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Updated analysis on my recent story on the SAS secret preemptive war in Iraq, March 18-20 2003 ( first appears on Tony Kevin’s website, 26 January 2004)
Today, on Australia Day 2004, I update this important story and offer further analysis of it. I apologise for its length and painstaking exposition, but I wanted to offer a very clear analysis of the facts. Three noteworthy things have happened since my first articles (published January 17 2004, in ‘SMH’ and ‘The Age’ – both texts are on my website):
Below I offer more analysis and questions about this continuing important national story.
But first, here are the letters:
"Sydney Morning Herald" Letters to the Editor, January 21 2004: Not before time Tony Kevin's article contains errors of fact ("Secrets and allies", Spectrum, January 17-18). The Prime Minister announced on March 18, 2003, the Government's decision to commit the Australian Defence Force to coalition operations in Iraq. From that time the ADF was under operational command. No Australian Special Services Regiment troops were in Iraq before the Prime Minister's announcement. Robert Hill, Minister for Defence, Canberra, January 19.
"Sydney Morning Herald", Letters to the Editor, January 22 2004: Hill's claim challenged It is the Defence Minister, Robert Hill, who is in error about the facts of Australia's secret pre-emptive war in Iraq (Letters, January 20). John Howard's "commitment" of the ADF to coalition operations on March 18 conveyed Australia's support for the 48-hour ultimatum by George Bush to Saddam Hussein to stand down. Mr Howard announced he was committing Australian forces to the coalition "for possible future action". He said Australian forces were ready to take part in any US-led coalition operation "that may take place in the future". Two days later, on March 20, just after the ultimatum by Mr Bush expired, Mr Howard announced that "today marks the first indication of our active involvement", and pledged "our forces will operate in accordance with the laws of war". These words are on public record. Yet it was during those 48 hours - from March 18 to 20 - that the SAS attacked inside Iraq, having put advance units in place for these long-planned covert operations. This was highly questionable warmaking. Now, Senator Hill claims implausibly it was legitimised by Howard's announcement on March 18. This claim needs to be thoroughly tested, for the sake of the ADF's honour. Tony Kevin, Canberra, January 21.
"The Age", Letters to the Editor, January 22 2004: Troops and Iraq Tony Kevin's article (Opinion, 17/1) contains errors of fact. The
Prime Minister announced on March 18, 2003, the Government's decision
to commit the Australian Defence Force to coalition operations in
Iraq. >From that time, the defence force was under operational command.
No Australian Special Air Services regiment troops were in Iraq prior
to the announcement. Robert Hill, Minister for Defence, Canberra
"The Age" Letters to the Editor, January 26 2004: A secret pre-emptive war Defence Minister Robert Hill (Letters, 22/1) claims I am in error ( Opinion,17/1) about the facts of Australia's secret pre-emptive war in Iraq from March 18 to 20. But this is what John Howard said on public record. He announced on March 18, signifying his support for George Bush's announced 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam to stand down, that he was committing Australian forces to the coalition "for possible future action". Howard said our forces were ready to take part in any US-led coalition operation "that may take place in the future". Australia's declared "commitment" to war came two days later on March 20, just after Bush's ultimatum expired, when Howard announced: "Today marks the first indication of our active involvement." He pledged: "Our forces will operate in accordance with the laws of war." March 20 signified the public start of Australia's war in Iraq, Operation Falconer. Yet we know now that in those intervening 48 hours from March 18 to 20, our SAS had attacked in force inside western Iraq, having prepositioned advance units in place for these long-planned covert coalition operations. Now Hill claims that this pre-emptive attack was legal under Howard's
first announcement of March 18. His claim needs public testing, in
terms of the Australian Defence Force's honour and precedents for
future ADF practice. Tony Kevin, Canberra
Further analysis
Defence Minister Hill’s rebuttal letters give a new twist to the story. Hill now claims that the ADF were – presumably, legally and properly - "under operational command", as a result of the Prime Minister’s announcement on March 18 2003 of "the Government's decision to commit the Australian Defence Force to coalition operations in Iraq". But in that time period, the Australian Parliament and public were certainly not being given such information. This first Howard announcement on March 18 was made almost simultaneously with George Bush’s announced 48 hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to step down. Between the Prime Minister’s first and second announcements, between March 18 and March 20, there were no ADF briefings given on any Australian military operations yet taking place in Iraq. As far as we all knew, the war had not started yet. The first ADF military briefing (see below) was on March 20, about one hour after the Prime Minister’s announcement that "today marks the first indication of our active involvement". Neither Howard nor the ADF briefing on this day said anything to indicate that the ADF’s war had in truth already started 1 ½ days before. In his March 20 statement, Howard invited the media to attend the regular military briefings that were now starting: "From now on, though I will obviously comment regularly on the whole issue including some general aspects of the military operations, there will be a regular military briefing at 11.00 am each day, and I think it’s highly desirable that the detailed operational matters be dealt with by the military spokesmen."
