Fed: PM misled public over war, says Butler

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Fed: PM misled public over war, says Butler

By Paul Osborne

BRISBANE, April 15 AAP - Prime Minister John Howard misled Australians over the needto join the Iraq war, former United Nations chief weapons inspector Richard Butler saidtoday.

Mr Butler said Mr Howard played on people's fears of terrorism in joining the coalitionagainst Iraq.

"He has done what he did with Tampa and boat people and children overboard, on whichsubject he lied," Mr Butler said.

"He has played to ordinary Australian anxieties and fears and the chief one here isthat unless we have a protector, in this case the United States, we could end up nakedand defenceless.

"He has jeopardised us by alienating our Asian neighbours and, by putting us so squarelyin the US camp, he has made us a larger terrorist target than we otherwise would havebeen."

Mr Butler said he had no doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), butwas unsure whether they would be found.

"Do they exist? No question. I knew that, Hans Blix knew that, the United Nations SecurityCouncil knows that, the permanent members of the Security Council knew that because someof them kept the receipts," Mr Butler said.

"Will they find them? I don't know if they will find them. The Iraqis could have destroyedthem, or hidden them, or moved them across the border, for example, to Syria," Mr Butlersaid.

Mr Butler said when he was UN chief weapons inspector he had seen intelligence thatIraq moved weapons into Syria for warehousing.

But he said he doubted the US would invade Syria in order to find the weapons.

"They must understand that were they to do that the political consequences in the Arabworld and beyond would be unacceptable," he said.

Mr Butler said coalition forces should not immediately destroy any WMD they found,but rather bring in UN inspectors to verify them.

"If the coalition finds them and then summarily destroys them without having them independentlyverified then I think we will have a problem," Mr Butler.

"There are a sufficient number of people in the world who will say that that was a set-up."

The UN should also oversee talks to set up an interim government, rather than havethe US broker it, Mr Butler said.

"Even if the US behaves brilliantly ... it seems to me almost inevitable that the minutethat government has some problems then some will say that the reason why we are havingthese problems is because the Americans put it together," Mr Butler said.

AAP pjo/ph/de

KEYWORD: IRAQ AUST BUTLER