00;00;12;24 - 00;00;22;14 Benjamin Haslem Welcome to Up the Creek, where we look at how institutions and individuals found themselves up the creek and dissect their efforts to reach common waters. I'm Ben Haslem. 00;00;22;21 - 00;00;24;07 Mark Forbes And I'm Mark Forbes. 00;00;24;10 - 00;00;47;25 Benjamin Haslem As journos, we prompted resignations and caused royal commissions. As consultants, we protect reputations when crises comes. Today, we focus our reputation on a two decade old global scandal. The controversy over claims that Iraq and Saddam Hussein possessed deadly biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction WMDs which led to the Iraq War. 00;00;47;27 - 00;01;08;25 Mark Forbes And that WMD intelligence was at the center of debates, not just here in Canberra, but in the United Nations, the US and the UK. As we follow those two nations into war in Iraq in March 2003, and then intelligence for the center of the fights at the UN in Canberra as we followed the US and the UK into war in Iraq. 00;01;08;28 - 00;01;17;12 Mark Forbes And questions continue to be asked about the validity of that intelligence after the invasion failed to unearth a single weapon of mass destruction. 00;01;17;15 - 00;01;21;26 Benjamin Haslem This was a while ago. So you may ask, why are we talking about this now? 00;01;21;29 - 00;01;47;11 Mark Forbes Well, it's a significant event in history, but the reason it's actually important today is that we had a release of secret cabinet papers from 20 years ago, as I do every 20 years. I declassified these and it reignited the controversy over WMD. in the whole decision about joining the war, because it turned out the WMD wasn't the only thing that went missing. 00;01;47;13 - 00;01;58;09 Mark Forbes The government has now ordered a former intelligence chief to investigate, has some key intelligence documents, mysteriously weren't handed over to the National Archives and made available for release. 00;01;58;11 - 00;02;16;25 Benjamin Haslem Now, the results of that investigation should be revealed soon. Mark. But spoiler alert you, my co-presenter Mark Forbes may be able to reveal what is in those documents and why they were controversial enough to try and suppress today. So were you involved in this saga? My thoughts? 00;02;16;28 - 00;02;32;00 Mark Forbes Well, back then I was the defense and foreign affairs correspondent for The Age based in Canberra. So I was covering the lead up to the war and its aftermath. I even got to visit Baghdad after its capture, accompanying Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. 00;02;32;02 - 00;02;34;20 Benjamin Haslem So how was the Hilton in Baghdad, Mark? 00;02;34;22 - 00;03;01;27 Mark Forbes Well, it was it was actually. Yeah. Saddam's water pellets. where where the Australian. it's a it's, and, in commander's head, had put up camp, camp beds inside the water, but it was a bizarre place. It was like a, a fantasy playground for Saddam and his, and his sons where they got to, I think, up to all sorts of nefarious activities. 00;03;01;29 - 00;03;24;28 Mark Forbes probably the most bizarre experience was that, I was up on the roof of the Water Palace with the few of the troops who'd set up a hookah, a smoking device. Let's be clear for for for Dan, when he got back from a meeting with other military commanders, and, beautiful. Actually. Beautiful sunset, calm and peaceful. 00;03;24;28 - 00;03;47;19 Mark Forbes And suddenly, as it started to get to dusk, there was a rat a tat tat of machine guns and small arms fire. And I got all excited thinking, you know, fighting breaks out again in Iraq. Your intrepid correspondent, the only journo there on the spot, because it was just me traveling with Dana, and gave these bikes a bit of a giggle and said, man, this is this is every night. 00;03;47;22 - 00;03;49;16 Mark Forbes Every night we. 00;03;49;18 - 00;04;04;02 Benjamin Haslem Note, note to the editor, be very careful how if you edit this section where we have, words such as hooker and set up for Alexander Downer. Just to clarify, we are talking about the, you're the smoking device popular in Middle Eastern countries. 00;04;04;05 - 00;04;28;14 Mark Forbes The interesting thing about that to me, too, in terms of what happened afterwards, was that it demonstrated or was a signal of what was to come, because basically the soldiers said, I'll know at 6:00 all the American military stopped patrolling. Everyone comes back inside the Green Zone and effectively hand over Baghdad, to to anyone with a gun. 00;04;28;14 - 00;04;37;05 Mark Forbes It, it just it said that that the pace was now going to be nowhere as easy as, is as the Yanks had had been told us. 00;04;37;12 - 00;04;54;06 Benjamin Haslem Well, considering the closest I got to military action was covering the, British warship that ran aground on, Lord Howe Island due back in 2002. I'm very impressed, Mark, but I think we're gonna be more impressed by what follows. Did you come across any weapons of mass destruction while you were there? 