Mr Ahern said in May he would not apologise for Ireland's role "in helping to remove a dictator", writes Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter.
The Taoiseach's insistence in Brussels that he was "always dead against the war" in Iraq does not tally with some of his previous remarks. They illustrate an apparent desire not to fall out with leaders of note on the international scene over what has been one of the most contentious political debates for years.
For Mr Ahern, language is a flexible friend. However, while he has made strenuous efforts to avoid endorsing or condemning the war, he has been known to let his guard drop.
While he was dead against the war last Thursday, Mr Ahern told the Dáil on May 28th that he was not prepared "to apologise for any small role we might have played in helping to remove a dictator who made his people suffer for 20 years, carried out horrific acts and didn't care about democracy".
Besides supporting various UN resolutions that called for Iraq to disarm, Ireland's "small role" in the removal of the Saddam regime included the provision of landing facilities to the US military at Shannon airport. The services were provided during the build-up to war and when the military campaign began.
Mr Ahern produced legal advice from the Attorney General in a Dáil debate, which said that the provision of landing and overflight services did not mean Ireland was a belligerent in the war. The Government motion on the war expressed regret that the coalition found it necessary to launch the campaign in the absence of agreement on a further UN resolution.
The Government was never going to withdraw the landing facility, although Mr Ahern and his colleagues made strenuous efforts before the US-led invasion began to avoid stating whether it would do so. For weeks at the start of the year, Ministers refused to define their stance, despite sustained political pressure.
Mr Ahern, of course, is not a man to use language clearly if it is not absolutely required. Thus did he use his talent for ambiguity to express support for UN resolutions, and support for the military build-up because it was pressurising Saddam, while not saying if the facilities at Shannon would be withdrawn in the event of a unilateral strike by the US.
The first note of clarity came in Washington in March when Mr Ahern made his annual visit to the White House. There, he said that if Ireland ruled Shannon out of bounds, it would "be the only country in the free world" to withdraw facilities from the US. Employing language that he would subsequently use in the Dáil, Mr Ahern said the US had used Shannon during the Vietnam and Kosovo wars, which did not have UN support.
Later on, he indicated to the Dáil that he presumed Ireland's name was on a list of countries privately supporting the war but could not say so for political reasons. Despite Mr Ahern stating twice in the Dáil that that was his presumption, the Government spokeswoman insisted later that day it was not supporting the war.
Paradoxically, the latest controversy over Mr Ahern's war-talk came as Ireland was left off yet another US list. This one contains the names of countries deemed eligible for reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Those not on it are banned from such work because they did not support the war.
The Taoiseach used this to vindicate what he describes as an anti-war stance. He said in Brussels that the 100,000 people who marched last February in Dublin against the war were actually supporting his stance.
That stretches reality to a new level, given that thousands of those marchers were objecting to the use of Shannon. While the protesters marched, Mr Ahern was canvassing in north Dublin.
At another EU summit in Brussels in March, as world powers' attitudes split over the war, Mr Ahern said: "We are not cross with anybody" and "we haven't fallen out with anyone". That may be so. But if maintaining the stance demands a need to say all things, they must never be said all at once.
On March 22nd the Taoiseach suggested that the jury was still out on the morality of the war.
"Whether military action is justified will be determined only in the light of the results achieved and the costs incurred, including in terms of the loss of human lives," he wrote in this newspaper.