Howard, Yea but no

After weeks of bad mouthing by leftists that Howard knew what was going on with his government: a multi-million dollar enquiry proves that Howard is completely innocent of any knowledge. Nor did he have any intelligence which might have led to knowledge.

According to Howard, he was an AWB dupe. Some AWB lawyers wanted to find out if he wasn't, but they weren't allowed to ask. Of course, some are born dupes, some achieve being duped, and some have it thrust upon them. We need another inquiry to find out which applies to Howard.

But why the hell should anyone care? Well, contrary to their claims that they were only a "post box" for the implementation of UN 661, it was the job of all compliant states (in this case Australia) to police their nationals.

And a part of the reason that it was their job to ensure the Resolution 661 regime was enforced was that they relied on the claim that sanctions had failed to justify military escalation in 2003. In short, their dereliction, if that's what it was, subverted the operation of the sanctions that they publicly claimed were so ineffective as to mandate militarily assaulting the country, with all of its consequences.

At a time when they were claiming that those who raised concern about the effect of the sanctions on the well-being of Iraqi children were Ba'athist fellow travellers, they were funnelling huge amounts to the Ba'athists through back channels that the friends of the well-being of Iraqi children would have opposed.

They won elections, in part, as a consequence of the perception that their handling of what are called "national security" issues was better than that of the ALP, that they were the most consistent supporters of the US alliance, and were better on protecting Australian trade interests, and global level playing fields, while in fact they were undermining Australian national security on a scale to make some poor sucker who accepted a plane ticket from Osama blush and double crossing other 661-compliant states, especially the Americans.

While they were bagging the UN as corrupt and incompetent and ineffectual they were relying on the same UN 's judgement that everything was above board to adopt a nolo contendere approach to AWB's presumptive denials of malfeasance.

As early as 2002, Howard declared the day before Good Friday, he suspected Saddam was rorting the oil for food scheme. And yet, it never occurred to him that there might well be something to the persistent claims, including from Australia's own ONA, that the biggest single supplier in the oil-for-food program might be up to no good, and that if they were, that they'd probably lie to cover it up.

Truly, Howard is Australia's answer to Vicky Pollard of "Little Britain":

"Yeah, but no, but yeah ... don't believe that Wheat Associates crowd cause they are just such total slags 'cause they offered Saddam a quicky behind the back sheds and he was goin' out with me, 'cept I never 'cause I hate him now because he said I put iron fillin's in me wheat, but I never and ..."

This is government Australia-style, it seems.

Fran