Weapons cover-up revealed

Australia: "The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, issued instructions to suppress a damning letter about the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the war, a former senior diplomat says.

"Dr John Gee, an expert on chemical weapons, worked with the US-led weapons hunter, the Iraq Survey Group, after the war and wrote the critical six-page letter when he decided to resign in March 2004. In it he warned the Federal Government the hunt was, 'fundamentally flawed' and there was a 'reluctance on the part of many here and in Washington to face the facts' that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

"Dr Gee recorded in an email soon after that 'Downer has issued instructions it [my letter] is not to be distributed to anyone'. He wrote to a colleague in the Iraq Survey Group that a senior official in the Office of National Assessments, the Prime Minister's intelligence advisory agency, had told him about Mr Downer's instructions.

"In another email, Dr Gee said the head of the Defence Department, Ric Smith, told him the department did not receive a copy of the letter even though Dr Gee was working in Iraq under contract to it. Dr Gee said senior defence officials told him the Department of Foreign Affairs 'had not passed the letter on to Defence' ..."
Sydney Morning Herald

Tagged: wmd, australia, disinformation, iraq, disinfo