THE INSIDER
The Bulletin March 12, 2003
This man is one of Australia's most senior intelligence officers. After years in the job, he says that attacking Baghdad will be a grave mistake. And he has now sacrificed his career to say why. "Sooner or later," Heng said, and I was reminded of Captain Trouin speaking in the opium house, "one has to take sides. If one is to remain human."
When Andrew Wilkie read Graham Greene's novel, The Quiet American, a few weeks ago, that paragraph resonated. It is not the reason he decided to sacrifice his career as an intelligence officer and speak out against war with Iraq, but it undoubtedly helped him to clarify his thinking. "I feel strongly about this," he says. "Strongly enough that I'm prepared to lose my job, probably lose some friends, and cause family and friends a lot of angst."
Wilkie, 41, was, at the time of writing, a senior analyst in the Office of National Assessments, the intelligence agency that directly advises the Prime Minister on international issues of importance to Australia. The agency's reports – covering strategic, political and economic intelligence – also go to ministers who are members of cabinet's National Security Committee. On top of this, ONA keeps all the nation's foreign intelligence activities under review. The most important intelligence material John Howard sees on Iraq comes from ONA.
When one of ONA's top-ranking analysts goes public with his personal views to condemn the looming war and Australia's involvement in it, there is bound to be a stir. This is a man who holds the top security clearance and who has had access to highly sensitive hard intelligence on Iraq. He is, moreover, the author of an ONA assessment that went to the government last December on the possible humanitarian implications of a war. And he was, before pulling the pin in spectacular fashion, on standby to join a full-time Iraq intelligence assessment team that will swing into action as soon as the government formally commits Australia to a military attack. But Wilkie believes a war with Iraq at this time would be wrong, and he feels compelled to explain why. Iraq, he says, does not pose a serious enough threat to the United States or Australia to justify a war ... in current circumstances, war is not worth the risk. And on top of that, it is bad policy.
When Wilkie first spoke to The Bulletin, he said: "I'm assuming I'll be dismissed immediately for going to the media." But later the same day, he decided the honourable course would be to submit his resignation to the director-general of ONA,Kim Jones, before the article appeared.
While not disclosing intelligence details, his views have obviously been informed by his years in the job. And although the information on which those opinions are based is publicly available, his conclusions are nonetheless revealing. "I believe that concerns about the risks of disclosing sensitive intelligence are quite legitimate. It can compromise capability, it can compromise sources, and it can even get people killed," he says. "I'm trying to do this in such a way that I can't be accused of breaching the Crimes Act.
"It troubles me that Australia has adopted a position, a very strong position, based on incomplete information," he says. "We do not have unrestricted access to all US information on this matter. There were certain things in [US Secretary of State] Colin Powell's address to the UN Security Council a few weeks ago that surprised [me] at ONA."
What is the basis of his conviction that Iraq does not pose a serious enough threat to justify a war? "Their military is very weak. It's a fraction of the size it was when it invaded Kuwait in 1990. Most of what remains is poorly trained, poorly equipped and of questionable loyalty to the regime. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program is, I believe, genuinely contained. There is no doubt they have chemical and biological weapons, but their program now is disjointed and limited. It's not a national WMD program like they used to have. Also, I am not convinced that Iraq is actively co-operating with al Qaeda. The bottom line is that this war against Iraq is totally unrelated to the war on terror."
Wilkie is no bleeding-heart leftie. He had a successful career as an army officer before entering the shadowy world of intelligence. He graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1984, held a variety of posts including army aide de camp to the governorgeneral, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel before retiring in 2001. During his last two years in the army, he was seconded to ONA as a strategic analyst, and returned there as a civilian after working for a time for a large American defence contractor.
As a result of his army background, Wilkie has been deeply involved with military issues in his time at ONA. "I worked on issues like Kosovo and Afghanistan, and kept abreast of developments with Iraq." His areas of specialisation have included transnational issues – terrorism, border protection and irregular migration. ONA is conscientious in trying to compartmentalise information, but because of Wilkie's work on those matters, he was able to pull down intelligence on any countries of concern.
Wilkie's work at the ONA clearly underpins his personal views now. It is the basis of his conviction that war at this time is not worth the risk. Wilkie is not a firm subscriber to the widely held western view that a war with Iraq would be short and successful. "Yes, it might be a short and successful war," Wilkie says. "It might be. But it might not be as well.
"My main concern is that Saddam could engineer a humanitarian disaster for any of a number of reasons. We all know of his program to co-locate his sensitive assets in civilian areas, next to schools and so on. He's also got a number of options up his sleeve. Three main ones come to mind:
"He creates a humanitarian disaster to overwhelm coalition forces. Just totally overwhelm them, with thousands of casualties, hundreds of thousands of refugees, internally displaced people, trying to move through their lines. That would play all sorts of havoc for the coalition military.