Here in extenso are the opening words of ADF Brigadier Mike Hannan’s first military briefing to the media, on March 20, on "Operation Falconer" ( the full text including Q and A is on a Defence Media Release of Thursday, 20 March 2003 200303/03, "Transcript, Media Briefing, Australia’s commitment to Global Operations, Thursday 20 March 2003"). HANNAN: "And so we begin. Operation Falconer is the name given to the ADF contribution to the coalition to disarm Iraq. These briefings will be given regularly throughout the operation. The frequency will depend on the tempo of operations, however we will tend to provide briefings even when there's not too much new information, so that at least there's an opportunity for you to ask questions and of course so there's an opportunity for us to distribute any new vision. It's likely we'll move to daily briefings when that becomes appropriate. In addition, the ADF will join our coalition partners and provide operations briefings in the Middle East area of operations once operations get under underway, and that will be the major source of release of tactical information about what's happening in the area. Let me begin this briefing by bringing you up to date with events over the last few days from the ADF perspective. After the government decided to commit those ADF elements already deployed to the Middle East to operations to disarm Iraq, the Chief of the Defence Force issued the necessary orders to the forces deployed in the Gulf. The orders provide the legal authority for the tactical commanders to respond to the coalition tactical commanders who would control operations. The CDF has also issued an order of the day advising the ADF of the new situation. It's worth restating at the outset that our forces, although they could respond to coalition tactical commanders, remain under Australian national command and that of Brigadier Maurie McNarn And they would not undertake any operational activity without his approval. Now this system of command ensures that Australian forces continue to carry out tasks that are consistent with the Australian government policy, and of course with the ADF's legal responsibilities."
Seen in retrospect, Hannan’s statement here is carefully crafted. It does not lie – it does not actually say there had been no ADF fighting before March 20. Yet there is nothing in it to suggest that Australia’s SAS had already been at war for 1 ½ days inside Iraq. As with the Prime Minister’s two statements, the commonsense reading of Hannan’s statement was that Australia’s war was starting "today" – March 20.
Note again some key phrases in Hannan’s statement:
"And so we begin. Operation Falconer is the name given to the ADF contribution to the coalition to disarm Iraq. These briefings will be given regularly throughout the operation." - Suggesting that Operation Falconer was starting on this day, March 20 2003
"…the ADF will join our coalition partners and provide operations briefings in the Middle East area of operations once operations get under underway …" - A clear inference that ADF military operations had not yet started
"Let me begin this briefing by bringing you up to date with events over the last few days from the ADF perspective. After the government decided to commit those ADF elements already deployed to the Middle East to operations to disarm Iraq, the Chief of the Defence Force issued the necessary orders to the forces deployed in the Gulf. The orders provide the legal authority for the tactical commanders to respond to the coalition tactical commanders who would control operations". - This language is very important now. It is consistent with Hill’s letter of rebuttal claiming that the legal authority to start Australia’s war came out of Howard’s March 18 statement. We know, from one media report, that Cabinet met to discuss Iraq just before Howard’s March 18 statement – presumably, Cabinet at that meeting approved secret war directives to ADF.
