Australia's prime minister ruled out on Wednesday an independent investigation into intelligence on Iraqi weapons, saying a parliamentary inquiry had covered the issue thoroughly and the public would soon get the facts.
Australia was one of the first countries to join the US-led invasion of Iraq, sending 2,000 military personnel as Prime Minister John Howard echoed US and British warnings of evidence of weapons of mass destruction to justify the attack.
But nearly 10 months after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled, no biological or chemical weapons have been found, and the US and British governments this week bowed to public pressure for inquiries into apparent intelligence failings.
Howard said there was no reason for Australia to follow suit, particularly as the bulk of its intelligence on Iraq came from American and British sources.
"We've actually had a parliamentary inquiry and the first term of reference in that parliamentary inquiry is the nature, the accuracy and the independence of the intelligence that was relied upon," Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Howard said the report was expected to be tabled in the national parliament on February 20.
Australia's main opposition Labour party has backed the government's decision to wait for the parliamentary inquiry to report before deciding on any further inquiry but minor parties, the Greens and the Democrats, want an independent hearing.
Howard said any inquiry would take into regard British and American intelligence which, at the time, vindicated the decision to invade Iraq although he conceded intelligence was "an imprecise science".
But the US, British and Australian governments' line that evidence of banned weapons could yet be found has proved increasingly hard to sustain since chief US weapons hunter David Kay quit his post, saying he believed Iraq had no stockpiles of illicit weapons.
Howard, however, said he had no regrets about joining the war that toppled Saddam who was captured in mid-December and could face trial for genocide and crimes against humanity.
Comments
Comments are closed.