"He might create a humanitarian disaster to cause such outrage in the international community as to force the US to stop.
"He could create a humanitarian disaster as part of a scorched-earth policy once he realises the game is up. He's on the record as saying during the Iran-Iraq war when it looked like Iraq could lose that he would leave nothing of value for the invading army. That, I think, is an awfully important insight into the way this evil man thinks."
Wilkie thinks there are a number of ways Saddam could produce a humanitarian disaster. "He could do it with weapons of mass destruction. He's already used chemical weapons against the Kurds, and he could do the same again. Or he could be more innovative, such as blowing dams and so on, causing major flooding. The use of water as a weapon of war is in the Iraqi war fighting doctrine. Their engineers are certainly clever enough to do it. It's in their training manuals. And they've got a track record of using water obstacles during the Iran-Iraq war."
And Wilkie thinks war may very well prompt Saddam to do exactly what the US and its allies are trying to prevent. "We're trying to stop him acting recklessly in the region. We're trying to stop him using terrorism abroad. We're trying to stop him getting close to al Qaeda. We're trying to stop him using weapons of mass destruction. Threatening his very survival with a war is the course of action most likely to cause him to act that way."
Wilkie also believes there is another risk not worth taking – inflaming popular anti-western opinion in the Middle East, perhaps pushing people towards al Qaeda and – more importantly – "pushing us that little bit closer towards the so-called 'clash of civilisations' that's so far been avoided". War with Iraq will "fuel a problem that's going to lead to years and years and years of animus towards the West".
And then there is his "bad-policy" argument. "War must be the last resort. There is still scope to improve the inspections, to re-engineer the sanctions, and to develop inducements to Iraq to come into line. Also, it's eroding the power and standing of the UN. We can't afford that. There has to be some way for the international community to act collectively. And it's even more important as the US continues its ascendancy. The US is not more important than the UN, nor are US values superior to the values of other nations."
Given that his access to intelligence material makes him one of the best informed people in the country on these issues, Wilkie's views warrant attention. But, having got them off his chest, he is likely to find the cost is high. Everyone knows about the spy who came in from the cold, but the analyst is likely to find himself left out in decidedly frigid conditions.
THE INSIDER
The Bulletin March 12, 2003
This man is one of Australia's most senior intelligence officers. After years in the job, he says that attacking Baghdad will be a grave mistake. And he has now sacrificed his career to say why. "Sooner or later," Heng said, and I was reminded of Captain Trouin speaking in the opium house, "one has to take sides. If one is to remain human."
When Andrew Wilkie read Graham Greene's novel, The Quiet American, a few weeks ago, that paragraph resonated. It is not the reason he decided to sacrifice his career as an intelligence officer and speak out against war with Iraq, but it undoubtedly helped him to clarify his thinking. "I feel strongly about this," he says. "Strongly enough that I'm prepared to lose my job, probably lose some friends, and cause family and friends a lot of angst."
Wilkie, 41, was, at the time of writing, a senior analyst in the Office of National Assessments, the intelligence agency that directly advises the Prime Minister on international issues of importance to Australia. The agency's reports – covering strategic, political and economic intelligence – also go to ministers who are members of cabinet's National Security Committee. On top of this, ONA keeps all the nation's foreign intelligence activities under review. The most important intelligence material John Howard sees on Iraq comes from ONA.
When one of ONA's top-ranking analysts goes public with his personal views to condemn the looming war and Australia's involvement in it, there is bound to be a stir. This is a man who holds the top security clearance and who has had access to highly sensitive hard intelligence on Iraq. He is, moreover, the author of an ONA assessment that went to the government last December on the possible humanitarian implications of a war. And he was, before pulling the pin in spectacular fashion, on standby to join a full-time Iraq intelligence assessment team that will swing into action as soon as the government formally commits Australia to a military attack. But Wilkie believes a war with Iraq at this time would be wrong, and he feels compelled to explain why. Iraq, he says, does not pose a serious enough threat to the United States or Australia to justify a war ... in current circumstances, war is not worth the risk. And on top of that, it is bad policy.
When Wilkie first spoke to The Bulletin, he said: "I'm assuming I'll be dismissed immediately for going to the media." But later the same day, he decided the honourable course would be to submit his resignation to the director-general of ONA,Kim Jones, before the article appeared.
While not disclosing intelligence details, his views have obviously been informed by his years in the job. And although the information on which those opinions are based is publicly available, his conclusions are nonetheless revealing. "I believe that concerns about the risks of disclosing sensitive intelligence are quite legitimate. It can compromise capability, it can compromise sources, and it can even get people killed," he says. "I'm trying to do this in such a way that I can't be accused of breaching the Crimes Act.