00;04;54;08 - 00;05;29;10 Mark Forbes That was interesting. I mean, that that was where I first really picked up on the WMD story when one senior intelligence official basically, you know, in a conversation over a beer or two on the trip, basically said, oh, we're not going to a day long. What is it that went with the, went there all along? and so I took a fairly keen interest in that is, is that spark me as a good potential, potential story from fact, the military, knew that, you know, from from day one. 00;05;29;13 - 00;06;00;13 Mark Forbes And after we got back from this trip, to Iraq, I was actually invited to, undertake a master's degree at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at the Australian National University. Now, this center is very closely linked to the Defense Department. They had people moving from the Defense Department to to the center all the time. They they sort of in the circle of trust, I suppose, in, you know, you know, defense and inferences, up in, up in Canberra. 00;06;00;15 - 00;06;29;08 Mark Forbes And so seminars were, were often addressed by, you know, top generals, top, top diplomats, top departmental officials. and our briefing on intelligence came from the head of the military's primary intelligence agency, the defense Intelligence Organization. And when he spoke to us and there have been about 25 of us in the room, to the seminar, and he spoke about Iraq and WMD because it was still a hot topic. 00;06;29;09 - 00;06;39;22 Mark Forbes Then just a few months, after the war, and he dropped the bombshell. He said that today I would say that there was no credible threat from Iraq's WMD. 00;06;39;26 - 00;06;58;28 Benjamin Haslem That's interesting, because this that actually contradicts what then Prime Minister John Howard told Parliament to justify Australia declaring war. I mean, basically what you're saying, because it would mean it took us to war based on a lie. Plenty of people have said that that's the biggest decision elated can make, and it sounds like it was based on, at best, misinformation. 00;06;59;00 - 00;07;23;18 Mark Forbes Well, that certainly what what what, Frank Lloyd Kemp, who was the head was, was suggesting and what happened after that was an interesting saga, that that ended up with a serious attack on my reputation, a Senate inquiry, numerous questions in Parliament. and I knew investigation and a high profile resignation. 00;07;23;20 - 00;07;27;10 Benjamin Haslem And that information was what was removed from this news release, I think. 00;07;27;13 - 00;07;57;07 Mark Forbes Well, quite possibly I think so in because that issue about whether Australia's intelligence assessments or, rock were misrepresented by, by the Prime minister is still a hot topic today. and I think ten years back it was, John Howard Gates gave a speech where he, told, I think the Lowy Foreign Policy Institute that joining the RAC invasion was the most controversial foreign policy decision he'd taken. 00;07;57;09 - 00;08;06;17 Mark Forbes And it led, he said, to the most notorious, notorious climb ever leveled against him that he took Australia to war based on a lie. 00;08;06;19 - 00;08;12;05 Benjamin Haslem Now, strata is usually a big player in these big international debates. What what was the context here? 00;08;12;07 - 00;08;37;07 Mark Forbes Yeah, well, to take one step back, I mean, the issue of Iraq and terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, they all loomed large after the September 11th attack on New York's World Trade Center in 2001. And even then, the Bush administration was quick to point fingers at Iraq and Saddam, despite all the evidence pointing to Salman bin Laden's Al-Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan. 00;08;37;10 - 00;08;55;26 Benjamin Haslem So I think George Bush junior felt his father should have finished the job and, disposed of Saddam Hussein in the earlier first Gulf War, as it's known, when the, the US and the allies went in to help liberate Kuwait, which had been invaded by the Iraqis, the US wanted to bolster its allies in the Middle East and remove an enemy. 00;08;55;28 - 00;08;56;23 Benjamin Haslem Yeah. 00;08;56;25 - 00;09;34;16 Mark Forbes But but first off, Insensibly, the US and Australia invaded Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda and to find Osama bin laden will try and find him. They actually met in Pakistan some years later. Yeah. they toppled the Taliban. but Bush and people in his administration continued to continue to push hard for international support to invade Iraq. Now, this was a bit tricky because they couldn't find any smoking gun linking Saddam to September 11th because it was one. 00;09;34;19 - 00;09;50;26 Mark Forbes and so they turned to the threat of weapons of mass destruction and potential future chemical or biological attacks. Isn't justification because Saddam had in years past used chemical weapons primarily on the Kurds? 