Howard to boost spy agency funds
By CNN's Geoff Hiscock
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Australia will double funding and staff for its main intelligence sifting agency after an independent report found there had been an intelligence failure on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
In a report released Thursday, former Australian spy chief Philip Flood said: "There has been a failure of intelligence on Iraq WMD. Intelligence was thin, ambiguous and incomplete."
But Flood found there was no politicization of the intelligence gathering process.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, said the report gave the lie to the suggestion Australia had entered the Iraq conflict on a false premise.
Howard committed about 2,000 Australian troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year.
Flood's conclusions are similar to those of other intelligence inquiries on Iraq's WMD program in the United States and Britain.
In a press conference Thursday on the Flood report's recommendations, Howard said he would double staff numbers and funding for the Office of National Assessments (ONA).
The ONA is the agency which makes assessments on international developments, drawing on information gathered by the Australian intelligence community.
Howard said ONA's staffing would rise to 145 and its annual budget would be Aust. $25 million ($18 million).
He said the Flood report, along with previous reports in the United States and the UK, found no evidence of political pressure being brought to bear on the intelligence agencies to come up with an acceptable finding on Iraq's WMD.
He rejected the proposition that his government had taken Australia into the Iraq conflict on a lie.
In a parliamentary submission late last year, the ONA said its assessments of Iraq's WMD programs drew on information from a range of sources.
"Most of the raw intelligence used was provided by intelligence partners, particularly the U.S. and the UK, via their Australian counterpart organizations," it said.
Howard said the government would accept all of the recommendations of the Flood report, except for one calling for a name change for the ONA.
Bali bombings
 |  Latham says the U.S. alliance remains a central pillar of Labor's foreign policy. |
The Flood report also found that Australia's intelligence agencies should have known more about the "terrorist capabilities and intentions" of the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), ahead of the October 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian.
JI, which is regarded as the Southeast Asian arm of the al Qaeda terror network, has been held responsible for the Bali nightclub bombings, Reuters news agency reported.
"The inquiry has seen nothing to indicate that any Australian agency ... had any specific intelligence warning of the attack in Bali," Flood said.
"The failure to appreciate the serious nature of the threat posed by JI was widespread outside Australia's intelligence agencies and in Indonesia itself," he said.
Release of the Flood report comes a week after Foreign Minister Alexander Downer launched launched Australia's first White Paper on terrorism, "Transnational Terrorism: The Threat to Australia."
Downer said Australia faced a "serious threat" from international terrorism and must prepare for this reality.
"As a Western democratic country, our values of peace, religious freedom, liberty and tolerance put us squarely in the terrorists' sights," he said.
Australia's role in the Iraq conflict and regional security in general will be key issues in the federal election to be held later this year.
Australia's opposition leader Mark Latham earlier this month softened his Iraq troop withdrawal policy and pledged military support if the United States were to come under a "clear cut attack" again.
Latham, who became leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in December, fell foul of Washington when he said in March he would bring Australia's troops in Iraq home by Christmas.
That drew strong criticism from U.S. President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and most recently, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who urged Latham to think what it would be like for Australia to be without an alliance with the United States.
Australia contributed about 2,000 troops, fighter jets and naval vessels to the initial invasion of Iraq last year, and around 880 soldiers remain there indefinitely.
Howard, who has led the Liberal coalition government since March 1996, is a strong supporter of Bush's war on terror and reaffirmed his commitment during a visit to Washington last month.
Latham opposes what he says is Howard's "policy of compliance" in supporting the U.S. in Iraq.
But in a fence-mending speech in Sydney on July 12, Latham repeated his stated position that maintaining the U.S. alliance was a "central pillar" of the ALP's foreign policy and that overwhelmingly, he regarded the international role of the United States as "a force for good."
While Latham said a Labor government would withdraw Australian troops in Iraq by the end of 2004 -- other than a contingent to protect Australian diplomats in Baghdad -- he would be prepared to contribute non-combatant personnel to a United Nations mission there and to help with customs and border work.
"The best contribution we can make is to help rebuild Iraq, its services and infrastructure," Latham said, pledging an extra Aust. $75 million ($53 million) to this work over the next two years.
Latham noted that Labor supported sending Australian military forces to the conflict in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, and would do so again.
"Should another attack produce an identifiable source, we would be prepared to support similar action," he said.
Latham is neck and neck with Howard in the opinion polls. A recent Newspoll of voting intentions shows the two-party preferred vote in the first week of July was 51 percent for Labor and 49 percent for the Liberal coalition. Labor's support peaked at 55 in March.
Howard is expected to call a federal election in September or October.
