Al-Qaeda fears stark before war
The threat of terrorism hugely concerned the intelligence community, argues Tom Allard.
For many in the intelligence community, the great and disturbing strategic blunder arising from Australia's high-profile role in the Iraq war is not the undiscovered weapons of mass destruction.
It's the damage done to what should have been our overriding priority, crushing terrorism.
In early 2003, with the scarring and tragic Bali bombings just months past, it was clear that counter-terrorism was the pre-eminent challenge and most pressing threat to Australia's national interest.
Indeed, intelligence sources say their view that invading a Muslim country would inevitably provoke anger towards the West, inflame support for terrorism and result in droves of new recruits joining the jihadist cause was "stating the obvious".
As one intelligence figure put it: "What we were saying was not different from what was in newspapers or what many experts were saying."
This was not just casual conjecture around the coffee urn. The Herald's sources - some held senior posts at the time, all were at the centre of work on Iraq and terrorism - insist the Government was told of their concerns in written and in verbal briefings.
In the lead-up to war, they say senior government members were constantly being briefed on al-Qaeda and terrorism, including the likely impact of the Iraq war on their jihad.
To be sure, as the inquiry by Philip Flood noted, the Office of National Assessments and the Defence Intelligence Organisation did not compile an over-arching national assessment on the strategic consequences, including for terrorism, of the war.
The two joint DIO-ONA reports on Iraq ran 5 pages.
For that, they rightly received a lashing from Mr Flood and many commentators.
But the Herald has been told that the demand from the Government was for shorter, more timely assessments called watch reports or current assessments. It also relied heavily on verbal briefings.
By these means the Howard Government was made "very, very aware" of the strongly held concerns that deposing Saddam Hussein would hurt the war against al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah, the battle Mr Howard has described as the "fight of our lives".
Intelligence analysts also point out that, desperately short of manpower, they did not have time for longer assessments, and were never asked to do one.
"The amount of intelligence that was coming through was absolutely staggering," said one intelligence analyst. "I'd often be in at 6am and it would be the mid-morning at best before we got through the daily updates."
Mr Flood never made an explicit finding - either way - on what the intelligence services said about the key issue of Iraq and its effect on terrorism.
Cover-up? Impossible to say. Mr Flood had limited time to peruse thousands of reports. He relied on others to filter and give him the most relevant.
And it is unclear if he asked about verbal briefings or searched with gusto for what the Government was told on the implications for the Iraq war on the battle against terrorism, an issue that was not specifically in his terms of reference.
Critically, annexes to his report show he did not interview some of the intelligence analysts who spoke to the Herald.