By John Hewson, Dean of The Macquarie Graduate School of Management.
Sydney - Monday - February 10: (RWE) - While there is no doubt that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a monstrous dictator, I doubt that he's an idiot. His credentials as a monster are unquestioned. As we were reminded in the parliamentary debate this week, Hussein has without provocation invaded Iran and Kuwait, fired missiles at Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain and Qatar, bullied, threatened and extorted Syria, Jordan and the Gulf states, supported Palestinian suicide bombers and certain terrorist organisations, and has apparently continued to develop and hide weapons of mass destruction, which at times he has used against his own people. But I doubt he's just sitting there watching the US, with the support of others, manipulate US and world opinion in support of an invasion of his country, with or without UN sanction. Yet, to a very large extent, the almost saturation media coverage of the potential invasion of Iraq rarely recognises that perhaps Hussein has a strategy of his own. One of the most important, yet constantly avoided, questions in the so-called Australian debate about our involvement in the committed invasion of Iraq concerns the precise nature of our terms of engagement. Exactly what risks will our troops and aircraft face? This surely depends importantly on how Hussein reacts to the committed invasion. Most of the media seem to believe that the committed invasion of Iraq will result in a clean, quick war, if you can have such a thing. That is, that the US, with our without the backing of others, will simply find Hussein, kill him, thereby achieving the desired regime change, and move on. Return to life as normal. Indeed, one or our leading foreign editors, Greg Sheridan, this week made a specific prediction: "A swift liberation of Iraq will see public opinion come around and the Howard government vindicated." I hope he's right. Perhaps the might of America will easily swamp whatever is put in its way. Yet with all the hoopla about the accuracy of the US precision bombing in the Gulf War, which dominated our television screens nightly, by choice or otherwise, Saddam Hussein is still alive. What is Hussein's strategy? I'm keen to see the question addressed and debated, especially in the context of the increasingly enthusiastic embracing of invasion. The only mention of Hussein's strategy in Prime Minister John Howard's parliamentary speech this week was by reference to "his ambition to dominate his region". The supposition is that, in part, he wants to take substantial control of the world oil supply. Interestingly, Howard said this week that it was "outrageous" to claim that US behaviour was driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves! Simplistically, isn't it possible that a principal strategic objective of Hussein is to engage the US directly in the Middle East rather than indirectly as an unquestioning backer of Israel? In such circumstances, won't Hussein try to make it as difficult and costly a war as possible for the invaders? Won't he make them fight in the streets of Baghdad, potentially killing thousands of innocents? Further, if Hussein does have a significant arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, won't he use them in response to any invasion, not only against the US troops but perhaps firing them on Israel and other neighbours? While we all hope that it could be a quick and clean war, isn't the downside risk that of a full-blown Middle East war? Won't it be necessary to rebuild Iraq and have to maintain a presence there for a considerable time to preserve the new-found government, and the new-found peace and the refugee problem? Australia's problem is that we are already in this conflict up to our necks. Despite Howard's assurances, I sincerely doubt that you can deploy Australian forces and participate in "contingency planning" with the US military and then just pull them out when the invasion begins. Surely we should have publicly debated the risks we face. Surely the government should have demonstrated that it is clearly in our national interest to be part of a war in the Middle East, rather than working in other ways, through other channels, to contain the development of weapons of mass destruction and potential activities of rogue states. So far, Hussein has successfully divided the world, Are we being suckered? Source: The Australian Financial Review
