Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and follows the previous answer he gave, particularly the references in that answer to the Jull committee findings to which I was a signatory. Does the foreign minister recollect that findings 5.16 and 5.17 of the Jull committee found:

... the case made by the government was that Iraq possessed WMD in large quantities and posed a grave and unacceptable threat to the region and the world, particularly as there was a danger that Iraq’s WMD might be passed to terrorist organisations.

This is not the picture that emerges from an examination of all the assessments provided to the Committee by Australia’s two analytical agencies.

Does he also recollect from the Jull committee the following finding to which I was a signatory:

Other significant intelligence not covered in the government presentations included an assessment in October 2002 that Iraq was only likely to use its WMD if the regimes survival was at stake and the view of the Joint Intelligence Committee of the UK, available at the beginning of February 2003, that war would increase the risk of terrorism and the passing of Iraq’s WMD to terrorists.

Is it not a fact, Minister, that you exaggerated the intelligence available to you to send us to war in a failed effort and that, as a result of what you have done, we now face a growing terrorist threat? Why should Australians, who have witnessed your fundamental failure of strategy, believe that you are correct in your strategic assessment now as you want that war to keep going?

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