Good evening. My name is John August, convenor of the Sydney Shove. Welcome our forum, Iraq Comparisons. I've no qualifications apart from having convened the Shove for more than a year, and having an interest in Iraq.

Tonight's talk is a retrospective. At present, a much discussed issue is the current situation in Iraq and how democracy developing. But we're going to take a look back to the origins of the War, the motives of the US, and the overall context.

There's been a lot of discussion over the war, but for me there were some interesting questions which were not discussed, which we'll hopefully cover tonight. There have been many forums discussing Iraq. However, there are few forums which are set up as this one is, where rather than pushing one side, we bring together views from across the spectrum. We do this in an environment of consideration and respect for the opposite position. The (I think) Franciscan sentiment of "Seek first to understand, then to be understood" is relevant here.

Rather than dismissing the Iraq war as good or bad, let's look at some issues below the surface. The speakers may want to disagree with things I say; that's the whole point.

First, there is justification, and how this changed. Before the war, the was based on weapons of mass destruction Iraq as a threat. As it became clear that there was were no weapons of mass destruction, the justification shifted to Saddam's human rights abuses.

The US supported Saddam in his earlier days, and his sudden shift to being an enemy could be considered inconsistent. I'd have been happier is the US had said "we stuffed up and made a mistake supporting Saddam. We're really, really, sorry, and we'll be doing our best to clean up our mess.". If they said it, I didn't hear it.

But the US were not the only world power who supported Saddam. So, we should not single them out on this basis. But, we can justify scrutinising them more carefully because we're allied.

So, you can see the Iraq war as the right thing for the wrong reasons. But while Saddam may have been an evil dictator, he's not the only one, and you wonder why he's been picked on. How does Iraq compare to these other nations ? Well, these other nations are not wealthy, and could not afford to build up armaments. But why is Iraq wealthy ? Because of its oil. It's a matter of debate of how crucial Iraq's possession of oil was.

So, how does Saddam's human rights record compare to other regimes ? I wonder, but it is not something I have the time or knowledge to go into.

How do we determine which countries to invade ? The UN has problems. The security council is dominated by the five power who happened to be major players at the end of the second world war; they have veto powers, and issues of what is best for the world at large tend to get lost in their political squabbles. The General Assembly has nations with one vote each regardless of their state of democracy or population; we have a lot of political games with smaller nations getting bought off or otherwise coerced.

The UN Human Rights Commission is dominated by nations which abuse human rights and don't want it looking at them. It's pretty much useless, but but the UN Human Rights Committee sorta works. Kofi Anan has advocated for reform of the UN Human Rights Commission.

But, I'm not sure that the US are that much better than the UN, for all their problems. The US want to avoid scrutiny by international bodies; you'd think that if their endeavours were genuine, they'd bear up to scrutiny.

But, moving along, lets look at the particular issue of going to war in Iraq. There are two separate issues, and I suggest they've become tangled.

First, do you attack at all ? Does the end result justify the action ? That's one issue.

Second, is how many casualties you get on both sides during the conflict. Sun Tzu, who wrote "The art of war", had a maxim which I'll paraphrase. Any idiot can wade in with a massively superior force and take a battlefield. But to take a battlefield with only a moderately superiority while minimising casualties on both your own side _and_ the enemy side, is something which takes skill.

What influences the casualties which result ? There are elements of tactics and approach. Some approaches will have increased civilian casualties. And the number of casualties on the different sides, and civilian casualties, have been something which was much discussed.

But, one thing which is unavoidable. If you go to war, you're going to have casualties. A more subtle question is how many casualties you _ought_ to have compared to how many actually eventuate. How does this conflict compare to other conflicts ?

But what we mostly see are different sides trying to run up the number of casualties or run them down. This does not seem to be a terribly useful approach. A better one would be to look at how many we ought to have. But nobody seems to have done this.

I recall as the war progressed, there was some interest in opinion polls. Just how the population feels about the war is a significant factor, of course. But I can't help thinking that the war is successful - or not successful - on particular criteria which go beyond how the population feels about it.

Then you have the way the occupying force relates to the civilian population. That's more an issue of the aftermath rather than the origin. There's a lot of tension in Iraq, and a lot of difficulties figuring out what is in fact going on. But an interesting comparison is Germany at the end of WWII. The Germans accepted the occupying force, and that was it. But Iraq is not Germany, and the current US force is probably different to the allies at the end of WWII. We do not have the same situation, but we can wonder how it is different.