00;09;50;26 - 00;09;58;26 Benjamin Haslem Yeah. On the yeah. That's right. So the US wanted international support for its invasion. So it needed to demonstrate a threat to the rest of the world from Iraq. 00;09;58;28 - 00;10;35;17 Mark Forbes Yeah. And so they turned to intelligence reports, the side that these reports detailed Iraq's WMD efforts, in suggesting that this presented a real threat given the growth in terrorism and the global instability after September 11th, that, you know, countries like Australia and the US and the UK could have, you know, dirty bombs, nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, used to attack their, the population. 00;10;35;19 - 00;10;55;06 Mark Forbes Trouble was, this intelligence looked a bit thin. and, they began to base some fairly voluble question questions raised about it, even within the intelligence community. And it became a big issue, what Australian intelligence was actually saying about these claims. 00;10;55;08 - 00;11;07;13 Benjamin Haslem I mean, of course, you remember there was kind of across party lines. And why? Because Tony Blair, British Labor Prime Minister, I think to this day is a great defender of the invasion of Iraq, despite the fact, that there was a lot of doubt. Talk about WMDs. 00;11;07;15 - 00;11;34;27 Mark Forbes Yeah. And how would when making the justification to to it to, you know, got a walk basically told parliament pretty clearly we're going in to join this so-called coalition of the willing to disarm Iraq's WMD issues. he said that the intelligence analysis tells us, Saddam Hussein. I'm giving a quote, he considers these weapons programs to be essential. 00;11;34;27 - 00;11;54;05 Mark Forbes And Iraq continued. Iraq's continued possession and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction represents a real and unacceptable threat. problem was, as we now know, when the coalition of the winning willing quickly overran a rock, there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found. 00;11;54;07 - 00;12;00;18 Benjamin Haslem Yet the head of military intelligence told your and you seminar. They knew that from day one. 00;12;00;21 - 00;12;33;25 Mark Forbes Yes, yes. And I was pretty stunned to hear it. So of course, as a general and the, the the main concern, Frank Miller Camp knew I was a junior. We'd met each other before. told us that while a rocket had chemical weapons some years before, it had destroyed its WMD capabilities. And if they held any weapons, they were likely to be fragile, degraded, and remnants from that 19 1991, Gulf War. 00;12;33;28 - 00;12;48;07 Mark Forbes and so I stuck my hand up and said, so could that justify an invasion of Iraq? And he just said, no. Okay, so what did you tell the Prime Minister that Frank? And he went, yes. 00;12;48;09 - 00;12;53;13 Benjamin Haslem no pun intended. But he realized that this was a fairly explosive thing to say to a journalist. 00;12;53;16 - 00;12;54;18 Mark Forbes I think he. 00;12;54;18 - 00;12;56;24 Benjamin Haslem Was it was. 00;12;56;26 - 00;13;30;16 Mark Forbes He was far more focused on, rather, the ramifications of the information about the reputation of the intelligence agencies, particularly his intelligence agency, someone who's talking to a bunch of relatively bright, with more exception sort of people who would likely be be they poached for senior roles amongst the military strategy organizations and and defense intelligence organizations. So he really wanted to tell us, and maybe there was a bit of ego in this, but don't blame us about WMD. 00;13;30;22 - 00;13;33;25 Mark Forbes Yeah, we got it right. 00;13;33;27 - 00;13;44;24 Benjamin Haslem But this meant the government got it wrong. Now, I know you weren't sitting there with a hat with a press card stuck in the silo. Well, maybe you were. But didn't he realize that this could be reported? 00;13;44;26 - 00;14;15;16 Mark Forbes Listen, given the significance of what he was saying, I think he should have. But these seminars were conducted under what they called the Chatham House. which a lot of people don't fully understand. Some people think that means anything. He said, this is there, a mine sacred. But that rule, which is based on the order, originated from the actual Chatham House in London, states that comments can be reported as long as the speaker and the meeting are not identical. 00;14;15;19 - 00;14;33;13 Benjamin Haslem And now I know as a journalist that that great feeling, that rush you get when you realize you've uncovered something that you want the. Yeah, I think the whole world needs to know this. And and this is a great yarn. I mean, you must have been busting to to reporters. And as long as you did not identify the who and the where, as you pointed out, you weren't breaching Chatham House rules. 