The "Mob" was right. Yes, that's what PM John Howard called us that summery day in February 2003, when hundreds of thousands of citizens assembled in the cities of Australia to protest the imminent invasion of Iraq. "Just a mob", he scoffed, "a rabble".

Howard clenched his jaw and looked down the lens of the corporate media: "Saddam Hussein employs a human shredding machine as a vehicle for putting to death his critics", he said with relish, "this is the man, this is the apparatus of terror we are dealing with." So of course an invasion was justified, despite the lack of UN authorisation. Plus Saddam could launch his weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes, his mobile cauldrons of black plague were brewing in the basement, a nuclear reactor was hotting up, etc.

It was what Howard didn't say that mattered most. He didn't mention the oil. The last of the low hanging fruit of the finest crude in the world. During that anti war weekend in Sydney's Hyde Park, children swung from trees as John Pilger read his list of journalists who had barracked for war - a long list - while mums and dads mulled over the relevance of oil. Someone asked, "what if Iraq's major export was apricots?" We'd still be shooting Afghanis.

Back then Howard didn't mention that his Department of Foreign Affairs was up to its necks in bribing Saddam Hussein to import Australian wheat. At the same time as our special forces were slipping into Iraq, we were slipping the dictator a cool $3 billion. All the better to grease his human shredding machines.

Then came the shock and awe of going to war without a debate in Parliament. Soon after came the PSYOP stage managed destruction of Saddam's statue by renta-crowd, outnumbered by camera crews. After which came the mismanaged destruction of Iraq's art treasures, museums and historic sites, still in full swing today. ("A four-year looting frenzy, in which the allies are the vandals ... a scandal that will outlive any passing conflict".)

Oh, I almost forgot. The one building which escaped the rampaging hordes was the Ministry of Oil.

Feverish journalists poured into Baghdad in search of military units in which to embed themselves, abandoning any pretense of objectivity. The anti-invasion hairy mob were scolded in dispatches by Murdoch's troops for failing to heed the signs of freedom flashing. "The street markets have roared back to life", gushed a noted scribe, "mobile phones are on sale; soon the oil will flow again...". His boss, Rupert, unlike our politicians, had plainly stated at the outset that bringing down the price of oil was reason enough to stain the desert with blood. And what blood there's been.

It started on day one of the occupation, when U.S. soldiers threw up road blocks and bellowed orders at the locals. Those who failed to comprehend their commands were shot in their vehicles; women and children and goats. It's pretty hard to win hearts and minds when you're spilling so much blood and guts.

American advisors tried to superimpose their own concepts on Iraqis. One soldier dusted off the Maryland Traffic Code and inserted "Iraq" where the Maryland Code said "Maryland". This was done without ever consulting with the Iraqi Traffic Police or Judges in the Traffic Court. Multiply this example by a million others.

At one point, John Howard must have ordered his army to find the famous human shredding machine, last seen, allegedly, at Abu Ghraib. An Australia Major was secondered to the American military and stumbled upon an "apparatus of terror". This was the contingent of guards, contractors and CIA interrogators stationed at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the only role played by the Australian military in combating the plague of torture was to deny that it existed. (Our less than valiant Major tried to thwart an investigation by the International Red Cross).

The story gets worse. Estimates of Iraqis killed as a result of our invasion varies from 70,000 to 700,000. Every day there are about 90 unreported air strikes on Iraq, and 40 or so in Afghanistan. (Read a typical report here. Many of these operations kill innocent civilians and involve the use of Australian forces. They are a breach of The Geneva Conventions, which state that: Parties to a conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives. (Article 48, 1977 addition to, Part IV). That's the law.

But now we are outlaws. We have inflated the ranks of the terrorists and reduced the standing of our nation in the eyes of the civilized. Howard evoked the human shredding machine, but its his government which has shredded our humanity. Finally today, the truth. Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has admitted what the mob knew all along: "oil was a factor in Australia's contribution to the unpopular war." Then he said something else, the significance of which is still sinking in. Dr Nelson said it was important for us to remain in Iraq to in order to support the "prestige" of the US and UK.

What prestige? Many of its own fine citizens now maintain, along with numerous polls, that America is the "most hated nation Earth". Surely Nelson has caught the shift in the wind. What he really means, is that Australia should hang out with world's biggest bully, so we get an extra serving of oil. Bugger everyone else.

Earl Warrwick is a Sydney-based writer