Australian troops back but war of words rages

By GREG ANSLEY Australia correspondent

CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard's decision to go to war in Iraq came back to haunt his Government yesterday even as thousands of Australians lined Sydney streets for a parade of troops home from Afghanistan and the Gulf.

Under a blue sky, Howard thanked his forces for a campaign that "liberated the people of Iraq from great oppression" and made the world more secure.

But three hours before the march police and security forces, equipped with detectors and explosives sniffer dogs, closed the route and scoured streets, culverts and rubbish bins in a reflection of the fear that has gripped the nation since the terror bombings in Bali and the United States.

In Canberra, the Government had just added more organisations to its list of outlawed terrorist groups, passed laws to provide insurance for acts of terrorism, and finally won Senate approval of tough new powers for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

The latter bill was passed with Labor support after the Government agreed to raise from 14 to 16 the minimum age at which people suspected to have knowledge of terrorism - but not involved in it themselves - could be held for questioning for up to seven days.

But an Opposition reinvigorated by the end of its divisive leadership challenge has joined with minor parties in the Senate to demand an inquiry into the intelligence that led to the war in Iraq.

As in Britain and the United States, Howard has come under increasing fire for the failure of the occupying forces to uncover weapons of mass destruction.

Howard has only been able to retaliate with the now largely-discredited claims that three mobile units were germ warfare laboratories, that an inquiry into the intelligence provided to his office was "premature", and by placing his emphasis on Iraq more as a war of liberation than an expedition to prevent the spread of chemical or biological weapons.

As the furore mounted yesterday, Howard cancelled question time to allow MPs to attend the Sydney parade.

The move failed to stop a continued hammering in the Senate and was greeted with derision by opposition parties.

"He's becoming a little Caesar, above the people, above the Parliament," said Labor frontbencher Mark Latham.

Labor, the Democrats and Greens have agreed that an inquiry should be held but have yet to decide on the best forum.

Their anger has been fuelled further by the Government's failure to warn travellers of potential terror attacks in Bali ahead of last October's bombings, which killed 88 Australians.

Australian intelligence had pointed to the risk months before the attack, but Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday repeated claims that no specific intelligence of a bomb plot had been provided.

Opposition attacks increased after new claims by Andrew Wilkie, a former Office of National Assessments analyst who quit because of the war.

Wilkie, at present in London giving evidence to the parliamentary inquiry into Britain's Iraq intelligence, said yesterday that he had seen Indonesian intelligence relating to a potential Bali attack well before last October's bombings.

Herald Feature: Iraq