Cabinet documents reveal oil at heart of Australia's involvement in Iraq invasion

Shafaq News/ Australia joined the 2003 war on Iraq to sustain the "developed" world's access to the Middle East's oil, previously-lost documents, which have been publicly released by the National Archives recently, read.

Australian cabinet documents are typically released 20 years later on January 1 each year, but 82 documents from 2003 were not included in this year's release as they were not provided to the archives by the Morrison government in 2020.

These documents were later found and provided to the archives, with 14 relating to the Iraq War.

The new documents reveal the then-Coalition government saw access to Middle East oil as a key national interest, and concerns that withdrawing troops from Iraq would squander the "benefits" of the US alliance.

A cabinet submission from the then-defence minister Robert Hill said that Australia had a number of "enduring national interests" in the Middle East, including "continued access by the developed world to Middle East oil reserves".

The documents also reveal then-prime minister John Howard's department rejected a plan by the Defence Department in late 2003 to reduce Australia's presence in Iraq from 840 to 600.