Waiting for advice that is beyond doubt: uncertainty as Australia’s reason to join the invasion of Iraq

ABSTRACT

A dominant theme across examinations of the intelligence used to justify invading Iraq in 2003 is that political decision-makers amplified the clarity of their evidence. What has been missed is that Australia did exactly the opposite: here, the political leadership channelled uncertainty, inconclusiveness and doubt into highly effective rhetorical manoeuvres that embraced the imperfection of evidence and, with it, sufficiently weakened arguments that an invasion could take place only with absolute proof. This article examines the role of Australian intelligence amid a complex mix of factors that facilitated those manoeuvres.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For example, Albright, “Iraq’s Aluminium Tubes”; Barstow, “The Nuclear Card”; Blix, Disarming Iraq; Glees and Davies, “Intelligence, Iraq and the Limits of Legislative Accountability”; Hersh “Selective Intelligence”; Jervis, “Reports, Politics, and Intelligence Failures”, and “The Mother of All Post-Mortems”; Mearsheimer and Walt, “An Unnecessary War”; Phythian, “The Perfect Intelligence Failure?”; Rappert, How to Look Good in a War; Rovner, “Fixing the Facts”; and Zarefsky “Making the Case for War.”

2. Gleeson, Australia’s ‘War on Terror’ Discourse; Holland, “Howard’s War on Terror”; and McDonald and Merefield, “How was Howard’s War Possible?”

3. The PJCAAD was convened between 2002 and 2005 to review the administration and expenditure of Australia’s intelligence collection agencies: the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and the then Defence Signals Directorate.

4. Dick Cheney in Barstow, “The Nuclear Card.”

5. The White House, “President’s Remarks.”

6. UK Government, “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction”, aka the September Dossier.

7. Parliament of Australia, “ParlInfo.”

8. Howard, “Iraq 2003.”

9. Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard speaking to journalists following release of the Chilcot Inquiry: ‘If you wait for advice that is beyond doubt you can end up with very disastrous consequences’ (Blackwell, “‘There was No Lie’”).

10. Committee of Privy Councillors, “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry,” 72.

11. Gerblinger, “Are Experts Complicit.”

12. Rappert, “Counting the Dead,” 62.

13. Seldon, “Blair in History”; and Maranto “The Leadership Difference.”

14. Betts and Phythian, The Iraq War, 197.

15. In Australia, ‘the Senate’ does not denote ‘the government’ because the government does not usually have the majority of votes in the Senate: ‘The proportional representation system of voting used to elect senators makes it easier for independents and the candidates of the smaller parties to be elected … the government party usually does not have a majority of votes in the Senate and the non-government senators are able to use their combined voting power to reject or amend government legislation’ (Parliament of Australia, “About the Senate”).

16. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons, Terms of Reference.

17. ONA assessed and analyzed ‘international political, strategic and economic developments for the Prime Minister and senior ministers’ (Australian Government, ONA). In 2018, the ONA was renamed the Office of National Intelligence, or ONI.

18. DIO’s focus is on tactical, military matters for the benefit of the minister for Defence and other government officials.

19. Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons, 29.

20. Ibid, 30.

21. Ibid, 30–1.

22. Ibid, 29.

23. Ibid, 32.

24. Ibid, 36.

25. Bush claimed that ‘Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminium tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon’ (The White House, “President’s Remarks”).

26. Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons, 32.

27. Ibid, 33.

28. Ibid, 38.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid, 35.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid, 40.

33. See note 8 above.

34. Smith, “Time, Times and the ‘Right Time’,” 6.

35. Ibid, 13.

36. “ABC TV News and Current Affairs” (The Howard Years).