Yet to most Australians at the time, the meaning of both Howard’s and Hannan’s briefings on March 20 was that Australia’s war in Iraq was starting only on that day, March 20 . There is something highly sleazy about such elaborate verbal sleights-of-hand on the part of Howard and Hannan then, and now Hill nine months later . It is the carnival three-card trick – "now you see it, now you don’t". Has Australia ever announced it was going to war in such a tricky, underhand way ? I am sure not. It leaves me with a sense of shame. Australia went into this war like a gang of carnival tricksters.
Hill – in saying now, quite openly, that the government’s authority to ADF to start fighting was given on March 18 2003, and in thus tacitly – though not yet in words – admitting my claim that the SAS did start to fight a few hours after that March 18 statement, has fatally undercut Howard’s and Hannan’s firm indications to the public on March 20 that Australia’s war was starting on March 20. So does Hill’s rebuttal letter put Howard in the clear? No, it does not. In fact, it puts Howard deeper in the mire, by further exposing the deceit of what the Australian government did in those two days March 18-20 2003. The Howard Government may now, as Hill has done, try to claim that it is legally covered by military orders secretly issued by the government to the ADF on March 18 2003, that authorised them to start fighting under Operation Falconer as part of the allied coalition to disarm Iraq . See Hill and Hannan quotations above.
But the first basic problem with this defence is that nobody told the enemy at the time. Iraqi soldiers didn’t know Australia was at war with them, until our soldiers – under orders - ambushed them and started killing them in large numbers in surprise attacks in Western Iraq. Wasn’t there something in the traditional rules of honourable warfare that when Australians "declare war", we are actually supposed to tell the enemy this ? That our government does not just put its authorisation of warfare into secret orders, only to be admitted under pressure nine months later ?
Secondly, nobody told the Australian Parliament and public at the time either. We were all carefully led to believe that we were in an ultimatum period – that war still might be prevented if Saddam fled Iraq.
Let me ask a relevant hypothetical question here – suppose that Saddam Hussein had obeyed Bush’s ultimatum and fled Baghdad by March 20, suppose Iraq had conceded everything Bush wanted at that point without offering military resistance. Where would that have left the prior Australian military attacks already underway in Western Iraq ? As legal acts of warfare ? I don’t think so. These preemptive actions would have then been most embarrassingly exposed as dishonourable Australian preemptive attacks in an anticipated war that did not happen. Howard and Hill would have had a lot of explaining to do. – especially if any Australians had been killed or wounded in that preemptive fighting. Fortunately for Howard and Hill and the ADF command, Saddam ignored the ultimatum. Bush’s war duly started on March 20 with the "decapitation" air raid on Baghdad. And the SAS’s pre-emptive attacks were quietly merged into the war proper. Another stroke of luck for John Howard. Now Hill has left Howard and the ADF with a fine tangle to unpick. How will they retrospectively validate the Australian fighting between March 18 and 20? Truly, this question matters – unless we want our ADF to be misused in this way again, possibly with less successful results next time. If Opposition Senators care to take this matter up, it would now provide a rich vein for questioning in the next round of Defence and PM and C Senate estimates.
Declaration: In making this research public, I am not in any way impugning the integrity of the men and women soldiers of Australia’s SAS. Whatever they did in Western Iraq, they would have done under military orders which they would have understood at the time to be correct and lawful. My questions are to the people up the line who gave and transmitted those orders, and to their political masters. Somebody at senior ADF, Defence Department or Ministerial level, should have said at the time – "this is not right". Nobody did. We are in familiar SIEV X territory again This story, like SIEV X, will not go away. It is another sleazy Howard government secret, of the misuse of Australia’s military and national security forces, and it is in the course of being exposed.
Tony Kevin, Canberra 26 January 2004
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