Downer knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, says key weapons inspector

Reporter: Lynn Bell
ABC, The World Today
Aug. 31, 2006

ELEANOR HALL: Now to allegations against Australia's Foreign Minster on one of the Government's key reasons for going to war in Iraq.

A key weapons hunter hired by the United States says the Australian Government did not want to face the fact that there no weapons of mass destruction and that no evidence of programs to build them were found in Iraq.

Dr John Gee worked with the Iraq Survey Group after the Coalition's invasion of Baghdad and he wrote to the Government to tell it that he was resigning because he had no faith in the integrity of the weapons searching process because the United States seemed focussed on a predetermined outcome.

Dr Gee says the Foreign Minister Alexander Downer did read his letter outlining all those concerns, but chose not to take it any further.

In Canberra, Lynn Bell reports.

LYNN BELL: Doctor John Gee is an Australian expert on chemical weapons who worked with the US-led Iraq Survey Group in Baghdad.

He wrote a six-page letter when he resigned from his contract with the Department of Defence in March 2004, warning the Federal Government that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction was fundamentally flawed.

In his resignation letter Dr Gee says the Iraq Survey Group's activities were, to all intents and purposes, determined by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

JOHN GEE: The advice I gave the Government was that there was no WMD (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq, and I had lost confidence in the process that was being carried out in Iraq by the Iraq Survey Group. It didn't seem to me to be an intellectually honest process.

LYNN BELL: He says an intellectually honest approach would be to ask the question: "are there any weapons of mass destruction?" - and then proceed on that basis.

But Dr Gee doesn't believe that approach was taken.

JOHN GEE: I think it was just preconceived in Washington that there was WMD there, but they never stepped back to look at the whole process and say, is there WMD there? Had they done that, they might have got a different answer.

I think the same considerations applied in Canberra actually, too.

LYNN BELL: Dr Gee says the Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told him he'd read the report that Dr Gee sent back in 2004.

Dr Gee wrote a number of emails to his colleague Rod Barton, who was also working as a weapons inspector in Iraq about this issue.

In one email, dated the 10th of March 2004, Dr Gee says the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had not passed his letter on to the Defence Department.

And in another email Dr Gee told Rod Barton, "The reason why Defence has not seen my letter is that Downer has issued instructions it not be distributed to anyone."

Dr Gee believes the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, suppressed his letter.

JOHN GEE: My understanding is that he ordered it not to be circulated outside the department.

LYNN BELL: Dr Gee says he was told as much by people that he trusts.

JOHN GEE: Well, I was told that by some people whose judgement and commitment to the truth I trust. So I'm not sure what to conclude from all of that.

LYNN BELL: A spokesman for Alexander Downer says the Minister does not recall receiving a letter of resignation or any letter from Dr John Gee about the Iraq Survey Group.

Labor's Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd says Mr Downer has engaged in a cover-up.

KEVIN RUDD: And what we now discover is that the Australian weapons experts sent in to help came back and told Mr Downer to his face that there were no WMD there at all. What did Mr Downer do? He covered it up. He didn't want that message to get out to the Australian public before the 2004 federal elections.

That's where this thing stinks. Mr Downer has put politics first and Australia's national security interests last.

LYNN BELL: Kevin Rudd says the six-page letter written by Dr Gee must now be made public.

ELEANOR HALL: Lynn Bell reporting from Canberra.












All original InformationLiberation articles CC 4.0



About - Privacy Policy