http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20817682-601,00.html
Iraq a moral blunder, says war hero
Patrick Walters, National security editor
25nov06
THE former SAS officer who devised and executed the Iraq war plan for
Australia's special forces says that the nation's involvement has been
a strategic and moral blunder.
Peter Tinley, who was decorated for his military service in Afghanistan
and Iraq, has broken ranks to condemn the Howard Government over its
handling of the war and has called for an immediate withdrawal of
Australian troops.
"It was a cynical use of the Australian Defence Force by the
Government," the ex-SAS operations officer told The Weekend Australian
yesterday.
"This war duped the Australian Defence Force and the Australian people
in terms of thinking it was in some way legitimate."
As the lead tactical planner for Australia's special forces in the US
in late 2002, Mr Tinley was in a unique position to observe
intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and the
coalition's military preparations in the lead-up to the war.
Mr Tinley, 44, who retired from the army last year after a
distinguished 25-year career, said the US-led coalition had been naive
in its thinking about what it could achieve after a quick military
invasion of Iraq.
"They never had enough troops to fully lock down the major centres and
infrastructure or the borders," he said.
In Iraq in 2003, Mr Tinley served as deputy commander for the
550-strong joint special forces task group that took control of western
Iraq.
Part of his command was 1 SAS Squadron, which was awarded a US
Meritorious Unit citation for its "sustained gallantry", contributing
to a comprehensive success for coalition forces in Iraq.
He served 17 years with the elite SAS regiment, leaving the army as a
major last year. In 2003 he was appointed a member of the Order of
Australia (AM) for "dynamic leadership and consistent professional
excellence".
His comments came as Baghdad experienced its deadliest day of sectarian
violence since the coalition's March 2003 invasion, with 202 killed and
256 injured by five powerful car bombs in the Shia district of Sadr
City.
In recent weeks, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has conceded Iraq
has become a "disaster", while the Iraq quagmire contributed to the
swing against US President George W.Bush in this month's congressional
elections.
Britain has set a tentative timetable this week for withdrawing some of
its troops, while the US and coalition forces consider options to end
the conflict, which could include a short-term lift in troop numbers.
John Howard said yesterday that despite all Iraq's problems, he still
believed he had made the right decision to take Australia to war in
2003.
"Everybody back in 2003, including Kim Beazley and particularly Kevin
Rudd and even (French President) Jacques Chirac, were all saying Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction," the Prime Minister said.
He said Australia had not agreed to take on any new responsibilities in
Iraq and any changes to Australia's 750-strong military presence would
depend on a possible withdrawal of British forces.
During war planning with US and British special forces at Fort
Campbell, Kentucky, in 2002, Mr Tinley says he never saw any hard
intelligence that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass
destruction.
"When I pressed them (US intelligence) for more specific imagery or
information regarding locations or likely locations of WMD they
confessed, off the record, that there had not been any tangible
sighting of any WMD or WMD enabling equipment for some years," he said.
"It was all shadows and inferenced conversations between Iraqis. There
was an overwhelming desire for all of the planning staff to simply
believe that the Iraqis had learned how to conceal their WMD assets
away from the US (surveillance) assets."
Coalition special forces troops were charged with hunting down Scud
missiles and Saddam's suspected WMD arsenals, operating from just west
of Baghdad all the way through to the Jordanian border, and between the
Syrian and Saudi frontiers.
After the initial invasion, the search for WMD became something of a
"standing joke" with neither coalition troops nor the Iraq Survey Group
turning up anything of consequence.
"The notion that pre-emption is a legitimate strategy in the face of
such unconvincing intelligence is a betrayal of the Australian way," he
said.
Mr Tinley told The Weekend Australian he was now speaking out having
expected people "far more capable and more senior than me" to have
expressed serious reservations about Australia's involvement in Iraq.
"During our preparations for this war I remember hearing (ex-defence
chief) General Peter Gration's misgivings and assumed he did not
possess all the information that our Prime Minister did," he said. "I
now reflect on his commentary with a completely different view and am
saddened that other prominent people in our society didn't speak louder
at the time and aren't continuing to speak out in light of what we now
know."
He said the Government had broken a moral contract with its defence
force in sending it to an "immoral war".
The Government's stance on Iraq and later on issues such as the Tampa
had gradually allowed fear to become a motivating factor in the
electorate, he said.
Mr Tinley said the Howard Government had failed to be honest with
Australians about Iraq and "you can't separate the sentiment of the
defence force from that of the people".
He advocates an immediate pullout of Australia's 500-strong task force
in southern Iraq but accepts that security forces must be kept to guard
the embassy in Baghdad. "Our 500 troops are in the south-west of Iraq
under British tactical command while our US partners are doing all the
heavy lifting in the remainder of the country," he said.
A more meaningful contribution could be through providing defence and
security force training in a safer neighbouring country, such as
Kuwait. "This is no slur on our soldiers. (Brigadier) Mick Moon and his
men have been doing a fantastic job."
--
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