(Australian) PM admits pleading for intelligence on Iraq war

[sabra]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-admits-pleading-for-intelligence-on-iraq-war/2006/10/03/1159641324109.html

PM admits pleading for intelligence on Iraq war

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has acknowledged he was forced to appeal personally to the US President, George Bush, for access to top-level intelligence on Iraq.

The Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward writes in his new book, State of Denial, that Mr Howard and his British counterpart, Tony Blair, made repeated representations to Mr Bush before the highly classified intelligence was forthcoming as promised.

But access was not granted until last year, two years after the war began and a year after Mr Howard first appealed to his friend and ally.

Mr Howard said yesterday he was not very happy with the delay, "and that's why I intervened".

...

"There is always a degree of inter-agency jealousy about anybody having access to these things, even very close allies, and it did take a lot of pushing. You know what the system is like," he said.

[mod mom]

1. Pleading for intelligence from the Bu$h Administration?

:rofl:

[indepat]

2. Yeah what intelligence or hard intelligence?

[Schema Thing]

3. And so, we marched merrily to war, as our good chum Georgie

told us that they were bad guys who need to be extremely dead.

[tonkatoy57]

4. I just don't understand how the world works, I guess.

Let's get this straight. The head of a foreign country commits troops and resources, knowing full fell that many of his countrymen would be killed or maimed, on the word of the Bush administration. A group, I might add, whose word was less than golden even at this early date.

I wouldn't buy a house or even a car without doing more in depth due diligence and this bozo, and he was willing to sacrifice the lives of his citizens without seeing all the intelligence?

That's pretty mind boggling if you ask me.

[cal04]

5. PM slams Pentagon spy delays

JOHN Howard has attacked the Pentagon for ignoring an order from George W. Bush to share top-level intelligence on Iraq with Australia's military planners, forcing the Prime Minister to complain to the US President.

Mr Howard confirmed yesterday he was angry at the Pentagon's decision to restrict Australia's access to its intelligence network on Iraq, and said he had complained directly to Mr Bush twice to clear the military veto.

"Some of these agencies operate like a law unto themselves," he said yesterday. "I wasn't very happy with those delays."

In an extraordinary attack on the defence chiefs of Australia's closest military ally, Mr Howard said he had protested to Mr Bush to ensure Australia had unfettered access to the network.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20521642-601,00.html