O'BRIEN:
And the Prime Minister joins me now from our Parliament House studio. John Howard you said last week that the civilian death toll so far was low. What is an acceptable number of civilian deaths in a war?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kerry, I can't ever put a figure on that. Any death is tragic, I also said that last week. I note, by way of an independent observation, that a spokesman for the International Red Cross said on the ABC AM programme this morning that the hospital system in Baghdad appeared to be coping quite well with the level of civilian causalities. Now I thought that was an interesting comment because the International Red Cross is a respected, neutral organisation, it can't be accused of painting it one way or the other. I do know that the efforts being taken by the coalition to avoid civilian casualties is quite unprecedented. I believe that those efforts should go on and certainly, as far as Australia is concerned, the targeting policies that we have adopted in relation to the bombing that we've participated in, those policies are going to be maintained and I would expect that the Americans and the British would stick to their approach because there are ethics of war and they do need to be maintained.
O'BRIEN:
When you sanctioned Australia's role in this war, did you imagine that you would be seeing the kinds of images of innocent victims now emerging? Little children lying dead in ditches from American fire, civilians young and old blown literally to pieces in Baghdad markets.
PRIME MINISTER:
Kerry, I knew that that would inevitably and regrettably be the case, I knew that. I also know that for 30 years there have been images we haven't seen of children lying dead in ditches as a result of poison attacks by Saddam Hussein's regime on Kurdish parts of Iraq, that people had been tortured and starved and battered to death by the Iraqi secret police. Of course none of the television networks show those results and those victims because the Iraqi regime does not allow it. We being an open democracy, we had for the first time allowed media to be embedded in the armed forces that are engaged. I mean I wonder what might have been the reaction of people if media had been embedded in armed units in some of the great conflicts of the past...
O'BRIEN:
I don't imagine we look to Saddam Hussein for ethics Prime Minister, but I hope we look to Australia, America and Britain for ethics...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, hang on, don't try and score that point, I mean I've made the point to you a couple of minutes ago that as far as Australia is concerned we will observe the ethics of war, I've just made that point. Now in any war some civilian casualties are unavoidable and the point I'm making is that in this war unprecedented steps are being taken by the British and the Americans and the Australians to keep those casualties to the lowest possible level and I quote the observation of the International Red Cross to support my view that perhaps those efforts are being rewarded. That's the point I was making.
O'BRIEN:
I guess it's a pretty awful catch-22 Mr Howard, accidental though it may be, killing innocent people so you can liberate their surviving relatives. Is that the war that you would say is an ethical war?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry this war is just because Saddam Hussein should be disarmed of his weapons of mass destruction. It is also in my view to the long term benefit to the people of Iraq that such a tyrannical regime should be removed. And when you are putting human suffering into the balance, you have to on the one side to those graphic images, which sadden everybody, you have to bear in mind 30 years of torture, brutality, of murder, of intimidation, the repression that occurred after the 1991 war and the calculation that perhaps he's been responsible for the deaths of a million people. Now you've got to put those things on the other side of the scale before you jump to a final conclusion against the coalition. I don't mean you personally, I mean one...
O'BRIEN:
The bottom line is still, when we're talking about ethics, I guess are the ethics of invading of a sovereign nation that poses no direct threat to you or to America or to Britain, knowing that an incalculable number of innocent civilians will be killed or maimed.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well against that again you have to look at the ethics of leaving unaddressed the fact that Iraq has weapons, chemical and biological weapons. If she is allowed to retain them others, other rogue states will do likewise, safe in the knowledge that the world won't disarm them and if they get into the hands of international terrorists think of the, it would be impossible to calculate the number of people that then might die as a result of the use of those weapons by international terrorists.
O'BRIEN:
I know that these are terrible dilemmas to grapple with Mr Howard, but I wonder if you could imagine sitting down to somebody in Iraq who's seen their child die from a bomb or a cruise missile or from accidental cross fire and explain to them that their child had to be sacrificed for the greater good of some other Iraqis against some possible threat. I mean do you think that they would understand that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kerry, I don't think it would possible for somebody who's suffered a loss like that to understand that. I accept that. But somebody in my position or in President Bush's position or anybody else's position, you have to make a judgement taking everything into account. That's what we have endeavoured to do on this occasion.
