Senate probe on Iraq interrogations

From http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,12484781%255E1702,00.html
By Max Blenkin and Paul Osborne
08mar05

AUSTRALIAN involvement in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners will come under Senate scrutiny after Labor and the minor parties today voted to force an inquiry.The inquiry, to be conducted by the Senate foreign affairs, defence and trade references committee, would also examine whether reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were censored.

The Opposition, Australian Democrats and Australian Greens joined forces to ram through an inquiry against strong government objections, using their combined majority before the Government gains control of the Senate on July 1.

The committee must report back to the Senate by June 21.
A key witness is likely to be former defence official Rod Barton, an Australian member of the US-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) which had the job of tracking down the country's WMD programs.
It was his revelations on the ABC Four Corners program in February that he personally interrogated Iraqi prisoners that reignited the interrogation issue.
His claims directly contradicted Defence Minister Robert Hill who told parliament in June last year Australians had no role in interrogating prisoners.

The issue was extensively canvassed at Senate estimates hearings in February with the government sticking to a line that Australians attached to ISG were specifically barred from involvement in interrogations and what occurred were interviews.
The committee will examine:
whether any Australian played any role in interrogating or interviewing Iraqi detainees;
whether any knowledge of that reached the government or agencies and what they did about it;
whether ISG was able to report frankly and fearlessly without censorship; and
whether any Australian personnel gave information about their concerns to any part of the government.Labor Senate leader Chris Evans said the Government had been misleading the Australian public for nearly a year.

"Successive estimates hearings have shed more and more light on the affair but its time the Australian people got the full story," he said.
Greens Senator Bob Brown said the inquiry was needed to sort out conflicting accounts of Australia's role in interrogations in Iraq.