JONES:
Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES:
Big day for you Prime Minister. What will you be seeking to do in this address to the nation?
PRIME MINISTER:
I will lay out again the reasons why it is directly in Australia's national interest to see that Iraq is disarmed without delay and loses the chemical and biological weapons Iraq clearly has. I'll be making it clear that there is also a strong humanitarian argument in favour of seeing a change of regime in Baghdad. And I'll be making it very plain that the ultimate nightmare of the new world we now live in is that weapons of mass destruction can get into the hands of international terrorists and that the more rogue states like Iraq are allowed to keep them the more will try to do the same and that is why the world must take steps to disarm Iraq. That in essence is what I'll be saying.
JONES:
Is there intelligence available to you and the President of the United States that Osama bin Laden and his cohorts are trying to arm themselves with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there's publicly available material on that and of course the assessment of our intelligence agencies is clearly to that effect and I will be going over some of the perhaps not widely reported but nonetheless publicly available evidence of attempts by Al-Qaeda to arm themselves with chemical and biological weapons. There is quite a good deal of material in different parts of the world on the public record. And then in addition to that I will be referring to the combined assessments of our intelligence agencies. So it presents a very strong case and those who argue we should ignore it because we don't have the sort of proof that you would need to convict somebody beyond all reasonable doubt at the central criminal court in Darlinghurst is really in effect saying well let's wait until the attacks starts and then we'll try and do something about it.
JONES:
Prime Minister you spoke to President Bush yesterday, today is March 13. When do you anticipate there will be a vote at the Security Council on the latest resolution amended as it has been apparently by Britain?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's a bit obscure because there were many comings and goings in New York. My best guess is not before the weekend. I would guess, not before the weekend probably at the latest on Monday. That would be my guess.
JONES:
Right, now again in your discussions with President Bush it's quite clear this bloke has ignored 17 previous resolutions to disarm, this will be the 18th. How much time will Saddam Hussein be given to respond to the detail of that resolution?
PRIME MINISTER:
That will be decided by the Security Council and Australia's not a member of the Security Council but without putting a number on it I don't believe he should be given too much more time because he's already had 12 years. He plainly hasn't complied with the last resolution that was carried, if there's another one carried that will be the 18th resolution. There is already in the existing resolutions ample legal authority to use force to bring about disarmament, I want to make that clear. And the push to have another resolution is based on international political and strategic considerations, not on legal imperatives. There is adequate authority on my understanding under the existing resolutions to authorise the use of force.
JONES:
Suddenly the United Nations Security Council though seems invested with extraordinary authority [tape break] removal of despotic regimes in Serbia and East Timor. Why is it suddenly invested with authority it didn't exercise then?
PRIME MINISTER:
The main reason that it's got that authority is that the United States, so criticised as being anti the United Nations has been prepared to go back to the United Nations and to argue its case even though as I say there's in the eyes of many international lawyers enough legal authority under the existing resolution and I think what you are witnessing at the moment between the United States and others is not so much a bona fide debate about the merits of how best to disarm Iraq, rather the attempt by some to gain international diplomatic advantage vis-a-vis the United States.
JONES:
So that's France...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I will leave the countries nameless, I will simply make the point that if anybody studied this debate carefully they will see that some countries are really trying to squeeze out of this difficult issue an advantage against the United States rather than address the issue of how you disarm Iraq. Because one thing is agreed by everybody, the only reason Iraq has yielded up a few morsels of co-operation is the presence of a quarter of a million American troops in the Gulf region. If those troops had not gone there, Iraq would not have co-operated at all. If those troops go home and do nothing, Iraq will stop co-operating overnight.
JONES:
So the acceleration towards war may be the most powerful instrument in preventing war?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I have always believed Alan that there is a faint hope of peace, that faint hope can be realised if all the members of the Security Council got behind a resolution which simply said to Saddam Hussein the game is up, unless you genuinely disarm we're coming after you with force. And if you added to that the combined entreaties of the neighbouring Arab countries you might just then get some kind of capitulation. Right at the moment Saddam Hussein looks around the world and he sees a divided west, he sees countries trying to score advantage of the United States diplomatically rather than genuinely focusing on how best to bring about disarmament. I mean their only weapon in bringing about disarmament is the inspectors who are there by courtesy of American military pressure yet American military pressure is the thing that is so wrong.
JONES:
France refused to consult the United Nations or anyone else for that matter when they sent thousands of paratroopers and the foreign legionnaires to the Ivory Coast last year.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm aware of that and I'm aware that...
JONES:
... hypocrisy at work...
PRIME MINISTER:
well you said it...
