Awkward questions of prior knowledge

- "Canberra Times", 3 March 2004, Opinion, p.15

Government actions in the Iraq War suggest it knew WMD’S weren’t a threat, says Tony Kevin

 

THE REPORT of the Parliamentary Joint Committee inquiry's into pre-war intelligence on Iraq's WMD capability gave the Defence Intelligence Organisation (military intelligence, reporting to Defence Minister Robert Hill) a broad tick, but left questions over the Office of National Assessments' role.

ONA digests current intelligence into short summaries for the Prime Minister. Its operational links with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are close. It would have known what Howard wanted on Iraq WMD: quotable assessments to back up his political decision in 2002 to go to war with Bush in Iraq. After September 12, 2002, ONA - flooded with allied intelligence that it could not evaluate independently - fell into line.

Next time any Australian government plans to take Australia into pre-emptive war, it must rely primarily on its own independent military intelligence product. Our soldiers' lives depend on it.

The new "independent" inquiry into ONA will not come under parliamentary disciplines. Unless it is a judicial inquiry or Royal Commission, it will have questionable credibility.

A major part of the parliamentary committee's mandate was to examine whether the Government as a whole presented accurate and complete information to Parliament and the public on the Iraq WMD intelligence received, and whether Australia's pre-conflict assessments of Iraq's WMD capability were as accurate as should be expected of information relied on in decisions to take the Australian Defence Force into military conflict. In other words, it was as much about Government performance as about ONA.

So far, the Government has neatly slid out from under those questions.

Prime Minister John Howard, in announcing to Parliament on March 18 Australia's so-called "commitment" to military action, asserted that Iraq's "continued possession" of an "arsenal of prohibited [WMD] weapons" constituted a "real and unacceptable threat" , "to [Iraq's] region and the wider world". That was said to be the present danger, and reason for war with Iraq.

National Security Committee of Cabinet on March 18 secretly authorised the First SAS Regiment, already in the Middle East, to enter Iraq that evening, March 18 Iraq time, to mount shock-and-awe warfare in the lightly defended western region of Iraq. Australia sent just 75 SAS troops for this task (the rest of the regiment was on covert monitoring duty near Baghdad). Those 75 troops reportedly routed 2000-3000 Iraqi troops and achieved military control of about one-quarter of Iraq in a few days.

It was a remarkable victory. It was also, in its first 36 hours, an undeclared pre-emptive war that raises questions of legality and honour.

>From March 18 to 20 March, Howard, by implication, misled Parliament and the people to believe that Australia was awaiting expiry of President George Bush's 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. On March 18, Howard told Parliament that the commitment was "for possible future action", "that may take place in the future". On March 20, Howard told media: "Today marks the first indication of our active involvement. Our forces will operate in accordance with the laws of war ..."

They didn't. The first law of war is to declare it before starting it. Now Hill and Defence are saying no problem, because NSC authorised the SAS to fight on March 18. But those war orders were kept secret at the time.

This issue hooks into the WMD intelligence issue, because WMD-armed Scuds aimed at Israel were understood to be the imminent danger. Yet Australia sent in just 75 SAS troops to fight in western Iraq. Coalition Command's tactical intelligence must have reported that the region was lightly defended, which meant a low probability of Scuds being there. Yet that was the reason claimed for going to war: clear and imminent danger of WMD use by Saddam. It just doesn't hang together.

I believe the Government knew in February-March 2003, to high certainty, that Iraq did not possess operational WMD. The history of coalition deployment of just 75 SAS soldiers to western Iraq proves this beyond reasonable doubt.

But Labor probably won't call this lie. Labor has scored useful points in the Jull-Ray inquiry, and will leave Howard to run his own inquiry. For Labor to raise the awkward questions I have raised here could be turned back on itself as a wedge issue. In Australian politics, ONA may be fair game but not the ADF. Questions about why the ADF Command let itself be ordered into secret pre-emptive war during a conditional ultimatum period will no doubt be set aside until after the election. But I doubt this issue will be forgotten.

Tony Kevin is a former Australian diplomat , now a Visiting Fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University.