Iraq Veterans Against the War tour speech

Speech delivered by Hamish Chitts

St Mary's Church, South Brisbane

11th August 2007

Early in 2003 a few months before the invasion of Iraq I was working in the intelligence cell of my infantry battalion in Darwin. I had been an infantry soldier in the Reserve and Regular army for 11 years and had seen active service in East Timor in 1999 and 2000 as part of INTERFET and the subsequent UN mission. I was relatively new to the job of intelligence and was still in close email contact with the people I'd done my int course with. We were all in similar roles around the country and basically at the lowest level of Australia's intelligence community.

When the politicians started rattling their sabers we discussed and questioned the reasons and motives for this new war. When Colin Powell gave his now infamous power point presentation to the UN Security Council to justify an invasion of Iraq we knew it for the farce that it was. We started sending around joke emails to each other about their reasons, the best being a take off of Powell's presentation with photos of plastic soldiers, toy trucks and rubber finger puppet monsters in somebody's sandpit. Our superiors soon clamped down on any dissent but the point is there was no failure of intelligence. Everyone knew there were no WMDs, everyone knew that Al Qaeda had no significant presence in Iraq. Osama bin Laden had previously and publicly denounced Saddam as a 'lesser Satan'. Career 'yes men' on large salaries agreed with their political masters knowing the worst they could face is having to resign with a big pay out and a nice job lined up for them in private industry. I decided I did not want to be a part of or contribute in any way to this nor did I want to risk my life again, especially for the sake of big business so put in my discharge.

Through its relatively small contingents and through being placed in lesser risk areas Australia has suffered few physical casualties in Iraq. But everyday there are Australian casualties that no sees or hears about. Through my own experiences and through those of my mates I can tell you no one who sees active service comes back the same.

Recent figures from America have shown that troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering 3 times more Post Traumatic Stress Disorder than their counterparts did on return from Vietnam.

But it doesn’t just effect those who’ve been directly involved, it effects their children and even their grandchildren. A survey of 2500 children and grandchildren of Australian Vietnam veterans has found 70% of children and 30% of grandchildren suffer psychiatric or psychological problems.

John Howard likes to have his photo taken with Australian troops. He likes to use the memory of the fallen to push his political career and his vile 'rich get richer' policies. He likes to use troops but he doesn't like them or care one bit about them if he did he wouldn't send them to war in Iraq and Afghanistan knowing full well the only thing they are risking their lives for is the profits of multi-nationals.

I admire the courage of Iraq Veterans Against the War and the excellent work they are doing in the U.S. More Australian soldiers and veterans need to know what they are doing and to organise, to dissent and to show the general public , by marching themselves, that challenging the war is not an attack on veterans or current serving soldiers. That is why I am a member of the Stop The War Collective and that is why I will be protesting the APEC conference in Sydney in September. There is a war on. A war the extremely rich few have declared on anyone who stands in the way of them making even more money. Whether a worker in a factory, an Aboriginal person in a remote community or a person in Iraq if you do not go along with what the elite want then they will try to sweep you aside or destroy you.

As soldiers in a Western so called democracy you are told you fight for freedom and democracy which couldn't be any further from the truth. You fight for big business and global monopolies. The true freedom fighters and defenders of democracy are the protesters, the activists and anyone who will stand up to the powerful few and demand a fair deal fro all.