Democrats warn Govt to stay out of Iraqi war
URL:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2002/12/item20021222002302_1.htm
The Australian Democrats are urging Australia to stay out of any war on Iraq, saying we have become too closely tied to the United States.
Democrats leader and defence spokesman Andrew Bartlett says the Australian Government should concentrate its military resources closer to home.
Senator Bartlett says Prime Minister John Howard's decision not to allow a parliamentary vote before any decision on sending troops was arrogant.
He says Australia could be at war before Parliament sits again in February.
"Certainly I think there's a lot of concern across the community about (it) becoming more imminent but also that Australia's involvement in it is basically being dictated by the decision that the United States Government is going to make," he said.
Senator Bartlett says Australia's resources are needed to ensure security closer to home.
"Any resources in the military or defence or intelligence arena should be focused in our own area, where the threat is obviously very real and very direct," he said.
"We also believe if there's going to be any form of commitment of Australian troops that it should be considered and debated by the Parliament as a whole before any decision is made."
Intelligence
The United States is to provide UN weapons inspectors with intelligence on Iraqi weapons.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the information-sharing plan on Thursday.
"With respect to providing them additional forms of support, that would make the inspection effort perhaps more targeted and effective," Mr Powell said.
"We are prepared to start doing that," he said.
"That process has started," a US government official told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.
Mr Powell's decision was an about-face on previous US secrecy, which had been repeatedly criticised by chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix.
"The most important thing that governments like the US or the UK could give us would be to tell us the sites where they are convinced that they keep some weapons of mass destruction," Dr Blix said in an interview with the BBC on Friday.
"This is what we want to have."
The United States and Britain, the two countries pushing most strongly for a hard line towards Iraq, say Baghdad is in "material breach" of the latest UN disarmament resolution, a term widely interpreted as a pretext for war.
"Should we ever use the military, it will be the full force and might of the United States military, as well as others joining with us, and the idea will be to disarm (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein," Mr Bush said in an interview in the latest edition of US News and World Report.
"And obviously that would include, if (Saddam) chooses not to disarm, it would include his removal," he said.
Saddam has denied that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction.
Asked in the BBC interview on Friday about what access his inspectors had been given to US and British intelligence, Dr Blix said: "Not very much, not yet. I hope we will and now that we are in full operation. I hope it will come."
"They have the methods to listen to telephone conversations, they have spies, satellites ... they have a lot of sources which we don't have."
Washington has rebuffed such criticisms for weeks, saying its first priority was to protect its sources and secondly it wanted time to thoroughly evaluate Iraq's arms declaration handed to the United Nations two weeks ago.
"We won't have any sources and methods if, around the world, people think the United States is willing to just share sources and methods everywhere," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Friday.
Evidence
While the United States and Britain have repeatedly claimed to have evidence of Iraqi programs to build weapons of mass destruction, more than four weeks of arms inspections in Iraq have turned up little hard evidence.
Washington's about-face comes as it is trying to garner international opinion against Iraq and toward a military strike to forcibly remove these weapons of mass destruction.
US media reported that intelligence could be transmitted to the United Nations as early as this weekend, as the international organisation has beefed up its internal security to avoid security breaches.
According to The New York Times, Washington will share mostly satellite pictures of locales where US intelligence believes Iraq has been developing chemical and biological weapons taken by spy satellites.
The photos are more detailed and of a higher quality of those Washington has already shared, an official told the daily on the condition of anonymity, adding that information was to be sent to both the UN weapons inspectors in New York and the nuclear teams based out of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
Washington seems to have learned a lesson from the inspections following the 1991 Gulf War.
The inspections were plagued by a series of leaks, from which, Washington said, Iraq could have benefited.
"The sharing will happen," one official told The Washington Post.
"But (intelligence officials) just don't want to screw up what (assets) they have there." |
