US to set up 'independent, bipartisan' inquiry into war in Iraq

Producer: Felix Tan
First broadcast: 3 February 04, Radio Singapore International

US President George W. Bush has announced that he would set up an 'independent, bipartisan' commission to investigate pre-war intelligence that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

The inquiry was prompted when the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, revealed to Congress last week that they were 'almost wrong' in assuming that Iraq had illicit weapons.

This has also prompted the United Kingdom to set up and conduct its own probe into the apparently flawed intelligence report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

But how important will the US Commission be and what can it achieve?

Felix Tan put this question to Professor David Tucker (DT), at the University of Melbourne in Australia:

DT: "Well, it is very important because they have got a great credibility problem relating to their intelligence. And of course, they will have to address that in plausible ways. So, they do need a committee and I think, it has been forced upon them."

How is this investigation going to affect George W. Bush's political career as well as his position as the President of the United States?

DT: "Well, first of all, it is really not clear how the commission is going to be selected. The reports in the newspapers do not spell it out exactly. And it does seem to be the case that the President wants to nominate the members of the committee and it will be bipartisan. They will select people from the other side - not Republicans. But of course, they will select people who are known to be quite favourable to the military and to the intelligence community. So, I think this is not going to be a radical commission, which is going to support the view of the left-wing critics of the war. It will be a considered a largely supportive commission."

Mr Bush has also mentioned that he wants to know 'all the facts'. So, does this imply that the President of the United States had actually launched a war based on speculation rather than on facts that he did not even know?

DT: "No, the person who has provoked this call for a commission is the man called David Kay. He was a former US chief weapons inspector and he was selected by George W. Bush. He was a person that you could put a lot of trust in. And he blames himself, along with other intelligence officials at the highest levels, for the mistakes. So, he actually went out of his way in reporting to the Senate to say that no pressure was put on the intelligence community by the politicians. He is putting the blame on the CIA and on other intelligence agencies and not on the politicians. So, I think that what they are going to use this commission to do is try to move the issue from the political agenda."

How far will Washington now dictate the British political agenda for example?

DT: "Well, the British are going to set up their own intelligence investigations. So, they are going to do a similar thing in Britain with Tony Blair - setting up a commission there. And that might be embarrassing for George W. Bush because, you know, he would not be able to control what the British say and they will be reporting to the British Parliament. And those reports will then be carried over to the United States. What they want to do in the United States is to try to have this commission report next year - after the election. So, this is another thing they are planning - they want to say that it has got to be bipartisan and it has got to be outside of politics. They do not want this issue to be manipulated by people during the election. So, they want the commission to report next year, but it may be that the British report comes earlier. This is going to be kind of a bit embarrassing. It is a very serious problem. You see, the legal justification for the war is based on the weapons of mass destruction. And so, you know, if they have no weapons there, they do look sort of silly when they report it back to the world body."

How would this actually affect United States' allies, you know, countries such as Australia and Spain?

DT: "It is enormously important. The credibility of the United States has been dealt with a very severe blow and they have to investigate. We have got a problem in the world relating to the proliferation of weapons and the Americans decided that the United Nations was not addressing that problem effectively, because there were no pressure on various governments that they called 'rogue states' to actually comply with the requirements of UN resolutions. So, that was the whole issue and the people in the White House said 'well, we are going to now make it clear that if people in other countries do not comply with these resolutions, we will use the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes to go in and remove these weapons'. And this was the doctrine that Bush articulated and that doctrine now lacks certain credibility because they simply did not have the intelligence to back it up. I mean, they have to show the real evidence that there were weapons there."

Now, do you think that countries like Australia or Spain might even hold some sort of inquiry or investigation as well?

DT: "Well, already Prime Minister John Howard in Australia is under pressure to do what Tony Blair has done to hold an independent inquiry in Australia."