00;14;33;16 - 00;14;34;23 Benjamin Haslem 00;14;34;25 - 00;15;03;00 Mark Forbes Absolutely. Although what what I really wanted was to be able to quite a name, knowing that is, as I said, because this is an I jumped up straight away test right down to him and said, Frank, my that that's really important information there. I think the public should know about that. which with which he agreed. but, said I needed to talk to him about how we could report it. 00;15;03;00 - 00;15;28;14 Mark Forbes So we actually went down to have a series of meetings where, he had some strange views on how I could reported. He thought, well, can't you do spies? It is a series of questions, wouldn't you think that Australia's military intelligence would have realized it was now one day in Iraq, and I'm going, Mike, what's significant about that is it you're saying that and you hit up that organization. 00;15;28;16 - 00;15;55;12 Mark Forbes I suggested that we put the the notes in the detail of what he told that similar to one side, and simply sit down and do an on the record interview and just say what he was willing to say, on that topic. And then I could publish that. Now we he still didn't want to be named. And so, eventually I went back and say, listen, I think this information is in the public interest. 00;15;55;15 - 00;16;20;16 Mark Forbes It really needs to reported I am going to use under the Chatham House rule, the information that you provided. I'm not going to identify you. I'm simply going to quote you as a senior intelligence source in which you said, that's fine. he wanted some reassurances. He'd been fairly frank. In some of our discussions. He went into more detail, a more damning detail about the government. 00;16;20;16 - 00;16;27;28 Mark Forbes And he's a minister. and I assured him that, yeah, I wasn't going to. I wasn't going to report to report that. 00;16;27;29 - 00;16;35;04 Benjamin Haslem But did he really like you think you realize the ramifications? I mean, this was got to implicate the Prime minister today. 00;16;35;06 - 00;16;59;15 Mark Forbes I don't think that sunk in. I really don't think that that sunk in. and I probably didn't point that out. And I know I was very eager to get that story up in this a bit. This had been a period of months of negotiations ahead of years. And I was I was going to run with it. and when we did publish, the following day, it ran across page one, of course. 00;16;59;15 - 00;17;22;01 Mark Forbes But then, you know, the bullets really started to fly. There was sort of, political furor which had started going on about who was the source. a Senate inquiry was established to try and, find the source. Interestingly, they didn't actually despite all of those efforts over four days, I couldn't work out who it was. I refused. 00;17;22;02 - 00;17;32;10 Benjamin Haslem Why didn't they join the dots? Did not someone realize that Mark Forbes was attending a masters course? That and you and Mr. Lone Camp had, actually, I'm speaking at that particular, I schools. 00;17;32;10 - 00;18;05;14 Mark Forbes I suspect there was some in power who, did did realize. But from a government's perspective, did they really want to come out and say, we think that was a head of the Defense Intelligence Organization? I said we misrepresented the intelligence. I think I think he probably would have got away with it. But then I think that four days on, he volunteered to the, to the Senate committee that he was, that he was source he didn't have to do that. 00;18;05;17 - 00;18;21;27 Mark Forbes No. it was sort of, an interesting, it was an interesting move. what he did is he said I was a source, but some of the elements in the quotations and they weren't accurate. He wouldn't have said things that way, but he was very unclear about what he hadn't said. 00;18;22;01 - 00;18;27;07 Benjamin Haslem Okay, here's your chance. Did you get any of the quotes wrong? 00;18;27;09 - 00;18;50;19 Mark Forbes no, not not no, I don't believe so. No, I don't believe so. And in fact, if you look at some of the things I subsequently found, some, testimony he provided to another inquiry, prior to, to to this seminar which had never been published, related to it after this story appeared. That was interesting. 00;18;50;19 - 00;19;03;19 Mark Forbes Then, that he had said things that were very, very similar in almost the same words as some of the things that, that, that he had, that he had said to me. 00;19;03;21 - 00;19;07;28 Benjamin Haslem So, had the government react to you personally. 