O'BRIEN:
There have been at least 10,000 air sorties over Iraq, many thousands of missiles fired. Dr Des Ball is an expert in that type of warfare, that sort of precision targeted warfare, and he calculates a five to 10 per cent error rate with all those precision missiles and this is a process that could go on for months.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if it is a five to 10 per cent error rate, that is remarkably better than what it was in 1991 and to my understanding significantly better than what it was in Kosovo in 1999 when the NATO countries took action to the help the Muslims of Kosovo against Serbia. Now once again I can't look you in the face and say you can completely eliminate the possibility of civilian casualties but what I can again repeat...
O'BRIEN:
Well we've got the evidence of that before our eyes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry I understand that. Although if you're talking about those two bombings in the marketplace it is by no means certain on the evidence so far available that they were American or British bombs, there is at least some evidence, the size of the craters and also the absence of display on Iraqi television of fragments of the missiles that perhaps, and I only say perhaps, they were misfired missiles that originated from Iraqi launches. Now I'm simply making the point that in a conflict like this you shouldn't assume that all of those things are a direct consequence of American and British bombings.
O'BRIEN:
Although of course they wouldn't be firing them if there wasn't a war on. At some point...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well perhaps if they had complied with earlier United Nations resolutions we wouldn't have had an argument either.
O'BRIEN:
At some point in this ethical war the coalition leaders may well have to decide between two very high cost options, and I don't say this ethical war in a sarcastic fashion, I appreciate that these are going to be very tough choices. But they may well have to decide between two very high cost options if this war is dragging on, escalating the air and artillery war to much bigger shock and awe proportions than we've seen so far. Or to commit to unrestricted fighting through the streets of Baghdad. A choice between high casualties and higher casualties. You must be worried about that prospect?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry, obviously the most difficult part of the campaign lies ahead. But the progress that's been made and what's been achieved, I think has been more than satisfactory and I think it's worthwhile, before I come back to your direct question, making the point that a lot of the things that people worried about when this campaign started, such as the burning of all the oil fields, the mass exodus of refugees, the firing of missiles into Israel that might have dragged Israel into the war, all of those things in so far in the 12 days have been prevented. Now clearly a street campaign in Baghdad could well be very costly. Just how costly and precisely what might proceed that, I'm not going to speculate about that. Clearly we face, over the next I think little while, the next days and weeks, the most difficult part of it. But I think you have bear in mind that having made the decision and having committed itself, the attitude of those countries involved that they're going to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion is absolutely unshaken.
O'BRIEN:
There seems to have been a coalition expectation that many Iraqis would embrace their liberators, you must have talked about that prospect with George W Bush and Tony Blair and I wonder though after so many thousands of bombs and missiles and artillery and the prospect of bloody hand to hand combat through the streets of Baghdad, how many Iraqis will embrace you as liberators. And that's an important aspect isn't it, afterwards?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry we didn't talk about that a great deal. I'm not surprised, given what happened in 1991, that the American and the British have not so far been greeted as liberators. The sad reality is that in 1991 many of these people were encouraged to rebel against Saddam Hussein and then they were left in the lurch. And they remember that and they suffered horrendous reprisals, horrendous reprisals as a result and my view is that until they are satisfied that he's gone, or about to go, I think the likelihood of spontaneous uprisings is very low.
O'BRIEN:
You said in the Bulletin on February 11 that an Australian military commitment to a war in Iraq would be, "quite a short specific duration". What is your definition of short and specific duration?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I didn't then and I'm not now going to try and put weeks or months on that but what I had in mind I think in the context of that remark was that we have committed some very specialised skilled forces to do particular tasks, we don't see ourselves as contributing large numbers of regular Army elements to some kind of post-conflict peacekeeping operation. I think that was the context that I made those remarks.
O'BRIEN:
John Howard, thanks for talking with us.
PRIME MINISTER:
A pleasure.
[ends]