Australian PM attacks decision to join war in Iraq

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd accused his predecessor of abusing intelligence information to justify entering the Iraq war, saying Monday that the Australian people were misled.

In remarks to parliament on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, which began Sunday, Rudd said the nation must learn from the errors of former Prime Minister John Howard, who sent 2,000 troops to support U.S. and British forces in the 2003 invasion.

"We must learn from Australia's experience in the lead-up to going to war with Iraq and not repeat the same mistakes in the future," Rudd said.

He criticized Howard's government for going to war without accurate information or a full assessment of the consequences.

"Of most concern to this government was the manner in which the decision to go to war was made: the abuse of intelligence information, a failure to disclose to the Australian people the qualified nature of that intelligence," Rudd said.

Before the invasion, Howard argued that Saddam Hussein had to be toppled to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. The weapons were not discovered and no definite links were established between Saddam and al-Qaida or other terror networks.

Rudd said Howard wrongly believed that Australia's close alliance with the United States left him with no choice but to join the campaign in Iraq.

"This government does not believe that our alliance with the United States mandates automatic compliance with every element of the United States' foreign policy," Rudd told Parliament.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said she had not reviewed Rudd's comments, but said the U.S. invasion was based on intelligence that the entire world had.

"We acted based on a threat that was presented to us," Perino said at the White House. "Since then, we have learned that there was not WMD (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq."

She said the U.S. has since taken steps to strengthen the accuracy of intelligence.

Howard could not be immediately reached for comment after Rudd's address. However, in an interview published Monday in The Sydney Morning Herald, Howard said he was "baffled" by the decision to withdraw troops, adding he would have shifted them into a training roles.

The former prime minister has long denied deliberately misleading the Australian public over the threat posed by Iraq.

A government-commissioned inquiry in 2004 into Australian spy agencies' pre-Iraq war intelligence cleared Howard's government of overstating the case for joining the U.S.-led invasion.

But in his 185-page report, retired diplomat and spy master Philip Flood lamented "the thinness of the intelligence on which analysts were expected to make difficult calls" about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Details about the intelligence and how it was provided were not available.

Rudd campaigned for November's general election vowing to withdraw combat troops by mid-2008.

On Sunday troops lowered the Australian flag that had flown over Camp Terendak in the southern Iraqi city of Talil, marking an end to the service of the 550 soldiers there.

Twenty-seven Australian troops have been wounded in Iraq. None were killed in combat.

Australia has been urging NATO forces to boost their presence in Afghanistan, but Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said Tuesday that Australia's withdrawal from Iraq did not mean more troops would be available for service in Afghanistan.

"We are doing substantial work there and we have no intention of doing more while so many NATO countries, I think, could be doing much more themselves," Fitzgibbon told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., of Australia's about 1,000 forces in Afghanistan.