Australia Moving Closer to Iraq War Inquiry {?}

The voices for have been rising for awhile.

Now is the time for an Australian inquiry into the Iraq War

28 January 2011 - The 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq have been an unparalleled disaster for the Iraqi people, with estimates as high as a million plus who have died directly as a result, over 4 million people who have been displaced out of a population of 23 million, and a country ripped apart by sectarian violence. All a product of an invasion and occupation that Australia was proudly a part of. So proud, in fact, that it was willing to commit military forces to the invasion, one of only four nations to do so along with the US, UK, and Poland.

That war crimes were committed by the coalition in Iraq is beyond dispute. The 'Shock and Awe' of the invasion itself, the torture scandal of Abu Ghraib, the war profiteering and corruption of the occupation, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians and excessive use of force by coalition forces are just some of the many incidents of war crimes that have received intense international media attention. Further revelations of coalition support for or direct participation in torture and indiscriminate killings were revealed in the massive cache of classified military documents released by Wikileaks in 2010.

Nor are the consequences limited to Iraq. Australia, as well as the rest of the world, is significantly less safe. Our civil liberties have been severely impinged by wave after wave of anti terrorism legislation supposedly designed to protect us. {continued}