What was the advice to Government from officials about the reliability of intelligence on the war?
An additional release of Government records on the Iraq War should extend beyond those of Cabinet’s National Security Committee (NSC) of 2003 and be coordinated by Government. The release of NSC records should extend back to the years before 2003 as decisions made in 2001 and 2002 are likely to be particularly important.
On 3 January 2024, the Prime Minister expressed the view that some NSC records on the Iraq War—only recently transferred to the Archives—should be released. They would add to those Cabinet records released by the National Archives of Australia (NAA) on 1 January 2024. This announcement was in conjunction with his commissioning of an inquiry into the late transfer of some of these documents.
This is a most welcome development. Former Howard Government ministers have also indicated that NSC records should be made public.
The annual proactive release of digitised records of Cabinet is a valuable exercise in open government. Cabinet acts as a central clearing house of decisions made by the government, but many of its important decisions are taken in smaller committees and later endorsed by full cabinet. The most important of the Howard Government’s cabinet committees was the NSC. So important was this committee that Howard allowed some of its decisions to stand on their own without the need for later ratification by Cabinet.
The former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, indicated on 4 January that the likely content of the NSC documents would include the agenda for NSC ‘meetings, departmental submissions related to requests from Washington and reports on Australia’s capacity to contribute to the war’ (‘Downer backs call on Iraq papers’, SMH, 4 January 2024).
The release, preferably through proactive digitisation, of these NSC records will be essential in allowing for a more comprehensive picture of the reasons why the Howard Government took the decisions it did on the Iraq War.
But understanding the workings of cabinet will not tell the full story. Some key decisions were taken by a smaller group of policymakers, including senior ministers, their advisers and officials, outside the cabinet room. We know this from memoirs written by politicians. Any record of such decisions or reference to them may be more likely to be found in the records of departments.
This is why accessing the records of departments and agencies highly desirable too. The key departments are the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C), the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Department of Defence, the Attorney-General’s Department and the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General. I do not include the intelligence agencies here because of Mr Philip Flood’s 2004 valuable report into the intelligence agencies.
Among PM&C records listed on the Archives’ ‘record search’ database today is the eleventh part of a file on ‘Consideration of Military Action Against Iraq’ as well as other files on ‘Defence Force Operations’ and ‘commercial interests’, namely the wheat trade conducted by the AWB under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme. There are undoubtedly many more PM&C records not yet listed on ‘record search’. These records may be as enlightening as those of the NSC.
Departmental records are not digitised automatically on the first day that they become eligible like cabinet records. The process for them is that public researchers may apply for access to individual records. Before they are released to the researcher, national security records are sent to the originating departments for advice on whether they can be released and what redactions should be made. The process of ‘access examination’ can take years under normal circumstances.
This is why it is essential for the release of further Iraq records to be conducted in a timely way as a coordinated Government exercise. This would be in rather the same way that the Howard Government commissioned the release in 2000 of historical documents on Australia and East Timor under the Archives Act 1983 and under arrangements approved by the Prime Minister. A team of officials in DFAT and the National Archives of Australia completed this project to allow for a comprehensive release.
A similar process could result in the digitisation of key Cabinet, NSC documents and the departmental documents suggested and perhaps also their publication in an annotated and edited collection published by government. This would also go some way to compensating for the regrettable lack of any Chilcot-like commission of inquiry into Australia’s Iraq commitment.
Some of the key questions to be probed in a release of this kind would be the following. What was the advice to Government from officials about the reliability of intelligence on the war? Even if the intelligence advice was assumed to be correct, did ministers ask, or officials advise, on whether invasion and regime change would provide a durable solution that would be to the advantage of the United States and other western countries in the Middle East? How did ministers weigh any advice about the likely effect of an invasion of Iraq on the dynamics of the Middle East, including enlargement of the power of Iran, the effects of which are clearly obvious today? Another question alerted to me by Emeritus Professor James Cotton is what messages were passed between the Australian and US militaries in August–September 2002 in Florida and elsewhere and what role did the NSC play in these exchanges?
On legal and constitutional questions, was there consideration of alternatives to the ‘Memorandum of Advice’ prepared in DFAT and the Attorney-General’s Department and why were more senior legal officers in the Attorney-General’s Department not engaged in the advice? Finally, what was the constitutional advice to Government about how the Australian Defence Force (ADF) should most desirably be deployed in Iraq, including the role that should be taken by the Governor-General?
Iraq War Release should include records beyond the National Security Committee Records from 2003
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06.01.2024
What was the advice to Government from officials about the reliability of intelligence on the war?
An additional release of Government records on the Iraq War should extend beyond those of Cabinet’s National Security Committee (NSC) of 2003 and be coordinated by Government. The release of NSC records should extend back to the years before 2003 as decisions made in 2001 and 2002 are likely to be particularly important.
On 3 January 2024, the Prime Minister expressed the view that some NSC records on the Iraq War—only recently transferred to the Archives—should be released. They would add to those Cabinet records released by the National Archives of Australia (NAA) on 1 January 2024. This announcement was in conjunction with his commissioning of an inquiry into the late transfer of some of these documents.
This is a most welcome development. Former Howard Government ministers have also indicated that NSC records should be made public.
The annual proactive release of digitised records of Cabinet is a valuable exercise in open government. Cabinet acts as a central clearing house of decisions made by the government, but many of its important decisions are taken in smaller committees and later endorsed by full cabinet. The most important of the Howard Government’s cabinet committees was the NSC. So important was this committee that Howard allowed some of its decisions to stand on their own without the need for later ratification by Cabinet.
The former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander........
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