37. The White House, “The National Security Strategy.”

38. Zarefsky, “Making the Case,” 275.

39. Howard, Lazarus Rising, 447.

40. Horn, The Secret War, 330.

41. See note 6 above.

42. See note 26 above.

43. Blix, Disarming Iraq, 209–10.

44. Wynne, “When Doubt Becomes,” 441.

45. Ibid.

46. Australian Government, “Report of the Inquiry,” 7.

47. Ibid., 8.

48. Horn, “Knowing the Enemy,” 66.

49. Ibid., 78.

50. Rovner, “Fixing the Facts,” 2.

51. Boswell, The Political Uses; Gerblinger, The Language of the Rebuffed; Michaels, Doubt is their Product; Moore, Critical Elitism; and Wynne, “When Doubt Becomes.”

52. Wilkie, Axis of Deceit, 5–36.

53. Ibid., 35.

54. Ibid, 36.

55. Commonwealth of Australia, “2017 Independent Intelligence Review,” 32.

56. Horn, “Experts or Impostors?” 28.

57. Ibid., 31.

58. Eriksson, Swedish Military Intelligence, 11.

59. Ibid, 2.

60. Ibid, 112.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid, 113 (author’s bracketing).

64. Ibid, 204.

65. Kelly, March of the Patriots, 260.

66. See note 50 above.

67. Ibid.

68. Commonwealth of Australia, “2017 Independent Intelligence Review,” 39.

69. Gyngell, “The Australian Intelligence Tradition.”

70. Rovner, “Is Politicization Ever,” 56.

71. Sydney Morning Herald, “ONA Staff Numbers to Double.”

72. Rovner, “Is Politicization Ever,” 58–61.

73. Ibid, 61.

74. Ibid, 61–3.

75. Ibid, 447.

76. See note 9 above.

77. ABC News, “Chilcot Report.”

78. US Congress, Senate, “Report on the US Intelligence,” 1.

79. US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Senate Intelligence Committee Unveils.”

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid.

82. Phythian, “The Perfect Intelligence Failure?” 404.

83. Ibid, 402.

84. Ibid.

85. House of Commons, “Report of the Inquiry,” 321.

86. House of Commons, “Review of Intelligence,” 152.

87. Ibid, 78.

88. Ibid.

89. Ibid.

90. Ibid, 154.

91. Ibid, 155.

92. Jervis, “The Mother of All,” 287.

93. ‘There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No.10 improperly influenced the text’ (Committee of Privy Councillors, “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry,” 115).

94. Ibid, 116 (authors’ emphasis).

95. The National Archives, The Iraq Inquiry, “Sir John Chilcot’s Public Statement.”

96. ‘There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No.10 improperly influenced the text’ (Committee of Privy Councillors, “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry,” 131–2).

97. Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons, 54.

98. Ibid, 93–4.

99. Ibid, 46.

100. Ibid, 94–9.

101. Australian Government, “Report of the Inquiry,” 31.

102. Ibid, 25.

103. Ibid, 27.

104. Ibid, 34.

105. Ibid, 25. For its part, the Chilcot report notes, ‘[a]t no stage was the hypothesis that Iraq might not have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programmes identified and examined by either the JIC or the policy community’ (Committee of Privy Councillors, “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry,” 416).

106. See note 101 above.

107. The Age, “Truth, Intelligence and Contradictions.”

108. Jervis, “Reports, Politics, and Intelligence Failures,” 46.

109. See note 108 above.

110. Phythian, “The Perfect Intelligence Failure?” 68.

111. See note 55 above.

112. Eriksson, Swedish Military Intelligence, 204.

113. Vaughan, “The Rôle of the Organization,” 931.

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Christiane Gerblinger

Christiane Gerblinger is a Visiting Fellow and graduate co-convenor of ‘Science, Technology and Public Policy’ at the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the Australian National University in Canberra. An alum of Australia’s prestigious Sir Roland Wilson scholarship, Christiane completed a PhD on the language of rejected policy advice in 2021, a PhD in Gothic science fiction in 2000, and a BA (Hons) in literature in 1995. In between, she worked in a range of public sector roles, including as a senior policy adviser on counter-proliferation, intelligence, energy, health and rural policy and as a speechwriter in an economic portfolio.