AUSTRALIA: The Australian government lied about the threat posed by Iraq in order to justify going to war, a former intelligence analyst claimed yesterday.
Former Australian army officer Andrew Wilkie told the first day of a parliamentary inquiry into the use of intelligence leading up to the war that Prime Minister John Howard lied to the Australian public about Iraq's weapons programme.
As in Britain and the United States, there has been public concern in Australia over whether intelligence information, especially that relating to weapons of mass destruction, was manipulated.
"It was sexed up. Sometimes the exaggeration was so great, it was clear dishonesty," Mr Wilkie told the inquiry in Canberra, claiming that intelligence reports were inflated after reaching the Prime Minister's office.
Australia contributed a 2,000-strong military force to the US-led war, including special forces, battle ships and reconnaissance aircraft.
Mr Wilkie, who has previously given evidence to a House of Commons foreign affairs committee into pre-war intelligence, resigned from his job at the intelligence-evaluating Office of National Assessments in March in protest at Australia's staunch support for Washington and London.
Accusing Mr Howard of dishonesty, he said the government had deliberately misled the public by removing the ambiguity from intelligence assessments and exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam's regime.
"Key intelligence assessment qualifications like 'probably', 'could' and 'uncorroborated evidence suggests' were frequently dropped," said Mr Wilkie.
"Much more useful words like 'massive' and 'mammoth' were included."