Straight from His Master's Voice

Last week when speaking to the National Press Club John Howard delivered 
some powerful rhetoric against the regime of Saddam Hussein. He said:

"We're talking about a regime that will gouge out the eyes of a child to 
force a confession from the child's parents. This is a regime that will 
burn a person's limbs in order to force a confession or compliance. This is 
a regime that in 2000 decreed the crime of criticising it would be punished 
by the amputation of tongues."

Those grim words were quoted on all the network news that night and next 
day in page 1 stories in The Advertiser, The Financial Review, The Herald 
Sun, The Mercury, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Telegraph. 
But they're not the Prime Minister's own words. They're taken from the book 
The Threatening Storm: The case for invading Iraq by Kenneth M Pollack.

Pollack is a Middle East expert who's worked with the CIA, the US National 
Security Council and the Brookings Institute. His case for invading Iraq is 
remarkably similar to John Howard's.

This is what Pollack wrote on page 123 of his book:

"This is a regime that will gouge out the eyes of children to force 
confessions from their parents.

"This is a regime that will burn a person's limbs off to force him to 
confess or comply.

"This is a regime that in 2000 decreed that the crime of criticising the 
regime would be punished by cutting out the offender's tongue.

Curious about the Prime Minister's speechwriting, Margaret Simon of the 
Sydney Morning Herald rang the Prime Minister's office. She said:

"I rang John Howard's office to ask who wrote his speeches. I was told that 
nobody wrote for him: He talks to his advisers to gather facts, but he 
either speaks without a script or writes his speeches himself. (The Sydney 
Morning Herald, March 15-16, 2003)

* * *

Acknowledgement to ABC Media Watch