HABIB - released from US detention, but still "suspect".

ABC:

"Govt 'loose with the truth' over Iraq, Rudd says

The Federal Opposition says the Government must reveal what it knew of the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by Coalition forces.

A former intelligence analyst, Rod Barton, says he told the Defence Department that Australians in Iraq were aware of the abuse of prisoners.

Mr Barton worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years and was in Iraq during the search for banned weapons.

He says he is annoyed by Defence Minister Senator Robert Hill's comment last year that no Australians were involved in the interrogation of prisoners and that the Government had no prior knowledge of prisoner abuse.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says he wants the Government to respond to the allegation before the Opposition considers whether there should be a parliamentary inquiry into the matter.

"Let's see what the Government has, and Senator Hill has, to say in response to the allegations which have been made," he said.

"I think it's important to take this step-by-step.

"I simply point to the Government's track record on Iraq, a Government which has consistently been loose with the truth with the Australian people on practically everything concerning Iraq.""


None of this makes Habib innocent, of course!

Curioser and curiouser:


"Britain Wanted A 'Sexier' Iraqi Weapons Report Claims Scientist


An Australian scientist involved in the US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq today said the CIA censored his reporting so that it suggested the weapons existed.

He also accused the head of Britain?s Joint Intelligence Committee of wanting to to make the report ?sexier.?

Rod Barton, a microbiologist who worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, told Australian TV he quit the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) in disgust at the censorship of its interim report presented to the US Congress in March last year.

?We left the impression that, yes, maybe there were ... WMD out there,? Barton said. ?So I thought it was dishonest.?

Barton, an experienced weapons hunter who joined the UN search for Saddam Hussein?s illicit arsenal in 1991, said the censorship in the US investigation began after Charles Duelfer became the new head of ISG in February 2004.

Barton said Duelfer wanted ?a different style of report altogether? which he had discussed with President George Bush and the CIA.

Barton said the report was to have no conclusions.

?I said to him, ?I believe it?s dishonest,?? Barton said. ?If we know certain things and we?re asked to provide a report, we should say what we found and what we haven?t found and put that in the report.?

Duelfer?s staff and senior CIA staff had stipulated what ?politically difficult? information could not be included in the report, Barton said.

The ISG was allowed to mention a find of aluminium pipes but were not allowed to mention that their probable intended use was not nuclear.

The pipes had earlier been publicly described as likely components for centrifuges to be used for nuclear enrichment and were highlighted by the US-led coalition of the willing in the case for war against Iraq.

The report was not allowed to mention two trailers held at the ISG camp which the CIA had previously labelled mobile biological weapon laboratories, Barton said.

?They were nothing to do with biology,? he said. ?We believed that they were hydrogen generators.?

He added, ?Charles? attitude was he did not want to inspect them or know. Then he could genuinely say to Washington that he doesn?t know what they are for.?

Barton said the draft report was circulated to Washington and London.

Duelfer refused a request from John Scarlett, chairman of the United Kingdom?s Joint Intelligence Committee, to include new elements, Barton said, without saying what the new elements were.

?Both Washington and London wanted other things put in and to make it ? I can only use these words ? to make it sexier,? Barton said.

Barton said he quit immediately after the report was completed and stated in his resignation letter that it was because the process was dishonest.

Barton said Duelfer asked him to return in September last year, saying he was working on an ?honest report.? Barton returned and said he was happy with the final report.

Duelfer?s final report in October last year said Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, had not made any since 1991 and no capability of making any.

Barton said he was going public with his allegations only now, ?partly ?cause I?m at the end of this process now, and partly because I think the world should know some of the truths which at times I would?ve liked the world to have known, but I couldn?t say anything.?"


http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4130247




So - what are this Barton's credentials?


Here is Wikipedia on this "Iraq Survey Group":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group


Here is the report which he says was censored to fit certain agenda:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/






Radio National's interview with Barton this am:

"Govt knew Iraq intelligence was wrong, analyst says
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AM - Monday, 14 February , 2005 08:11:02
Reporter: Hamish Fitzsimmons
TONY EASTLEY: In an interview with the Four Corners program, a former intelligence analyst says the Federal Government persisted with its claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, even though he'd notified the Federal Government months before that the intelligence on Iraq's weapons was wrong.

Rod Barton, a former officer with the Defence Intelligence Organisation, worked with the UN and then the United States in the search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

He resigned when he says his reports were censored by the CIA.

In the ABC interview Mr Barton also details how he notified Australia's Defence Department of prisoner abuse in Iraq.

Hamish Fitzsimmons reports.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Rod Barton was seconded from Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation to work for UNSCOM, the United Nations body meant to ensure Iraq had destroyed any weapons of mass destruction.

