General: US erred
The general who led Australian troops in the Iraq conflict said on Tuesday big mistakes were made by the United States in the post-Saddam Hussein era as he voiced mixed feelings about the war.
Peter Cosgrove was chief of the Australian Defense Force in 2003 when then-prime minister John Howard committed 2,000 Australian troops in support of the US-led invasion.
Launched with the stated goal of wiping out Saddam's stores of weapons of mass destruction, the war aimed to enshrine a liberal democracy in the Middle East but instead unleashed sectarian violence and endless political disputes.
According to a new report by the Britain-based Iraq Body Count group on Sunday, at least 112,000 civilians have been killed since the invasion and in an interview with ABC radio, Cosgrove said it was a high price.
"Looking back you'd have mixed feelings about the whole episode and I suppose you'd cling to a few things - a horrible dictator eventually was removed and the people of Iraq have a new chance, even though they've had enormous suffering," he said.
"There's been a lot of bloodshed along the way and that's always horribly regrettable - but all war is a mistake, all war."
AFP
(China Daily 03/20/2013 page10)
