JONES:
Well it appears that tomorrow Federal Cabinet and Prime Minister
Howard will formally commit Australia to support any United States
attack on Iraq and to declare that President Saddam Hussein cannot
be allowed to retain and use chemical and biological weapons. A
couple of points before I speak to the Prime Minister.
The first that should be said, is that America and its allies will
continue to explore every diplomatic initiative available to them.
So this is not going to happen tomorrow. However, Prime Minister
Howard was right at the weekend when he said, "the sort of
capacity and the sort of weapons he shouldn't have, have the
potential for the most awesome and dreadful effect". Mr Howard
said, "we have to consider a whole range of contributions it
is not a purely military contribution."
The Defence Department has been ordered to prepare a submission
for Tuesday's Cabinet meeting. We sent two frigates and a supply
vessel to the Gulf in 1991 but none were directly involved in the
conflict. But we are talking about an arsenal of weapons being marshalled
by Saddam with the capacity to wipe out the world's population
twice over. And United Nations inspection teams have been locked
out. So this is not an American ego trip, it is a United Nations
repudiation by Saddam Hussein. United Nations inspection teams have
been unable to account for 4,000 tonnes of chemical warfare materials
and more than 600 tonnes of materials for making nerve gas. And
inspite of every diplomatic effort United Nations inspection teams
have been locked out of Iraq. Now what President Clinton is doing
is seeking support for a course of action in case diplomacy doesn't
work. Hence, Mr Clinton called John Howard at the weekend at Kirribilli
House after securing the support from British Prime Minister Tony
Blair.
Our Prime Minister, John Howard is on the line. Prime Minister
good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES:
Rather belatedly but Happy New Year to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
And to you to.
JONES:
And it is going to be a tough year ahead. In this Mr Clinton spoke
to you for about 20 minutes what was the general thrust of that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he gave me a background to the American efforts. He said how
they wanted to keep trying to get a diplomatic solution, they didn't
want to use force. However, they were faced with the terrible prospect
that Saddam would not allow UN-sponsored inspections of facilities
that were clearly believed to house chemical and biological war
material. Now as you said in your introduction, if a stand and a
firm and uncompromising stand is not taken against the storage and
potential proliferation of this material the consequences into the
next century is to awful to contemplate.
We cannot allow, the civilised world cannot allow rogue states
who have no sense of international morality to have possession and
therefore the capacity to use that kind of material. Now that is
what is at stake and therefore there is a clear Australian national
interest, there is a world security interest involved in this, it
is not Clinton vs Saddam Hussein, it is the interests of the civilised
world against somebody who has demonstrated an utterly amoral approach
to his own population. He is the only person in my living memory
who has used such foul material against his own people and he has
demonstrated an utter indifference to the elementary basics, the
elements of basic human values for his own population. So there
is a lot at stake.
Now the Americans are trying to get a diplomatic solution, so are
we. And we will go on doing that and it is not beyond hope that
at the last moment he may blink. Now that is something that I discussed
with the President, he doesn't rule it out, and he will try
very hard to achieve that. But at the end of the day he said that
some kind of military action could be necessary and he asked whether
Australia would consider making a contribution and I said, we would
certainly consider that and we will talk about it tomorrow.
JONES:
It was reported, talking about blinking, you have used that image
there, it was reported at the weekend from the Middle East that
Iraqi army commanders would rebel against Saddam Hussein if they
were convinced an attack by the United States, Britain and others
was aimed at removing him from power.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is always possible, although that has been talked about
for years and it has never happened.
JONES:
One wonders though whether his own people aren't getting tired
of it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well one has to wonder about that. And one would hope that they
are and that somehow or other that there would be that kind of reaction.
But in the past when that has been predicted it hasn't materialised.
JONES:
No, but he did call at the weekend for a million volunteers for
a civilian force.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes he did.
JONES:
And reports from Iraq say that those calls were being ignored?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well all of that is mildly encouraging and I hope that it has an
impact even on him. And I repeat, we don't want force used
unless it is the only alternative, we really don't.
JONES:
So what are you meeting for tomorrow with your Cabinet to decide
should the circumstances arise what would be the extent of our involvement,
is that it?
PRIME MINISTER:
That is the intention, yes.
JONES:
And you have briefed Mr Beazley?
PRIME MINISTER:
I rang Mr Beazley on Saturday evening after I had had the call
from President Clinton and I told him of it. And I told him that
he would be kept fully informed. That not only would I ensure that
the Opposition was fully briefed, I will make the service people
available for the Opposition to be fully briefed and on top of that
I will keep the Australian public regularly informed. The Australian
public is entitled to know quickly and fully from me what is occurring
on the issue because there is no more serious decision that any
government takes than to contemplate the use of Australian assets
and Australian military personnel in some kind of military action.
And therefore the public is entitled to be fully informed.
We have already had, at a senior Minister level, discussions with
our defence advisers. We will have a fully Cabinet meeting tomorrow,
it is only Cabinet that can authorise this kind of action and I
will be saying something more to the Australian people naturally
after that Cabinet meeting.
JONES:
Good on you. Good to talk to you and thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Alan.
[Ends]