He's told Four Corners in January 2003 he advised the Australian Government that intelligence it had received on Iraq's weapons capabilities was wrong.

ROD BARTON: My belief was that they had a few weapons retained from 1991, which would be ageing weapons of limited use. Were they a threat? Well, they may have been a minor threat to their neighbours, because don't forget they didn't really have the delivery systems in. They didn't have an air force. They may have been a minor threat to their neighbours, but a threat to the United States, or the UK or Australia? No.

REPORTER: And did you give the assessment that you've just given me?

ROD BARTON: Yes. That's the advice I gave.

REPORTER: No capacity to deliver?

ROD BARTON: Yes, yes. I mean what countries do with this advice is up to them.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: In October 2003, the Prime Minister John Howard said the intelligence on Iraq's WMDs was unambiguous.

Mr Barton also backs allegations the British Government embellished intelligence to claim Saddam Hussein's Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes

He remembers a dinner with David Kelly, the scientist who committed suicide after he was outed as the source of the claims

ROD BARTON: I challenged him. I said, you know, what's this nonsense about this 45? I said, why did you write this David, knowing full well that David would not have written about the 45 minutes. And he was quite embarrassed and he said, oh well, some people put in what they want to put in.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: In 2003, Rod Barton was working as a special adviser to David Kay, the Director of the US Iraq Survey Group

David Kay left Iraq early, as soon as it became obvious to him there were no weapons of mass destruction.

DAVID KAY: It turns out we were all wrong probably, in my judgement, and that is most disturbing.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Rod Barton says after US officials told him what information to include or exclude from his reports, he resigned in protest and made Australia's Defence Department aware of his reasons by March 2004.

ROD BARTON: I wanted to make it clear to them I'd left because I thought the process was dishonest.

REPORTER: And what was their response?

ROD BARTON: They were happy for me being there, because the Americans had requested me. And now, as far as they were concerned, I had disappointed the Americans because I'd left in this manner, quitting.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Mr Barton also says he warned the Australian Government that Australians in Iraq were aware of, and even present during the abuse of prisoners by Coalition forces.

Mr Barton says he saw direct evidence of abuse and notified the Defence Department.

He says he was annoyed by Defence Minister Robert Hill's claims in June 2004 that no Australians were involved in the interrogation of prisoners nor did the government have any knowledge of prisoner abuse.

ROD BARTON: My prisoner abuse wasn't at Abu Ghraib. It was at Camp Cropper, the special prison for high value detainees. So what Hill said to Parliament was correct in the sense that he referred only to Abu Ghraib. But of course, he knew about this other prison, where I'd already reported prisoner abuse.

He left the impression that the prisoner abuse had only been at Abu Ghraib and he didn't know about anything else, and that I felt was dishonest. He would have known by then because the department had done a full investigation. I provided all my information.

TONY EASTLEY: Former intelligence analyst Rod Barton. That story airs on Four Corners at 8:30 this evening on ABC television.

AM approached Defence Minister Robert Hill for a response to Mr Barton's allegations, but he declined our request for an interview, saying he wanted to first see the Four Corners program in its entirety.

Through a spokeswoman, Senator Hill also denied misleading Parliament, saying "there is nothing I have heard to date that would suggest there was any error or omission in relation to matters that were put before the Parliament". "

Trust me.

If someone does something even mildly wrong there are hundreds of crimes that could be thrown at them. Hell, we're a monarchy, we still have "high treason" to draw upon if absolutely necessary (though using that one would seriously screw up our legal/governmental system).

Yet at that point there was nothing illegal about simply assosciating with certain groups of people. Unless you broke a law you could be friends with whomsoever you wished. If he helped to commit a crime such as murder, bombing, even possessing illegal weaponry then he could be charged with those crimes.

But having a coffee with a member of al'qaeda was not illegal. It may be now, and if it is that's a pity.

I don't know the extent of Habib's involvement, but trust me. If the government wants to arrest someone there are many crimes that could be applied with a small ammount of inventiveness. If they're not trying him it is because it would be politically inconvenient, not because of the laws.

The real reason the Australians are behind him is because they don't think that the Americans have a right to do anything to an Australian citizen. I don't think anyone here would have cared if the Australian government had imprisoned and tortured him, it just galls the people that "one of us" was abused by "one of you".



Wouldn't that be a pity. I'm not saying western civilization isn't better than most other cultures around at the moment, but it's still pretty crappy.



Yes, because blowing many civilians up in foreign countries will make them like us and not want to kill us. Gosh, what logic.

If you were a gambling man what odds would you put on someone whose mother and father died before their eyes from shrapnel from american bombs becoming an anti-american terrorist?

