Australia: Intelligence failures can't be shrugged off by Editorial: The Age Newspaper 10:46pm 5th Feb, 2004   Canberra.February 14, 2004    "Government 'warned' on intelligence" by Mark Forbes.    Intelligence agencies told the Federal Government in the weeks before the Iraq war that some of the Bush Administration's claims justifying an invasion were exaggerated, according to one of Australia's most senior intelligence officials.    Assessments provided to Prime Minister John Howard stated that US Secretary of State Colin Powell's prewar address to the United Nations "went beyond the available evidence" in at least two areas, the official said.    It is believed these included claims of mobile biological weapons laboratories and alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The official - who spoke on condition of anonymity - said the Government was told before the war that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction did not pose an immediate threat. Iraq's chemical and biological warfare capabilities were largely latent, they said.    In a private briefing attended by The Age, the official said the threat posed by Iraq last year did not justify its invasion.The briefing painted a picture of intelligence on Iraq at odds with some of Mr Howard's comments before and after the war.    This month, Mr Howard said the decision to commit forces to Iraq was justified by the intelligence he had at the time. "We did not distort that intelligence," he said. "I did not manipulate."    On February 4, 2003, Mr Howard told Parliament he knew Iraq still had chemical and biological weapons. "Its possession of chemical and biological weapons and its pursuit of a nuclear capability poses a real and unacceptable threat to the stability and security of our world," he said.    The revelations will increase pressure on Mr Howard to call an inquiry into WMD intelligence, as the US and Britain have done. The official also said a senior cabinet minister questioned an intelligence agency in the lead-up to the war over why its assessments of Saddam's WMDs were not as "gung-ho" as those of US counterparts. The official, who was intimately involved in preparing the assessments, said: "We have always told a consistent and reasonable story.    "We had said Iraq had a WMD program, but to a large part it represented a latent capability. We said the degree of weaponisation of chemical and biological material in Iraq was unknown."    The major prewar intelligence report submitted to Mr Howard stated that Iraq could potentially produce chemical and biological weapons in a relatively short space of time, the official said.    Asked if the magnitude of the Iraqi threat justified its invasion, the official said: "No." Some Government figures "may wish they hadn't concentrated so strongly on weapons of mass destruction", the official said.    Mr Howard was warned of a "gloomy" outlook for postwar Iraq, the official said, and was told the coalition would need to remain involved for many years. "The prospects for a self-sustaining Iraqi government and peacekeeping force were nil."    Melbourne. Australia.February 4, 2004    "Australia: Intelligence failures can't be shrugged off"    However much the Australian Howard Government apparently wishes to export responsibility for wrong intelligence on Iraq, the lines of inquiry set in train overseas must also be pursued in Australia. Unless Australia is to become a lackey state, Prime Minister John Howard's assertion that almost all the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction came from US and British sources does not alter domestic responsibilities for the decision to send forces to war. On Monday, Mr Howard conceded that "obviously (intelligence) was independently assessed and so forth". That is Australian intelligence agencies' responsibility. Mr Howard assumed a broader responsibility when he put the case for war a year ago, and US and Australian voters will deliver their judgements this year on the decision-making. But there is another, longer-term concern about the state of intelligence systems on which Australia's security depends. In the US, no less than six political, intelligence and military inquiries have begun. Australia, by contrast, has a joint parliamentary inquiry, which is due to report by next month. This is not the comprehensive, bipartisan review promised in the US, but should identify issues to be investigated further.    Intelligence is, of course, an inherently ambiguous art (Iraq's WMD threat was overstated but its dangerously chaotic and corrupt state was underestimated). We hear suggestions that the Iraqi weapons might yet turn up - Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has hinted forlornly at a Syrian solution to this particular problem - but large WMD stockpiles almost certainly do not exist. Former chief US weapons inspector David Kay has concluded that "we were almost all wrong", to which his United Nations counterpart, Hans Blix, has retorted that postwar findings confirm his team's prewar reports. The Howard Government chose to discount these and bypass the UN, on the basis of flawed intelligence. One of the key benefits of the US alliance is meant to be a reliable flow of raw intelligence to Australia. Thus the intelligence "systems failure", as Dr Kay describes it, is unavoidably Australia's concern, and it is not just a passive recipient of intelligence.    This is not the first time questions have been raised about Australian intelligence agencies, and in particular the Office of National Assessments, which reports to the Prime Minister. In the case of pre-independence East Timor, the Government erred initially in playing down the risk of violence. The Australian public is entitled to ask why the Government admits to so little concern, then and now, about having got it wrong. The key issues are the same: did Australian agencies do their job in independently and critically assessing intelligence material on which the Government relied; and did the Government accurately represent that material, doubts and all, in justifying its actions? The fact that a murderous dictator has been toppled, though welcome in itself, changes none of this. It is simply dangerous not to clear up doubts about government threat assessments.
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