US, Aussies Lied About WMD Failure

Australian WMD expert and diplomat reveals deliberate attempts by the Bush Administration to conceal their complete failure to find WMDs in Iraq, ostensibly the reason Bush invaded Iraq.

The letter by Dr. John Gee

outlines in detail interference by the CIA and the Bush Administration in first reports about the weapons hunt to avoid finding that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.

Dr Gee, one of Australia's leading chemical weapons experts, briefed Mr Downer on his concerns after his resignation. He bluntly told him that he believed Iraq had no such weapons.

The John Howard government colluded with the Bush administration to hide this failure for six months; Australia's foreign minister Alexander Downer is now in hot water for having been caught in a bald-faced lie intended to hide their failure until after the 2004 elections.

In a news conference . . .at the time, Mr Downer gave no indication that Dr Gee had told him there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or that the CIA was distorting the weapons hunt.

Instead he said that the weapons hunt was "a work in progress".

Ultimately, . . . the Iraq Survey Group publicly concluded six months later that there were no such weapons in Iraq. Until then, neither Mr Downer nor the Prime Minister, John Howard, would acknowledge this.

Full story from the Sydney Morning Herald, here and here.