Report Clears Australian Government on Wmds

It is becoming a familiar refrain: a report out today has identified a failure by the Australian intelligence services to assess Iraq's WMD capability in the run-up to war but absolved politicians of interfering in intelligence assessments.

The former intelligence chief Philip Flood said in his report: "There has been a failure of intelligence on Iraq WMD. Intelligence was thin, ambiguous and incomplete."

But, in much the same vein as the Butler inquiry in Britain and the Senate intelligence committee report in the US, Mr Flood found the government had not subjected the intelligence services to "direct or implied pressure to come to a particular judgment on Iraq for policy reasons, or to bolster the case for war".

That ruling is a big boost for the Australian prime minister, John Howard, ahead of elections expected in September or October. He sent 2,000 troops to back the US and British forces in the invasion and still has nearly 900 military personnel in the region.

Mr Howard immediately welcomed the finding: "We did not heavy the intelligence agencies. I reject [claims] that we took the country to war based on a lie. If I had my time again I would take the same decision."

According to a statement released by Mr Howard, the Flood report found a need for greater transparency and accountability in the Australian intelligence community. He recommended the prime minister's main source of advice on intelligence analysis, the Office of National Assessments (ANO), have its annual budget almost doubled, to $AU25m (£10m) a year.

Mr Howard said he would implement all Mr Flood's recommendations, except one that ANO change its name.

Mr Howard ordered the Flood inquiry in March, on the recommendation of a parliamentary committee that looked at the Australian intelligence agencies' activities leading up to the Iraq war. The parliamentary report concluded there were unlikely to have been large stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war.

In Iraq, the US military said today that marines had killed 25 insurgents and captured 25 others in fierce fighting yesterday.

The daylong clashes in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, also wounded 14 US servicemen and 17 insurgents, according to the military.

The marines said the fighting began after insurgents detonated a roadside bomb near a marine convoy at about 3pm (1100 GMT) in an ambush attempt. Between eight and 10 Iraqi fighters then attacked the marines with small arms and rocket propelled grenades. The military said the ensuing fighting involved about 75 to 100 insurgents.