New Canberra probe into WMD intel
By CNN's Grant Holloway
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Former ONA officer Andrew Wilkie has accused the government of distorting intelligence reports.
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CANBERRA, Australia -- The Australian government has ordered an independent inquiry into the intelligence advice provided on the threat posed by Iraq to world security.
An Australian parliamentary inquiry report, released Monday, criticized the advice provided to the government on Iraq and recommended an independent assessment of the issue.
In a statement released Monday, Prime Minister John Howard said his government accepted the recommendation and also that the assessment should be carried out by an experienced former intelligence expert.
Howard said he would name the person to carry out the inquiry, and the terms of reference, shortly.
Australia staunchly supported the invasion of Iraq -- providing troops and equipment -- as a necessary pre-emptive strike to destroy Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program.
No WMD stockpiles have been discovered in Iraq, however, since the invasion began 11 months ago, creating pressure on the Australian government to justify its decision.
The parliamentary inquiry found that Australian intelligence agencies may have "overstated" the case for Iraq's WMD, but added that they were "more moderate and cautious than those of the partner agencies in the U.S. and the UK."
The committee said the government should review its intelligence agencies and in particular it should assess the capacity of the Office of National Assessments (ONA) which specifically provides advice to the prime minister.
The committee found that the ONA was "more ready to extrapolate a threatening scenario from historical experience" and more ready to accept "new and mostly untested intelligence" than other Australian agencies.
The ONA was thrown into the spotlight in March last year following the resignation of one of its officers Andrew Wilkie amid a blaze of publicity.
Wilkie quit in protest over what he described as the government's misuse of information provided by the agency.
And last August, Wilkie told a senate inquiry into the Iraq war that key words from ONA reports, which qualified the veracity of intelligence reports on Iraq's WMDs, had been removed by the prime minister's office.
They had been replaced by more emotive language which supported the government's position on the threat of Iraq, he said at the time.
But Monday's report largely absolves the government from any blame in the situation saying there was "no evidence that political pressure was applied to the (intelligence) agencies" and that is presentation of evidence had been "consistent, moderate and measured".
The report's findings matched those of the Hutton inquiry in Britain, which cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of "sexing up" intelligence to justify the war.
"The government stands by its presentation of the case for disarming Iraq of its WMD capabilities," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said in a statement Monday.
Evidence collected since the conflict began showed Saddam "was pursuing WMD programs and that his regime was concealing these activities from U.N. inspectors," Downer said.
