[defrost]

My recollection of the time is that most citizens that paid attention and a majority of the politicians in the UK and AU were fully aware the "intel" was sketchy and the motivations impure .. the debate was less about the information quality and more about the obligation to partner with the US in the invasion.

The UK PM and the AU PM backed the US position and sent troops in (in the AU case they even sent in advance rangers | commandos | SASR to scout and call targets from ground) but they were both aware the "justification" and WMD claims were BS.

[dfxm12]

So some government officials were probably in the pocket of Halliburton (i.e., just like the US government) while selling a weak justification to the public.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/halliburton-australia-p...

[defrost]

Such things play a part, of course, however at a nation level the first order consideration would have been ANZUS like defence agreements and a sense that ongoing regional support from the US rested on Australian support for the US, right or wrong.

Been ongoing for a while now: https://roncobb.net/img/cartoons/aus/k5092-on-Tucker_Box-cuu...

[marcus_holmes]

This. Whether the USA had a mandate to go into Iraq wouldn't have been questioned. Australia jumped in because we always jumps in to whatever bullshit war the USA dreams up. For some reason we see it as an obligation to support our allies in all their wars, even when we think their reasons are ridiculous and even when we know they won't support us in return.

This has lead to serious problems in the case of the Afghan war, where it was clear that this whole conflict had nothing to do with Australia, could not even vaguely be construed as "defence", achieved nothing, cost Australian lives, and was a completely fabricated mess that we got into for really bad reasons (I paraphrase). The SAS war crimes thing was a symptom of our unease at our involvement (imho) - we would not normally question the things that soldiers do in conflict, this was more a way of questioning why we were in the conflict in the first place.

[toyg]

The UK PM, Tony Blair, actually pushed the "45 minutes" fabrication. Some of his MPs might have been sceptical, but Blair was very clearly itching to be a wartime PM.

What you describe is more like the debate on continental Europe, which translated in little support (most countries provided help with logistics and minimal "peacekeeping").

[palmfacehn]

My anecdotal, non-Aussie observation: Yes, doubts over the WMD debacle were shouted down as nutty conspiracy theory. The usual rhetoric was employed, "If such a wide ranging conspiracy were truly afoot, wouldn't someone blow the whistle?"

Afterwards the same people who employed this rhetoric claimed they, "Always knew the claims were false".

There was definite risk of loss of political capital for would be dissenters. Politicians may or may not have had skeptical reservations. It is moot point if they didn't proactively dissent. Similarly, it isn't especially meaningful in the context of this discussion if those who did dissent were locked out of popular media discourse. The overall media environment repeated the claims unquestioningly. Dissent was maligned as conspiracy theory.

Another interesting manifestation were those who claimed that WMDs were found. Clearly the goal posts were shifted here. Between those who were "always suspicious" and those who believe that the standards of WMDs were met, very few people remain who concede that they were hoodwinked by the propaganda narrative. Yet at the same time, it isn't a stretch to observe that a war or series of wars was started based on false premises. No one has been held to account.