Overland literary journal

banging away at The Drum

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 14-12-2009

I've got a piece up on the new ABC blog The Drum. It begins like this:

Tony Blair's latest admission on Iraq raises, yet again, the need for a genuine inquiry here in Australia about that misbegotten war.
Even before Britain's Chilcot inquiry has concluded, it has spurred a fresh round of revelations. Britain, we now know, had decided upon war long before all the shenanigans with UN weapons' inspectors. Now Blair has acknowledged that, for him, the war was always about regime change, despite everything he said at the time.
What about the Australian government? Did Howard and Downer know that the date for the invasion had already been fixed way back in 2002, and that the arguments about WMDs were never more than a pretext?
If so, they lied to the Australian people and to the parliament. If not - if they were kept in the dark about the plans of their supposed allies - well, what does that say about Australia's military alliances, the cornerstone of bipartisan defence policy?
Either way, don't we deserve to know?

You can read the rest here.