IMMEDIATE RELEASE MON 9/6/2003
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE
OZPEACE
CAMPAIGN FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND DISARMAMENT (CICD)
PEACE GROUPS SUPPORT SENATE INQUIRY ON WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Australian peace groups, Friends of the Earth, Australian Peace
Committee, CICD, and Ozpeace., have come out in strong support of a
proposal by the Greens for a Senate inquiry into the manipulation of
intelligence over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
According to the groups:
"We argued strongly before Australia ever went to war with Iraq, that
there was little or no evidence for a program of weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq of a scale that in any way posed a global threat.
Successive reports by UN weapons inspectors indicated that while
there were unanswered questions concerning the Iraqi programs, there
was no indication of any program that posed a threat of any kind to
anyone.
It was clear that even the CIA had no intelligence that proved the
existence of any large program. The Bush administration did not want
to hear this. The fact that intelligence on Iraq was handed from the
CIA to an organisation set up specifically to 'prove' the existence
of WMD in Iraq shows a pattern of manipulation of the facts. The
plagiarisation of an old PhD thesis and the falsification of evidence
on uranium acquisition show more of the pattern of deception.
If the Government has nothing to hide on weapons of mass destruction,
it can only welcome the proposed Senate inquiry. If there has been
manipulation and distortion of intelligence, it is vital that
Australians know that. Finally, if we have gone to war for a lie,
we need to know that too and ensure that there are no more lies: This
was too important a matter for Australia to rely on intelligence from
others that could have been distorted."
Contact:
John Hallam Friends of the Earth Australia 02-9567-7533, h9810-2598
Irene Gale AM (APC) 08-8364-2291
Jacob Grech (Ozpeace) 0402-246-491
Pauline Mitchell (CICD) 03-9555-3076, 03-9663-3677
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