00;19;08;00 - 00;19;45;04 Mark Forbes The it wasn't so much direct attack from the government, although obviously Howard and his ministers were, would, you know, defending their contact conduct and defending the decision and saying it was the right decision at the time, the biggest attack, really came from the head of the, the, Strategic Defense Studies Center at the new, who wrote to the media claiming the report was unethical, the Chatham House rule had been breached, and as a result, all journalists should be banned in future from attending courses of, of this type. 00;19;45;06 - 00;20;08;07 Mark Forbes it. I think in many ways he was trying to maintain the relationship with the Defense Department, feel do the right thing by the government. I mean, he had actually come from the, from from from the Defense Department. But this actually sparked another debate, about you. 00;20;08;10 - 00;20;12;05 Benjamin Haslem But did you get any support from from anyone in government or. 00;20;12;07 - 00;20;44;15 Mark Forbes I think interestingly, there were there were a lot of attacks, a lot of assumptions that that, that I'd breached some sort of ethical undertaking, particularly around Chatham House. I was actually in a press conference seeing them in Parliament House saying that. And someone, I think, from one of your former publications, enthusiastically, doorstop Dr. Alexander Downer, and said, do you believe this journalist has acted unethically, and and broken the, you know, the Chatham House, the yes. 00;20;44;16 - 00;20;47;27 Benjamin Haslem The the media reporting about the media, how unusual. 00;20;47;29 - 00;21;12;17 Mark Forbes And Dana, bless him, basically said, well, you know, I've been to Chatham House, I know Chatham House. And on my understanding, I don't think the journalist has done anything to breach those rules. which took the heat off me to a degree. But what happened, instead of there being this massive debate about which I thought was going to happen, did we go to war on a lie? 00;21;12;19 - 00;21;34;11 Mark Forbes The the bulk of the stories were about journalism ethics, confidentiality of sources, and so on. I'd actually quite, I it was interesting. I got a few days later a call from the vice chancellor of the Australian National University says, we really want to stop all this publicity. It looks really bad for us. We don't want to be seen as saying journalists shouldn't. 00;21;34;13 - 00;22;12;01 Mark Forbes It shouldn't, you know, attend, attend courses and so on. and I did point out like that it was one of your professors who's out there signing the slides and saying things that are untrue. I mean, I ran through a few of the, a few of the, circumstances, including that I'd been to this professor prior to publishing the story, and, went through the issue that I was facing and the definition of the Chatham House rule and got him to agree to that, all of which was missing from, in his, public public attacks. 00;22;12;01 - 00;22;26;26 Mark Forbes And so and you launched an investigation. in the end, they, they exonerated me. And I was invited to continue, to complete my masters and, the professor concerned, resigned. 00;22;26;28 - 00;22;43;10 Benjamin Haslem an inquiry or no inquiry? I would argue that you acted 100% in the public interest. You never identified the source, and at no time was the course content described to you as off the record. And lawn camp knew you were there. he does strike me as as a little naive. 00;22;43;11 - 00;23;06;05 Mark Forbes Yeah. Although, I mean, I do think there is this. And it's a bit of a gray area. Yeah. I mean, if you really worked hard by the set, I'd say that I attended something. I think I called it a briefing. You could argue that it would be possible for someone to join the dots. I have a four days of intense interest that I didn't. 00;23;06;07 - 00;23;33;11 Mark Forbes And Frank, and Frank identified, identified himself within those that competing drive in terms of what's in the public interest is, you say in what bigger decision, Kane a government might then taking a nation at war. I'm obviously in. Yeah. Personally, I've always felt that it was absolutely critical that that was done in a way that was transparent, honest and straightforward. 00;23;33;11 - 00;23;42;21 Mark Forbes And I'm still surprised. Well, not surprised in the sense that it's still a live debate today, but I think it should have been a bigger. 00;23;42;23 - 00;23;59;07 Benjamin Haslem Yeah, a great okay, so let's fast forward 20 years. Here we are in 2024. There are missing documents from the National Archives released on New Year's Day. Do you think, what you think is in those missing documents if and only if they see the. 00;23;59;07 - 00;24;20;23 Mark Forbes Light of day? Well, we can we can go from from what we've been told, which is that I with a submission to the National Security Committee of cabinet, which is a small grouping. Yeah, yeah, I defense, Foreign affairs, Prime Minister and others attorney general looks at the really sensitive stuff. that was the submission that had been provided to made the case to join the coalition of the willing. 