None of this has much intention at all of stopping terrorism. But it's a politically convenient excuse.

Stopping terrorism could be done, and I'm not talking about putting flowers in guns or other hippy solutions. Yet it is being gone about the wrong way, primarily because "stopping terrorism" is not the objective here.

Interesting post, theantibuddha. There's also the anger at the Oz government for virtually leaving Habib with no representation during the time that the US "detained" him. For 3 years the Oz government neglected the rights of an Australian citizen, while blindly supporting US actions & policy at every opportunity.

Australians 'interviewed' Iraqi captives
By Mark Forbes
Defence correspondent
Canberra
February 17, 2005/the AGE




Up to eight Australian officials were involved in questioning "high-value" Iraqi prisoners, but the Government is adamant they participated in interviews, not forced interrogations.

The revelations about Australian involvement in post-war Iraq emerged yesterday during Senate hearings investigating claims by former top intelligence officer Rod Barton, who had a key role in the search for weapons of mass destruction.

At the hearing, the Defence Department admitted that Mr Barton's belief that an Iraqi prisoner had been beaten to death was secretly referred to the United States ambassador last year. The referral led to a US investigation and an agent was flown to interview Mr Barton, but the Government has not been informed of the outcome.

This case and that of a second Australian officer with concerns about US methods of detention and interrogation had not been revealed despite an "exhaustive" Defence investigation into knowledge of prisoner abuse.

Defence Minister Robert Hill refused to give details of the second case due to "sensitivities".

Mr Barton told the ABC's Four Corners this week that he and other Australians took part in interrogations and he had reported concerns about prisoner abuse to Defence officials.

Mr Barton also said Iraq Survey Group reports were doctored to avoid discrediting claims that Iraq possessed WMD. The survey group was responsible for the coalition's WMD search.

Senior Defence official Mike Pezzullo told the hearing that Mr Barton was contracted to take a senior role with the survey group and his duty statement included that he "direct, plan and assist where appropriate in the interviewing of scientific and high-value Iraqi personnel".

After several hours of questioning, the senior Australian officer with the survey group, Brigadier Steve Meekin, said that seven or eight Australian "subject matter experts" had been involved with interviews of Iraqi prisoners and "high-value" detainees.

Brigadier Meekin said there were clear orders given to the survey group members that they were not to take part in forced interrogations.

"There was to be no duress," he said. "It certainly was not to be an interrogation, and indeed they were to withdraw from that situation if it was an interrogation and it appeared to them to be an interrogation."

On June 16 last year, Senator Hill told Parliament that Defence had thoroughly reviewed all information and he could confirm that Australians "did not interrogate prisoners".

The next day, Mr Barton telephoned Mr Pezzullo to remonstrate that the minister was "playing semantics". He said the words interview and interrogate were interchangeable.

Senator Hill last night maintained that Australians were not involved in interrogations. "Defence has again confirmed that the debriefs at Camp Cropper in which Australians were involved, all involved detainees who were compliant and were willing participants."

Camp Cropper, where Mr Barton and other survey group members were based, was the US centre for "high-value" prisoners, allegedly with direct knowledge of Saddam's WMD program.

Mr Barton told Four Corners that "someone was brought to me in an orange jumpsuit with a guard with a gun standing behind him. I believe it was an interrogation."

Senator Hill told the hearing that "a small number of ADF members had been employed as debriefers but did not conduct interrogations".

An interrogation involved coercion while the subject of a debriefing had the right to break off the interview at any time and could not be compelled to answer, he said.

Senator Hill said he had not been aware of the conditions of Mr Barton's contract until he was shown the document after Four Corners aired on Monday.

Opposition defence spokesman Robert McClelland said a Government cover-up of the extent of involvement in interrogations in Iraq had been exposed. "They have clearly misled the Australian people," he said.

On returning to Australia in March 2004, Mr Barton raised several concerns about interrogations in Iraq with senior officials and recommended no Australians be involved in the interview process, Mr Pezzullo confirmed.

Department secretary Ric Smith said Mr Barton's concerns that inmates at Camp Cropper had been beaten to soften them up for interviews were passed to the US ambassador.

US arms inspector backs Barton
By Mark Forbes
Foreign affairs correspondent
Indonesia
February 18, 2005/the AGE

A former leader of the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has backed claims that Australians were involved in interrogating prisoners.

The Government has rejected the claims, made by former top intelligence official Rod Barton, that Australians took part in interrogations. Only voluntary interviews took place, Prime Minister John Howard has said.

However, the initial head of the Iraq Survey Group - where Mr Barton worked - told the ABC's Lateline last night that Australians were "almost certainly" involved in interrogations.

