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REGISTER TO VOTE 15-Jul-2007 At 12:23:26 PM oweng

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On 13/07/2007 gordoste wrote:
>On 13/07/2007 oweng wrote:
>>In terms of the decision for Australia to go to war in Iraq, if I remember
>>correctly it had bipartisan support at the time. As such both the Libs
>>& Labs share guilt. They both thought it was the right decision.
>
>No, I blame the government as I said before. By hiding the reasons behind
>the Iraq deployment, they made it political poison for anyone to take a
>stand against it - effectively removing opposition to their plan. If the
>facts were out there in the public eye and being discussed openly in the
>media, Labour & others would have been able to say "That is not a good
>enough reason to invade Iraq" without opening themselves up to attack as
>"weak".

As said, I was wrong about the bipartisan support. The majority of Australians opposed the war prior to the invasion. I cant find the actual survey, but this quote alludes to the fact that in early 2003 (eight weeks before the war started) only 6% of Australians supported going to war without a specific UN mandate.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200301/s765510.htm

So presumably 94% of Australians thought we were wrong to invade Iraq unless we had a UN endorsement. Unusual for a governement seen to be very popularist and poll driven.