00;24;20;23 - 00;24;42;14 Mark Forbes And just before they release on, New Year's Day, this year, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet revealed that they were the key security committee documents. and I had not been handed a cross to the National Archives with all the other documents from 2003, in 2020. 00;24;42;16 - 00;24;56;00 Benjamin Haslem And that's when the letters were still in power. They were led by one Scott Morrison, who just this month has announced he's leaving Parliament. seems like a fairly convenient way to protect John Howard, who is definitely their elder statesman. 00;24;56;03 - 00;25;22;04 Mark Forbes It they they blaming at this point, as I say, there's an investigation underway but they blaming initially and administrative oversight caused by the disruptions of Covid. It just seems to me more than passing strange that the one file that goes missing is probably the most contentious file that had been in the government's position for that years or subsequently. 00;25;22;09 - 00;25;42;06 Benjamin Haslem Well, that's right. I mean, it's, bizarre and, coincidence if, if, if it is just, a fluke, I'm not aware of this ever happening previously. And releasing, National Archives on the 1st of January and when the first time it does happen, zero just happens to be these those documents. So so is the smoking gun likely to be in there? 00;25;42;06 - 00;25;44;29 Benjamin Haslem And, will the documents ever turn up? 00;25;45;01 - 00;26;06;23 Mark Forbes I think the documents will probably turn up because of the amount of attention there. And also, you now have a labor government in power for him. It's quite convenient if this ends up to be embarrassing. for for one, Scott Morrison. But but more importantly for the elder statesman of Liberal Party, John Howard. But I'll be curious. 00;26;06;26 - 00;26;33;27 Mark Forbes I suspect that they will be some caution in the language in those documents than we do see, when we do see them, I think that they will be a little bit of hedging bets on where we will be able to claim, you know, the the version of the truth was correct. But then again, Lo and Camp was emphatic when he spoke to me and the other students, saying that that time had been told there was no threat from WMD in Iraq. 00;26;33;29 - 00;27;05;28 Mark Forbes and Howard Light commissioned a much more broad ranging inquiry into our intelligence agencies undertaken by two up upfront. It was a former director of the Office of National Assessment, which is the intelligence gathering agency or assessment agency within the Prime Minister's Office, and that flood inquiry did touch on WMD intelligence. It noted that there were no comprehensive national assessment produced, which you would have thought on a matter of the significance that someone would have put together. 00;27;06;01 - 00;27;15;20 Mark Forbes All the Australian intelligence made a definitive finding, and I think maybe it was convenient, stable, that that wasn't done, given that, that were desperate, for the search to join. 00;27;15;20 - 00;27;18;03 Benjamin Haslem For the record, I'm shaking my head, you know. 00;27;18;06 - 00;27;40;18 Mark Forbes And we all know. I mean, the fact is, the primary driver of Australian foreign policy and defense decisions is been to strengthen us. Yes. And that is really why they wanted to why they wanted to go in. And it was a question of what is the justification that he's going to wash with the Australian people, as you might be at threat of chemical weapons if if we don't do it. 00;27;40;20 - 00;28;13;15 Mark Forbes But, the slide inquiry made some findings that that did suggest that what lone camp say to the seminar was accurate. He found that the Di had, in several not notable cases, chose not to endorse Allied intelligence judgments. and that the duo had placed a grade of qualifications on its assessments and out of intelligence agencies, and that in that crucial time in January 2003, when the LNA was reporting assessed that Iraq must have WMD, that day, reporting did not. 00;28;13;18 - 00;28;26;06 Benjamin Haslem I came out of that's an amazing insight story. because one of the purposes of our podcast is to talk about crises and reputation and issues management. So what does this tell us about that? 00;28;26;09 - 00;28;53;09 Mark Forbes Well, hold the front page. perhaps you can't trust the politicians. Tell the truth. I mean, I think it's this is this is a little off tangent, I think, from some of our normal, normal commentary. But I think there's some interesting lessons, about how people deal with these massive controversies and issues. unfortunate, you might say. 00;28;53;09 - 00;29;22;13 Mark Forbes I think the tactic that Sam took, when these big suggestion of went to war and a lot came out was, was distraction. Let's point in the other direction. Let's talk about how the June I got this information, not what the information was. in let's let's have a debate around that. and we'll just hope that that other issue will will put a few doubts and question marks over it and that it disappears. 