons which have since been found to have been discredited was the Security Council's finest moment.

Richard Armitage was in Canberra this week. He summed up in a meeting that the US would be in really serious trouble if the situation in Iraq wasn't improved within 12 months. He said that before the tragic bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. For what it's worth, my perspective on the prospects for Iraq over the next 12 months is that it will get no better, and may in fact get a whole lot worse. The violence is obviously broad-based. It is not just the remnants of Saddam's regime. How ironic it is that foreign fighters and probably terrorists are now being drawn into Iraq when defeating terrorism was one of the justifications for the war. You genuinely reap what you sow, don't you?

In fact, on March 13, when I addressed my first peace rally - wasn't that an experience - I said then that the US risks forcing Saddam and Al-Qaeda closer together, and a version of that has come to pass. There will be no improvement in Iraq until the US presence is significantly diminished, until genuine self-rule is in place, and the lot of the average Iraqi has improved considerably. The current campaign against infrastructure and soft targets, as tragic as it is, from the perpetrators' point of view is probably a brilliant strategy. They know it and they will keep doing it.
Of course, all this could change if Bush loses the next election, which is quite possible. Given the quite significant and increasing doubts in America about the cause for the war, the mounting casualties, the staggering costs - all against the backdrop of a weak US economy. Hopefully his successor at the next election will be less reckless. But the deep-seated sense of vulnerability in the US will ensure that any future US Administration for the foreseeable future will be forced to take a strong position on homeland security.

Of course, the US can't walk away from Iraq. It can't do what the US did in Viet Nam, and grow tired and walk away. They now control all that oil and they can't walk away. They are stuck for the foreseeable future. I can't see a scenario where the US can withdraw its military forces.

Prime Minister Howard will continue to tag along blindly, though he will be careful to continue to minimise his exposure, as he did in Iraq. Lots of strutting the world stage, lots of talk, small force, get it out really quickly.

I fully support the decision to help the Solomon Islands. I don't criticise that in any way. But I just think the timing was cute. The problem has been there for years. Places like the Office of National Assessments have been highlighting the problem of failing states in the Pacific for years, but didn't it work out convenient that it happened right now, and gave John Howard the perfect excuse not to live up to his obligations in Iraq.

There are a number of curved balls in the foreseeable future. The next terrorist attack, and there will be one, and it could involve Australian interests. It is just a matter of time. What will be important is how the US responds to that. Of course, we have a problem in dealing with our security problems now, because the US is less credible, and because our government is less credible.
I caused a bit of a stir yesterday when I said amongst other things that the government lied every time it said or implied that I was not senior enough or appropriately placed in ONA to know what I was talking about. The government lied every time it skewed, misrepresented, used selectively, and fabricated the Iraq story. The government lied when the Prime Minister's office told the media I was mentally unstable. The government lied when it associated Iraq with the Bali bombing. And the government lied every time it associated Iraq with the war on terror. It was comments like that which the Foreign Minister found hysterical.
I will leave you to decide.

Andrew Wilkie was an analyst with the Office of National Assessments. He resigned in early March 2003 in protest in protest at the Howard government's committment to the invasion of Iraq.

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