As Australia deepens its military ties with the US and UK, calls are growing for an inquiry into Australia's involvement in the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago.
Credit:The 2016 Chilcot Inquiry found the UK government made the decision to go to war before peaceful options had been exhausted, had no post-invasion strategy, and did not adequately track the deaths of Iraqi civilians during the occupation.had deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by HusseinNo Chilcot equivalent has been undertaken in Australia.
“On the intel that I had, I was not convinced that there was certainty that the WMDs existed,” he said.Australia’s decision to invade Iraq was made without a vote in parliament, and recently-released documents show it was only briefly discussed by cabinet.“You can't make a more serious commitment than sending your troops to war. No commitment of that sort should be made without a parliamentary mandate,” Mr Crean said.
“The political dimension of it was explicitly excluded from those two inquiries, and this is fundamentally a political issue," he said. unveiling a deal under the AUKUS pact which could see taxpayers spend $368 billion on nuclear-powered submarinesMr Wilkie said the deal showed "we are locked into the US more than ever", and he remained concerned "that Australia refuses to carve out a more independent foreign and security policy".
“It is clear that mistakes were made in the course of the war, however, we should not be abandoning our strong alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom,” she told the Senate. "At a time in history when the drums of war are beating again, and those same forces are pushing us down a pathway towards conflict with China, it couldn't be more important to fully review the mistakes that drove us to war in Iraq."
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