Global Security Newswire

An Australian lawmaker is calling for the nation's Parliament to investigate claims made by the former Howard administration that prewar Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, Australia's ABC News reported on Thursday (see GSN, June 3, 2008).

Independent legislator Andrew Wilkie would like to see former Prime Minister John Howard provide details on why Australia came to be involved in the U.S.-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Howard asserted that month that the Hussein regime had to be dealt with to ensure it did not pass on unconventional weapons to violent Islamist extremists.

Other world leaders -- notably former U.S. President Bush and ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- also built a case for the invasion in part on the grounds that Baghdad possessed unconventional weapons. No such stockpiles or viable WMD production programs have been discovered in the years following the invasion. An independent British expert panel is finishing work on its own inquiry into the United Kingdom's participation in the war (see GSN, Aug. 1).

Wilkie, who left his position as an intelligence officer with the National Assessments Office over disagreements with Canberra about its Iraqi WMD assertions, said an investigation is in order to probe the "behavior" of Howard and ex-Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

"They have never been made to sit down and explain why they, over many, many weeks if not months, argued about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism when it was very quickly apparent that that official case for war was a lie," the lawmaker said.

He insisted he was not "settling old scores" with the ex-political leaders as he had "won the argument" in 2003.

"The day I resigned about a week before the invasion, I said that the WMD program was disjointed and contained, that there was no evidence of links to terrorists and that we were invading a country on a lie," Wilkie said.

"All I'm trying to do [now] is to have these people" come before an inquiry to answer questions, he said (Jeremy Thompson, Australian Broadcasting Corp., Aug. 11).

Opposition leader Tony Abbott, though, said he had no interest in mounting an investigation on the matter, the Australian Associated Press reported.

"Frankly I think there are higher priorities for the Australian government and the Australian people at this time," he said to journalists.

In the event an inquiry is held, however, Abbott said its focus should include not just the administration officials who served during the lead-up to the invasion, but also then-shadow Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who went on to become Australian prime minister. Rudd now serves as foreign minister.

Rudd "was more adamant than anyone that Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction," Abbott said.

All Australian soldiers had left Iraq as of August 6 (Australian Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Aug. 11).