Australian War Hero: "Iraq A Moral Blunder"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20816990-2,00.html

Iraq a moral blunder: war hero

By Patrick Walters
November 25, 2006 12:00am

THE former SAS officer who devised and executed the Iraq war plan for Australia's special forces says that the nation's involvement has been a strategic and moral blunder.

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"When I pressed them (US intelligence) for more specific imagery or information regarding locations or likely locations of WMD they confessed, off the record, that there had not been any tangible sighting of any WMD or WMD enabling equipment for some years," he said.

"It was all shadows and inferenced conversations between Iraqis. There was an overwhelming desire for all of the planning staff to simply believe that the Iraqis had learned how to conceal their WMD assets away from the US (surveillance) assets."

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"The notion that pre-emption is a legitimate strategy in the face of such unconvincing intelligence is a betrayal of the Australian way," he said.

Mr Tinley told The Weekend Australian he was now speaking out having expected people "far more capable and more senior than me" to have expressed serious reservations about Australia's involvement in Iraq. "During our preparations for this war I remember hearing (ex-defence chief) General Peter Gration's misgivings and assumed he did not possess all the information that our Prime Minister did," he said.

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[indepat]

1. Iraq is an amoral blunder: one has to have morals to be moral or immoral

[Cha]

2. Do ya think john howard hears

him?