IraqGate Australia: Three agencies knew about error

Three agencies knew about error

By John Kerin and Patrick Walters

Australian News -July 12, 2003

THREE government intelligence agencies have now admitted that doubts over intelligence reports that Iraq sought uranium from Africa were known to them more than a month before John Howard made the claim as part of the case for war.

But none of them told their ministers or the Prime Minister. The Defence Intelligence Organisation has followed the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and Mr Howard's own personal intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, in admitting it knew of US State Department doubts about claims Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program.

Advertisement

But all three agencies failed to pass on that information either to their relevant ministers -- Defence Minister Senator Robert Hill in the case of the DIO, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in the case of ASIS, and Mr Howard in the case of the ONA.

The DIO's director, Ron Bonighton, told the Nine Network yesterday that while one US State Department report expressed doubts, the rest of the intelligence community was satisfied with the intelligence.

"To us, that meant that the rest of the US intelligence community was happy with it," he said. "But the fact is we didn't tell the Government (about the State Department concerns)."

It is understood the document that ONA, ASIS and DIO received in January was a top-secret overview of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. It contained only a brief reference in an annex on the Africa-uranium issue.

Mr Howard conceded it would have been better had he been told of the doubts, but said it would not have changed his attitude to the war. He insisted that in an 86-page document only one line had referred to some doubts by a section of the State Department. Mr Howard said he was also relying on British intelligence when he made his February 4 comment to the parliament. "Obviously, I will be following up aspects of this," he told Melbourne radio.

<  After Discredited Report, Fingerpointing Abounds Inside Bush Administration | Quit Before it Gets Nasty, Blair Told  >