"Government deleted truth" — Andrew Wilkie

Richard Titelius

As the US occupation of Iraq enters its second year, it is clear 
that, to paraphrase those infamous words of the US president from 
a year ago, the mission has been far from accomplished — 
discredited would be closer to the truth.

As the reasons for the US, UK and Australian intervention in Iraq 
continue to unravel, it was an opportune moment for the former 
intelligence analyst at the Office of national Assessments (ONA), 
Andrew Wilkie to give an overview of the situation from the time 
of his shock resignation from ONA to the changes which have 
occurred on the national and international security landscape 
since that time.

He did this at a public meeting at the University of Western 
Australia on May 5 to an appreciative audience around 500 people 
who came to hear him speak.

Much of the case of the US-led push for war and Australia's 
following of the US lead, lay not so much in faulty or poor 
intelligence, according to Wilkie, but in the drive to remove any 
ambiguity from the intelligence reports. The reports presented to 
the government were couched in qualified terms such as, "would", 
"possibly" and "on the basis of an uncorroborated interview".

The government removed any ambiguity by deleting references to 
these terms and turned a qualified assessment into an unqualified 
statement.

The government went further in its drive for war by making 
selective use of the truth and fabricating it when necessary such 
as the reports of Iraq importing uranium yellowcake from Niger 
and the aluminium tubing from China. PM John Howard claimed the 
tubing was going to be used to process nuclear material for the 
manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.

While the Howard Government may be misusing the security 
assessments it receives from its intelligence agencies, Wilkie 
assured the audience that Australia has not reached the levels of 
politicisation which the intelligence agencies of the US have had 
to suffer, with officials from the White House looking over their 
shoulders as they prepared the security assessments on the case 
for going to war on Iraq in 2003.

However, in its zeal to protect its global military and economic 
ascendency through its War on Terror, the US and its allies have 
made the world a dangerous place — helped in no small part by 
the mischievous and incompetent use of the resources of their 
intelligence agencies.

Andrew Wilkie started and finished his presentation with the 
qualification that he was now the endorsed candidate for the 
Australian Greens for the Federal Lower House seat of Bennelong 
in New South Wales, which is John Howard's seat.

He accused the Howard Government of being incompetent on national 
security through its erroneous determinations of what it 
perceives are the risks to Australia's security.

He said the government should concentrate its intelligence 
resources on looking at the causes of international terrorism 
rather than following the leads offered by the United States, 
which has its own agenda — and arguably not a benign or peaceful 
one.

Finally, Andrew Wilkie said that he hoped John Howard would make 
national security an election issue as he welcomed the 
opportunity anytime to publicly debate the issue with him.

It can't happen soon enough, judging by the warm applause he 
received for his forthright challenge to his upcoming Federal 
election opponent.

After his formal presentation Wilkie also took several questions 
on a range of topics from the floor of the auditorium.