Can we make John Howard secretary of state?
: Australian PM John Howard stands firm:
John Howard does not stand off his decision to go to war in Iraq – and, faced with the same set of circumstances, he would do it all again.
Fending off calls for an independent inquiry into why weapons of mass destruction had not been found in Iraq, despite pre-war intelligence reports that said they were there, the Prime Minister insisted yesterday the Middle East was a safer place after Saddam Hussein’s removal.
“I’m not embarrassed because intelligence is an imprecise science. You have to make judgments on the material that you have available at the time,” Mr Howard told ABC radio in Perth. “I don’t resile one iota from the decision that the Government took,” he said.
That’s why we like Australians: Direct and right.