"It troubles me that Australia has adopted a position, a very strong position, based on incomplete information," he says. "We do not have unrestricted access to all US information on this matter. There were certain things in [US Secretary of State] Colin Powell's address to the UN Security Council a few weeks ago that surprised [me] at ONA."
What is the basis of his conviction that Iraq does not pose a serious enough threat to justify a war? "Their military is very weak. It's a fraction of the size it was when it invaded Kuwait in 1990. Most of what remains is poorly trained, poorly equipped and of questionable loyalty to the regime. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program is, I believe, genuinely contained. There is no doubt they have chemical and biological weapons, but their program now is disjointed and limited. It's not a national WMD program like they used to have. Also, I am not convinced that Iraq is actively co-operating with al Qaeda. The bottom line is that this war against Iraq is totally unrelated to the war on terror."
Wilkie is no bleeding-heart leftie. He had a successful career as an army officer before entering the shadowy world of intelligence. He graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1984, held a variety of posts including army aide de camp to the governorgeneral, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel before retiring in 2001. During his last two years in the army, he was seconded to ONA as a strategic analyst, and returned there as a civilian after working for a time for a large American defence contractor.
As a result of his army background, Wilkie has been deeply involved with military issues in his time at ONA. "I worked on issues like Kosovo and Afghanistan, and kept abreast of developments with Iraq." His areas of specialisation have included transnational issues – terrorism, border protection and irregular migration. ONA is conscientious in trying to compartmentalise information, but because of Wilkie's work on those matters, he was able to pull down intelligence on any countries of concern.
Wilkie's work at the ONA clearly underpins his personal views now. It is the basis of his conviction that war at this time is not worth the risk. Wilkie is not a firm subscriber to the widely held western view that a war with Iraq would be short and successful. "Yes, it might be a short and successful war," Wilkie says. "It might be. But it might not be as well.
"My main concern is that Saddam could engineer a humanitarian disaster for any of a number of reasons. We all know of his program to co-locate his sensitive assets in civilian areas, next to schools and so on. He's also got a number of options up his sleeve. Three main ones come to mind:
"He creates a humanitarian disaster to overwhelm coalition forces. Just totally overwhelm them, with thousands of casualties, hundreds of thousands of refugees, internally displaced people, trying to move through their lines. That would play all sorts of havoc for the coalition military.
"He might create a humanitarian disaster to cause such outrage in the international community as to force the US to stop.
"He could create a humanitarian disaster as part of a scorched-earth policy once he realises the game is up. He's on the record as saying during the Iran-Iraq war when it looked like Iraq could lose that he would leave nothing of value for the invading army. That, I think, is an awfully important insight into the way this evil man thinks."
Wilkie thinks there are a number of ways Saddam could produce a humanitarian disaster. "He could do it with weapons of mass destruction. He's already used chemical weapons against the Kurds, and he could do the same again. Or he could be more innovative, such as blowing dams and so on, causing major flooding. The use of water as a weapon of war is in the Iraqi war fighting doctrine. Their engineers are certainly clever enough to do it. It's in their training manuals. And they've got a track record of using water obstacles during the Iran-Iraq war."
And Wilkie thinks war may very well prompt Saddam to do exactly what the US and its allies are trying to prevent. "We're trying to stop him acting recklessly in the region. We're trying to stop him using terrorism abroad. We're trying to stop him getting close to al Qaeda. We're trying to stop him using weapons of mass destruction. Threatening his very survival with a war is the course of action most likely to cause him to act that way."
Wilkie also believes there is another risk not worth taking – inflaming popular anti-western opinion in the Middle East, perhaps pushing people towards al Qaeda and – more importantly – "pushing us that little bit closer towards the so-called 'clash of civilisations' that's so far been avoided". War with Iraq will "fuel a problem that's going to lead to years and years and years of animus towards the West".
And then there is his "bad-policy" argument. "War must be the last resort. There is still scope to improve the inspections, to re-engineer the sanctions, and to develop inducements to Iraq to come into line. Also, it's eroding the power and standing of the UN. We can't afford that. There has to be some way for the international community to act collectively. And it's even more important as the US continues its ascendancy. The US is not more important than the UN, nor are US values superior to the values of other nations."
Given that his access to intelligence material makes him one of the best informed people in the country on these issues, Wilkie's views warrant attention. But, having got them off his chest, he is likely to find the cost is high. Everyone knows about the spy who came in from the cold, but the analyst is likely to find himself left out in decidedly frigid conditions.