"They were engaged in areas where there might have been interrogations going on," David Kay, an American, said. "And I wouldn't be surprised if there were some that were in the room while interrogations were carried out. As analysts, it was quite often the occasion.

"Anyone that was in a room with a prisoner was engaged in interrogation. You weren't playin' bridge."

Earlier yesterday, Mr Howard attempted to divert the controversy by claiming Labor's pursuit of the issue was an attempt to smear the military.

Questioning about Mr Barton's claims was "a nitpicking attempt" to "damage the political reputation of the Minister for Defence", he said. "In the process they have made unreasonable, unfair and inaccurate remarks about members of the Australian Defence Force."

Mr Howard said he was aware that the army's interrogation manual made a very clear distinction between interviews and interrogation.

Opposition defence spokesman Robert McClelland said Mr Barton had exposed a cover-up, with the Government forced to admit that up to eight officials were involved in questioning Iraqi prisoners.

During the Senate hearings yesterday, the Government also said Australian troops would continue to guard an empty building in Baghdad, with the $13 million fortification of a new embassy to take another five months.

Upgrading security at the new site after a bomb attack on the old embassy last month had blown out costs by $9.5 million, the hearing was told. About 120 security troops would remain stationed by the embassy, despite its diplomats being evacuated to the secure international zone.

Security features that had tripled the new embassy's cost include a ram-proof cement wall, hardened perimeter walls, vehicle traps, bomb-proof glass and a reinforced roof. It is located within the well-guarded Green Zone.

I just reread it. Man do I leap from point to point in a confusing way. Sorry, how my brain works, doubt I could easily fix that. I'm glad you appreciated what I had to say though.



Mmm, absolutely. Never the less howard not only just won an election but he won it with an absolute landslide. For the first time in decades the upper and lower house are completely dominated by one political party. His. So I guess people actually support him (and ergo american policy) more than you'd think.

Um, I think the support had more to do with mundane issues, like who do you trust on interest rates. And look where THAT got the folks who believed him! :wink:

<shrug> Why normal humans do the strange things that they do continues to elude me.

.. and it can drive you nuts, too! :wink:

Last Update: Wednesday, March 9, 2005. 8:20pm (AEDT)

Habib says torturers used information from Australia

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib says information used in his interrogation in Egypt in 2001 could only have come from ASIO officers in Australia.

The US released Mr Habib in January without charges after he spent three years in detention at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. He had been accused of being a terrorist with ties to the Al Qaeda network.

Mr Habib alleges he was physically and psychologically tortured in custody by US, Egyptian and Pakistani authorities.

Mr Habib has told SBS TV's Dateline program he was interrogated about specific names and phone numbers, which could only have come from a mobile phone simcard he had left at his house in Sydney before he first travelled overseas in 2001.

"I believed everything they get it from Australia, because they give me phones, they give me about 300 phone numbers, or maybe more... and they tell me 'you have to give addresses'," Mr Habib said.

"And 'who are these people' and 'how you know them'.

"And they put me in a room with a few guards, and if my hand stopped writing I got beaten."

Mr Habib says during the same interrogation, he was asked to give evidence against a number of Australian Muslims.

"They say 'do you want to be a witness against somebody' and I don't know these people," he said.

"Maybe I saw them in the mosque, yes, maybe I saw them in Lakemba, yes, but I don't know what these people do.

"They tell me the only way to release from here is to be a witness against these people and maybe we make you as a witness we release you."

He says another Australian was present during his interrogation in Egypt.

Cooperation

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told the program he expects intelligence organisations to do everything in their power to capture terrorists.

But he says he has no idea how interrogators in Egypt obtained names and phone numbers that Mr Habib claims were used to question him.

"I expect intelligence authorities to do everything they can to avert terrorism here or anywhere else," Mr Ruddock said.

"I expect them to take any lawful steps they can to deal with those issues. If that means exchanging information for intelligence purposes, I've got no problem with that.

Wonder how much he was paid for this one.

Any guess? (The Special Broadcasting Service [SBS] is an independent Commonwealth statutory authority, not a private/commercial broadcaster.)

I am sure SBS would pay nothing.

It is a highly regarded broadcaster.

That's what I wanted to express with my response.

Seemed to be just one of JW's wild guesses, I think.

Even if he was paid, so what? After all the crap he's been through, I reckon he deserves compensation from the US/Oz governments. As he's not going to get it I have no problem with him getting paid for interviews. But of course, SBS didn't pay....

So, has his passport been returned yet?

Maybe after his book deal....

You mean, he pays every member of the Parliament of Australia - House of Representatives?

Since you belong to those wellinformed here, JW, what's the actual status of that petition?