Richard Butler expresses concern over Iraq war rhetoric
PM - Monday, 2 June , 2003 18:10:00Reporter: Alison CaldwellMARK COLVIN: We begin with the continuing storm over the intelligence that British, American and Australian Governments told us before the Iraq war proved the existence of weapons of mass destruction.
It's become even more controversial because of reports from Britain and America that US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had serious doubts before the war about the reliability of the intelligence.
But this morning on AM Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said there was no need for any review of Australia's intelligence in the matter, though Australia has always said weapons of mass destruction were the reason for taking our troops into the conflict.
Tonight the former United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector Richard Butler says Australians should be demanding a public inquiry. Richard Butler spoke to Alison Caldwell a short time ago.
ALISON CALDWELL: Richard Butler, if the coalition forces haven't yet found weapons of mass destruction, does that mean they aren't there, or that they were never there?
RICHARD BUTLER: No it does not. Everyone in the Security Council knows that there was a residual quantity of weapons left in 1998 when Saddam shut me and my inspectors down and threw us out.
I can tell you the exact numbers, Alison, of chemical weapons, biological weapons and missing missile parts. Everyone agreed on that; the Security Council, the Russians, the French who so strongly opposed the Americans last year, everyone agreed.
Five years later, Hans Blix, my successor reported to the Security Council that there was this residual quantity of weapons unaccounted for. Iraq said it didn't have them anymore. When Hans Blix and his inspectors tried to find them, Iraq wouldn't let them do so, or wouldn't produce the evidence of their destruction. So that was hanging out there.
Let's call that quantity number one. Quantity number one did exist and it was never properly accounted for. Quantity number two is the stuff that the British and the Americans pumped up for the war.
ALISON CALDWELL: It's different?
RICHARD BUTLER: Well, yes it is. Tony Blair in his dossier said that there were, that the Iraqis had been out seeking uranium for a nuclear weapon. The documentation that supported that was examined and shown to be a forgery.
He said the Iraqis could load up their chemical weapons in 45 minutes. We now learn that that was something added in by his speech writer on the basis of what one Iraqi defector told them, and so on.
Colin Powell's presentation to the Security Council made elaborate claims that went beyond quantity number one, in order to justify the war. Specifically he said that there are serious weapons there that could be given to terrorists and we've got to go, therefore, to invade Iraq and find those weapons.
This quantity number two may never be found, because maybe it never existed. There's an investigation taking place now in Washington and London about their intelligence materials as a result of public demand.
ALISON CALDWELL: Do you think we need an investigation?
RICHARD BUTLER: But there should be such an investigation because it's now extremely questionable that the propaganda, the pumping up for quantity number two was ever true.
ALISON CALDWELL: Do you think the Western intelligence then got it wrong, or was it the politicisation of the intelligence? Do you think politicisation of intelligence happened?
RICHARD BUTLER: Well, all the evidence seems to suggest that that's what happened. The White House created a special cell within the Pentagon to create the necessary materials to justify this war. The United Kingdom too it seems from Number 10 Downing Street intervened in what was pure intelligence.
Alison, I'm not suggesting that pure intelligence is always right. But what I am saying is there are questions to be answered here about whether or not intelligence materials were manipulated or fabricated to give the weapons of mass destruction rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
ALISON CALDWELL: The Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on AM this morning that he'd recently spoken to the officials from the Office of National Assessment, and he was satisfied as they were, that their intelligence was solid. He doesn't see the need for an inquiry or a review.
RICHARD BUTLER: I heard him this morning speaking on AM, and I was flabbergasted. With his usual haughty pomposity he said, "Well, you only look into something if something went wrong. Nothing went wrong here, we won't be looking into it."
What an evasive piece of nonsense. ONA, our own national office, Office of National Assessments is a place from which a senior officer resigned in the run-up to the war because he said that I will not participate anymore in this manipulation, Andrew Wilkie.
And by the way, on the same day today, front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, Senator Robert Hill the Defence Minister, Alexander Downer's direct colleague in this matter, he's saying that there should be an investigation of whether or not these intelligence materials were accurate.
ALISON CALDWELL: What about these two trailers? The CIA report into these trailers found in Iraq says that there were probably designed to produce biological weapons agents. What do you make of those trailers?
RICHARD BUTLER: I think those trailers were mobile laboratories. Look, everyone knew that Iraq had a major biological weapons program and a chemical weapons program, a missile program that was illegal, and has striven to get an atomic bomb.
That's quantity number one. They remain unaccounted for to this day. They've either been destroyed by the Iraqis or buried, but that's different from the quantity number two, the existence of which became a much more important part of the lead-up to the war.
And I think there's evidence emerging now that that was hyped. That was spun, that was possibly created for political reasons. And I think for the historical record we need to know what were the facts there, including to what extent the Australian Government, the Howard Government participated in that.
MARK COLVIN: The former UN Chief Weapons Inspector Richard Butler speaking to Alison Caldwell.
Well PM tonight approached the Foreign Minister Alexander Downer for a response to that interview but he was unavailable.
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