Yesterday it was a phoney claim (no pun) that the hostage-takers had used SMS messages. At the same time, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was saying all Australians had been accounted for. What he actually meant was that the 88 Australians registered with the embassy in Baghdad were accounted for. A reporter on the ABC's 7:30 Report, however, said he was registered but had not been contacted.
Overnight it became clear that more than 60 other Australians were in Iraq - who are these people and why did Downer not know about them? - and at the time of writing DFAT says 27 Australians are still unaccounted for.
Meanwhile Mark Latham is complaining that Howard has sent in a SWAT Squad "negotiating team" without informing Labour.
"This is an outrageous breach of the caretaker conventions in this election campaign," he told ABC radio.
"The truth is that if Labor is elected in three and a half weeks' time, we would be in charge of the operation. We would be in charge of this defence team and possibly the negotiating team, so-called, that are being sent to Iraq.
"So isn't it in Australia's national interest to ensure the alternative government is consulted, given the information and involved from day one about this important decision?"
Does anybody really believe the John Howard's corrupt, lying government will not use this hostage situation to its political advantage in any way possible? Does anybody really believe that Howard would not lie - and instruct his ministers to lie - if he thought it could get him across the finish line at the October 9th polls? This government has a long-standing, proven credibility problem, the seriousness of which is all the more apparent when it is our own security at risk.
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