89306187

Brisbane

John Quiggin reports on the peace march
and then examines Blair’s moral case for war with Iraq.

Like millions of others, I went to a peace rally yesterday. There were about 50 000 people in Brisbane*. I think it’s clear that the case for an immediate war aimed at getting rid of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction has not convinced the majority of Australians. That could change, given new evidence, but it’s clearly going to take a lot more than we have seen so far.

[* Crowd estimates are always tricky. The march took about an hour to pass any given point. Assuming 15 people per second passed each point (the marchers were about 15 abreast) that would make 3600*15= 54 000.]