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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 3546 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

Concern about a potential war against Iraq has been voiced by many people in recent weeks. There have been calls by former Australian prime ministers, former US presidents, senior security experts in both countries, the leaders of almost all nations, leaders of churches, many Islamic community leaders and the majority of the Australian public.

We have seen community rallies opposing a war on Iraq in all capital cities of Australia, including a rally held here in Canberra in Garema Place in late September. More rallies are being planned. The next one is planned for 30 November outside the US Embassy. A recent opinion poll commissioned by SBS shows that 50 per cent of Australians are against military action against Iraq. It should be noted that the strongest opposition comes from those over the age of 50, including those who have lived through wars.

The ACT is a small jurisdiction. We do not have the power to block the actions of a war-mongering US President. But we can continue to apply pressure to our own Prime Minister not to follow the US down this path to war.

Recent events in Bali have certainly affected the Australian psyche. National security is an issue that we are all concerned about. Bringing the terrorists to justice must be a priority. But we should not confuse the issues. There has been no link established between the Bali bombings or the tragedy of September 11 and Iraqi nationals. In fact, Iraq's past terrorist links have been primarily limited to secular groups in Palestine.

In the early 1980s the US dropped Iraq from its list of countries that supported terrorism in order to support Iraq's own war effort against Iran. Iraq was only reinstated to this list after the invasion of Kuwait, despite a lack of evidence of increased ties to terrorism. A recent CIA report indicates that the Iraqis have been consciously avoiding any actions against the US or its facilities abroad.

The American obsession with Iraq's potential threat to the Middle East region during the past decade is weakened by the fact that Iraq's military, and its real and potential weapons of mass destruction, were significantly stronger in the late 1980s than they are today. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was once a real threat when he had his full complement of medium-range missiles, a functioning air force and a massive stockpile of chemical and biological weaponry and materiel. But today, in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent inspections regimes, virtually any aggressive military potential by Iraq has been destroyed.

Before the United Nations special commission was withdrawn, its agents reportedly oversaw the destruction of 38,000 chemical weapons, 480,000 litres of live chemical weapon agents, 48 missiles, six missile launchers, 30 missile warheads modified to carry chemical or biological agents, and hundreds of pieces of related equipment with the capability to produce chemical weapons.

Iraq's current armed forces are barely one-third their prewar strength. The navy is virtually non-existent, and the air force is just a fraction of what it was before the war. Military spending by Iraq is barely one-tenth of its levels in the 1980s, while here in Australia we see spending on the defence force increase by the day.

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