Government ‘should disclose analysis on WMD’

THE Government will come under pressure today to disclose the intelligence it relied upon in assessing whether the Iraqi regime possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Following announcements by US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that they were setting up independent inquiries into intelligence failures, opposition parties have said that the Government should disclose its own analysis on WMD.

While Ireland was precluded by its UN commitments from supporting the invasion, it allowed military troops to use Shannon as a transit stop.

The opposition has alleged that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Tánaiste Mary Harney and Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen all inferred in statements and interviews that intelligence suggesting the existence of WMD was convincing.

They want to know on what intelligence supplied by the British and American administrations, if any, did the Government rely.

But the Department of Foreign Affairs responded by saying that the question did not arise. According to a spokesman, the Government’s position on Iraq was situated in the context of the work of the UN Security Council.

“As a UN member, the State was bound by the decisions of the security council,” he said.

The controversial WMD question will come up, in the first instance, as priority questions to Mr Cowen today, but several opposition TDs say they will be pressing for a hearing on the question by the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs. In particular, they want to know whether intelligence received on WMD may have influenced the decision to allow US troops use Shannon Airport as a stopover.

Fine Gael foreign affairs spokesman Gay Mitchell said his party had opposed the use of Shannon on the grounds of uncertainty over whether it was lawful or had UN approval.

“What I want to know is what steps did the Government take to ensure that decision was in keeping with Irish law and what intelligence was it given in relation to whether Iraq possessed WMD or not?”

Mr Mitchell implied the Government was “given to understand that the British and Americans had reasons for going in. What was the basis of that belief? They should now be disclosed”.

Michael D Higgins of the Labour Party said he would be putting a question in direct terms: “I will be asking the Government to make a statement on the false basis on which it facilitated the use of Shannon and thus participated in the war.”

The Green Party says it will be requesting the Foreign Affairs Committee to initiate a hearing that would look into statements made by various Government ministers that seemed to confirm intelligence reports on WMD. “It’s quite clear that we accepted US intelligence,” a spokesman said.

“We need the Government to explain how they could have justified it. The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and

Mr Cowen should all be quizzed about how we came to support the US in their war effort,” he said.