From OUR ABC (01/09/06)

Rudd accuses Downer of WMD report cover-up
The Federal Opposition says Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is still not telling the truth about a report that criticised the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq.

Mr Downer has denied that he suppressed a report by Australian chemicals weapons expert Dr John Gee, which expressed concern that the search for WMDs was primarily focused on trying to justify pre-war statements.

But the Opposition's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, says Mr Downer is not offering a credible explanation.

"Mr Downer once again has been caught red-handed in the middle of a cover-up on the Iraq war and his credibility gets shredded each time one of these things come to light," he said.

"It's time he came clean, released his reasons for the handling of this critical report on WMDs at the time - his excuses to date are unbelievable."

Mr Rudd says the information was damaging to the Government in the lead-up to the last election.

"The bottom line is Mr Downer was covering this up, just like he tried to cover up the Government's knowledge of the AWB's wheat for weapons scandal," he said.

"And the reason? They had an election to fight and they didn't want any of this damaging information out, prior to October 2004."

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Gus:
From the Guardian (2005)

The Guardian 24 August, 2005

The truth will out, as the saying goes. Last week it was revealed that a former senior Foreign Affairs officer, Dr John Gee, had written a letter explaining his resignation from the US-led Iraq Survey Group which went into the country after the US invasion looking for weapons of mass destruction. Gee’s letter set out grave concerns about the way the search for weapons was carried out and was given to the offices of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister. But it was withheld from a Senate committee inquiry into pressure that was brought to bear by the US on Australian personnel in Iraq to influence the Group’s
findings. Another former Australian weapons inspector, Rod Barton, who earlier this year exposed the torture of Iraqi scientists by US members of the Survey Group, noted: "It’s a funny sort of democracy, it seems to me, where the truth is withheld. There are those in the government who could have testified before the committee, in Foreign Affairs and Defence."

From NineMSN

Downer denies suppressing WMD letter
Friday Sep 1 09:00 AEST

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has denied trying to [http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=126391|suppress a letter] from an Australian expert that said the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was flawed.
Dr John Gee wrote to the federal government when he resigned from the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) in 2004, saying there was a reluctance in Washington and Canberra to accept Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Gee said he was told Mr Downer had ordered the damning letter be suppressed. But Mr Downer denied he had given any instructions for the letter to be buried.
"Of course not. Why would I?" he told reporters in Sydney.
He also rejected Dr Gee's claims that John Quinn, the assistant secretary of the Iraq task force, had told the Office of National Assessments (ONA) in Canberra he was not allowed to give it the letter.
"I spoke to John Quinn today and that's not what he told me," Mr Downer said. "I personally gave no instructions that it was to be or wasn't to be distributed to anyone. "As far as I knew, people around the government were very well aware of Dr Gee's concerns. "We had no reason not to want to hear what he had to say."
Mr Downer said he did not know whether the letter went to the Department of Defence or the ONA, but "wouldn't have had the remotest objection" if it did. After hearing Dr Gee's concerns, Mr Downer said he asked to see him when he returned from Iraq.
"I asked to see him because I was aware he had some concerns about the methodology of the Iraq Survey Group," he said. "If our people had some concerns about the methodology of the Iraq Survey Group I wanted to know what their concerns were."
He also said he spoke to the head of the ISG, Dr Charles Duelfer, who was in Australia two weeks after Mr Downer received Dr Gee's letter.
"I discussed John Gee's concerns with Mr Duelfer in my electorate office in Adelaide," Mr Downer said. He conceded the government's confidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction "gradually declined as time went on".

Dr Gee says he was told by a reliable source that Mr Downer ordered the letter be buried.

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Gus: Since we all knew — those who weren't fooled by Mr Clowner's 8,500 public repeats that "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction" — that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction back then in mid 2002 (from our own secure sources), before the war "operation free-bomb", one can be sure unless he is an idiot that Mr Clowner also knew there were NO WMDs in Iraq, before and after the said war... The "intelligence" on the WMDs was so flimsy and full of fakes — like the contracts for uranium from Niger in the late 1990s (possibly fakes remodelled from contracts Saddam had had in the early 1980s with that same country) — that the "few" people who questioned the blatant idiocy of the "intelligence" were either "disappeared", "suicided" or sidelined with a nasty threat to be a good sort or else... The rest of the people in the "intelligence" network either enjoyed being immersed in the culture of kicking arses and went along knowing full well the proofs of WMDs were tall tales, or they were idiots. This last proposition would not make sense since most analysts are intelligent people, but the first one sticks as many intelligent people are "in the national interest" sadists.

Thus, "there was no reason to bury the letter from Dr Gee in an acid vat", except there was plenty of "reasons" for Mr Clowner not to let it float around the public place... A pat on the back, a disingenuous smile and a promise follow it up, let the good doctor ease up for about a year... In fact our Mr Clowner needed a little time to soften the edges of the megaporkie, to make it land without breaking timber struts, with the infamous inquiries why "intelligence" got it so wrong and all sorts of fudgy other stuff... Good try... but we're not idiots. The good Dr Gee has been silent for all this time because he had his own health to take care of, but now has been assure by solid sources that Mr Clowner ordered the burial of the letter, I would suggest by simple neglect... No cross, but a forgetful double cross as usual...