Prime Minister John Howard on Tuesday denied misleading the Australian public over whether the country’s involvement in the United States-led Iraq invasion increased the risk of terrorist attacks in Australia.
The government has admitted it knew of a British intelligence report written before the war that warned a strike against Baghdad would increase terrorist threats in Western countries, contradicting Howard’s stated position in the lead-up to the war.
Howard said the British report was just one information source and he stood by his government’s contention that removing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein would lead to a reduced terrorist risk in the long term.
He said the country’s top spy, ASIO director general Denis Richardson, had agreed with the assessment.
”We made a judgement that involvement in a war in Iraq would not, in the absence of credible and specific intelligence, warrant a raising of the overall threat level in Australia. Now this was the judgment of the director general of the ASIO,” Howard told Parliament.
”It wasn’t John Howard’s judgment, or [Foreign Minister] Alexander Downer’s judgement, but it happened to correspond with the judgement we had taken.”
Opposition leader Simon Crean said Howard lied to the public by arguing Australia’s involvement would not increase the country’s terrorist risk when he had intelligence saying the exact opposite.
”He ignored damning evidence to the contrary, he continued to make speeches asserting what this report refuted and he sent our troops to war based on a lie,” Crean said.
A British parliamentary committee report released on Friday said that the joint intelligence committee provided British Prime Minister Tony Blair with evidence debunking key arguments used by the US, Britain and Australia to justify launching military action against Baghdad.
Australia was one of the US’s staunchest allies in its stance against the Iraqi regime. It sent about 2 000 troops to support the invasion. — Sapa-AFP