00;29;22;13 - 00;29;50;01 Mark Forbes And we don't actually have to, address it. So, I think it says something about the potential effectiveness of deflection and distraction. Yeah. The lesson for me is that there were massive consequences of some. And there's obviously consequences for the for the reputations, potentially, of the politicians involved, the reputations of the various intelligence agencies for being politically compromised. 00;29;50;01 - 00;29;58;00 Mark Forbes And that was definitely seen to be the case in both the US and the UK. And in some cases, it seems that might have happened. 00;29;58;00 - 00;30;17;07 Benjamin Haslem And then emerging an issue that's emerged over the last 20 years, at least in Australia, is the politicization of the public service. And so that it goes to that. I mean, just to to sort of to emphasize, the magnitude of this decision, this was the first time, if I'm not wrong, that Australia had ever invaded and ever invaded another country. 00;30;17;07 - 00;30;24;28 Benjamin Haslem Australia previously had gone in to defend or liberate another country. so this was a huge decision. 00;30;25;01 - 00;30;47;22 Mark Forbes and it was a decision of massive global consequences. And I think that what we have seen, and perhaps if they've been a more factual debate around why we were going to Iraq, might not have happened. But clearly that decision was a strategic disaster because, you know, the Americans, they won the war, but they they mismanaged the pace. 00;30;47;25 - 00;30;56;25 Mark Forbes They they got rid of that, disbanded the Iraqi army. They, they had this program of de-Baathification at the Baathist Party, which is. 00;30;56;28 - 00;30;57;12 Benjamin Haslem A sign. 00;30;57;16 - 00;31;13;07 Mark Forbes Hussein's party. But if you were a senior public service, you had to be a member of a party. And the Americans said, okay, anyone who's been a member of the the party can have a job in government. and so you lost all your credit. 00;31;13;07 - 00;31;17;21 Benjamin Haslem They created a huge vacuum power vacuum in Iraq, but didn't have any plans of how they're going to fill it. 00;31;17;24 - 00;31;40;03 Mark Forbes And, and, and the terrorists said, thank you very much. And they came in and grew and grow even stronger. And at the same time, we're doing this. We took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, which had actually been quite a successful invasion. and in that was allowed to deteriorate to the point where the Taliban is now backing back in power. 00;31;40;05 - 00;32;03;05 Mark Forbes and there's a question of they have all these episodes of actually contribute to the decline of the influence of the West and particularly American. So there's been massive consequences. And maybe if we'd had, you know, the right debate at the right time and talked really about what we were trying to achieve there, that we wouldn't have gone in and the world would arguably a safer place. 00;32;03;05 - 00;32;10;04 Mark Forbes Mind you, Howard and others will, will will still say at the time, we think we think we did the right thing. 00;32;10;10 - 00;32;29;21 Benjamin Haslem Yeah. And I think and I think it damaged Howard's reputation. I mean, you know, still regarded by many as one of Australia's, better prime ministers. But the first thing critics sent senior to discuss will point to and they want to put down. John Howard is a rock. I mean, they they say some fairly defamatory things about him, which I won't repeat here on the podcast, but I think that's right. 00;32;29;21 - 00;32;36;18 Benjamin Haslem I think he I think that's the one probably big black mark that people point to over, over that government. 00;32;36;20 - 00;33;03;16 Mark Forbes And I don't think even if we say the documents, even if I say exactly what Frank, Franklin Camp said, I said, I think that will be for further tarnish, the, the reputation of John Howard, but I think he'll he'll still be saying it's, great conservatives light, you know, regardless of disarming. I still think that the big danger you talk about, you know, politicization. 00;33;03;16 - 00;33;14;05 Mark Forbes And so and I think that that it does really to me illustrate the dangers of letting politics guide policy and God call it the public service. 00;33;14;05 - 00;33;17;24 Benjamin Haslem And also the importance of a fearless and well-resourced media. I think, Mark. 00;33;17;26 - 00;33;20;04 Mark Forbes I couldn't have said it better myself then. 00;33;20;06 - 00;33;37;03 Benjamin Haslem Mark, that was fantastic. Thank you very much. I mean, I was down in Canberra in the press gallery, when 911 happened. So, I remember this very, very well. And and I remember you being in the news for, for this episode. look, that's it for this episode. but we'll see you next time. Up, up the creek.