I’ve just finished reading Andrew Wilkie’s Book “Axis of Deceit”.

Andrew Wilkie, for those that don’t know, was a senior intelligence officer in the Australian Office of National Assessments and previously an Australian Army officer. He resigned just short of the beginning of the war on Iraq and went to the media, saying the intelligence presented to the government and the way the government was committed to the war did not add up. He’s also the Green candidate for John Howard’s seat of Bennelong.

The book is a really good read, especially for somebody like me who has an interest in the workings of intelligence and government and a burning need to find out just how we managed to go to war illegally for a lie. Wilkie shows how the US, UK and Australian governments ignored the ambiguity in intelligence and selectively believed what they were reading to make a case for war.

The key bit of the book for me, though, was an explanation of how friendly nations like the Australia and the US do collect intelligence on each other, and that our intelligence services were reporting to our government on the reasons the US wanted to pursue this war before the decision was taken.

Our intelligence services and government knew it was not just flimsy WMD claims, but a complex set of reasons the US wanted to invade Iraq: Iraq’s immense oil reserves and strategic location in the middle east, shifting US military power from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, and, of course, Israel’s security, among others. Howard knew all this and played along anyway. Knowing this, Howard went forward with an illegal (not UN-sanctioned) war anyway. Even now the real reasons behind the war have not been admitted by out government.

The book opens telling Wilkie’s story of leaving the Office of National Assessments and going to the media as a whistleblower. He risked a lot to come out and tell his story. Good on you, Andrew. Good luck against John Howard in Bennelong.