JONES:
Senator Brown here is your greatest critic, he was declaiming Bob Hawke in 1991 for not intervening in Iraq to stop the slaughter of the Kurds and established (inaudible).
PRIME MINISTER:
He wasn't asking then for us to wait for the United Nations.
JONES:
He said it was disgusting we were sitting on our hands.
PRIME MINISTER:
That's right and I also remember in 1999, I can't remember the exact identify of the people who did it but there were quite a lot of people who were criticising me in 1999 in relation to East Timor and in effect saying that I shouldn't invade what was then part of Indonesia before getting the authority of the Indonesian Government and the authority of the United Nations.
JONES:
Well I can give you the words the ALP leadership demanded then and their exact words were that you, Howard, do something now, were their words unquote, rather than wait for a Security Council resolution.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there you are, your research is better than mine.
JONES:
So what do you say to the argument though by the critics that it is a strange way of protecting innocent Iraqis by possibly killing them in war?
PRIME MINISTER:
What I say to them is them is if there is conflict there's always the danger of civilian casualties and war is horrific. I ask them though to bear in mind the suffering that now goes on in Iraq, the torture, the million or more people that have been killed in wars waged by Saddam Hussein. His past capacity of willingness to invade neighbouring countries, the possible additional hundreds of thousands of casualties that may arise if he ever uses the chemical and biological weapons against neighbouring countries. By very careful human rights assessments this has been one of the most brutal regimes the world has seen since World War II. There have been many brutal regimes, this is a very bad one. Now what I say to those critics is yes, if there is military conflict there will be suffering, there will be casualties, I can't deny that. That weighs very heavily on me, very heavily indeed. But I ask you to weigh with equal heaviness on your consciences if I can put it that way to my critics the suffering of the people of Iraq that will continue to go on, the potential for other people to suffer if this regime is not removed.
JONES:
If President Bush decides to go to war against Iraq because in his view Hussein has yet again violated his Security Council resolution what will you do and what will be Australia's position if America goes to war?
PRIME MINISTER:
If there is no Security Council resolution, no additional resolution and we are asked by the United States to be part of a coalition to disarm Iraq that is a matter our Cabinet will consider immediately and give a response.
JONES:
Will you recall the national Parliament to debate that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes the Parliament will then be recalled to debate the Government's decision.
JONES:
Will that be a joint sitting of the Parliament...
PRIME MINISTER:
No it would be a normal sitting in the two Houses.
JONES:
And you would seek a majority on the floor of the House of Representatives?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would present a resolution in effect asking for endorsement of what the Government has done. The Government's decision would be given effect to as soon as the Cabinet meeting reached a decision, that is how our system operates and once a Cabinet decision is made then the authority is given to our military commanders to participate.
JONES:
What could be the motivation behind Hans Blix giving a verbal report to the United Nations but failing to mention the drone aircraft apparently being built by or in operation by Saddam Hussein capable of threatening neighbouring countries with biological or chemical weapons. Why wouldn't that have been the vanguard of the verbal report?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know, I find that extraordinary. The criticism of him over that is legitimate, very legitimate and I thought that was a very significant and inexplicable admission.
JONES:
There are concerns by those people who criticise you about, quote, the long term security consequences for Australia if there is an attack on Iraq. Are you concerned about a so-called split in the western alliance or worsening Middle East instability?
PRIME MINISTER:
On Middle East instability, if the Iraqi regime goes, that will add to stability in the Middle East. It is not a popular regime, it is in fact a despised regime. As far as the broader Middle East is concerned the world does have to redouble its efforts to try, hard though it is to solve the Israeli/Palestine dispute, that is an issue I'm going to mention in my address today, I welcome the fact that Yasser Arafat has now appointed a Prime Minister, I hope he gives him enough room to negotiate and gives him adequate authority and I hope that there's some response to that from the Israelis. Although until these terrible suicide bombings stop it's very hard to see how any Israeli Prime Minister can negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians.
JONES:
And do you believe that the wider responsible, decent, law abiding Muslim community will support a decision by President Bush to liberate Muslims in Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
Many of them privately will do so, publicly their governments probably will criticise it. Significantly it will not be seen by the President of the largest Muslim country in the world, that's President Megawati, as any kind of general attack on Islam. The mainstream of Islam would be as repelled by the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein as is the mainstream of any other religion.
JONES:
It's good to talk to you, these are difficult times Prime Minister for Australia and for our Prime Minister. I'm sure in spite of the headlines that there are many Australians out there who are grateful for the energy you've given to this and certainly wish you well.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Alan.
[ends]