Australian
Government Advisor Sacked After Refusing to Write WMD Media Propaganda
- Article Copied from Here:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2004/041004wmdpropaganda.htm
(Posted here by Wes Penre for
Illuminati News, April 12, 2004)
Herald Sun | April 11 2004
A
SENIOR Defence adviser has been sacked
after refusing to write media briefings that supported claims that Iraq
possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Engineer and analyst Jane Errey was an adviser to former Chief Defence Scientist
Dr Ian Chessell and wrote briefings for Defence Minister Robert Hill. Her job at
Defence gave her access to secret intelligence on Iraq's weaponry from the
Defence Intelligence Organisation and the Office of National Assessments.
Ms Errey claims that on the day before the Iraq
war started, she was asked to write what she believed was "sexed-up" propaganda
about Iraq's capabilities.
The next day - March 20 last year - she went on
holiday rather than write what she claimed would have been a misleading
briefing.
But she was sacked last Monday, after more than
nine years at Defence, on "performance grounds".
"I felt like I was part of the propaganda
machine. As a public servant I shouldn't be expected to write propaganda," she
told the Sunday Herald Sun.
A superior had instructed her to compile media
advice on WMDs for Senator Hill, advice Ms Errey said would have misled the
public.
"Anything that I was doing with respect to the
war was making me uncomfortable," Ms Errey said. "Then to have to brief the
minister and fundamentally give him - even though I didn't write it - lines of
propaganda that I didn't believe with respect to the war was beyond what I was
prepared to do. I wouldn't lie or mislead the public."
The next day, as the war began, she submitted a
leave application. Ms Errey said that Dr Chessell suggested that, considering
her views on the war, maybe she should not be working at Defence.
"He told me that he was prepared to sign the
leave form, but he thought that I should consider whether working for Defence
was the right job for me," she said.
Ms Errey's leave ran out and after taking sick
leave, she applied unsuccessfully for leave without pay. Since July, she has
worked at a community organisation.
As Dr Chessell's senior executive adviser, Ms
Errey - an electrical engineer - had access to classified reports on Iraq's
weapons programs.
"I had access to those reports. I used to read
them before I'd take them in to Dr Chessell," she said.
"There wasn't enough substantiated evidence
from the reports I was seeing to justify the war."
Ms Errey is the second disillusioned official
to go public with doubts about the Howard Government's claim that Iraq's weapons
represented a threat. Andrew Wilkie, an analyst at the Office of National
Assessments, quit in opposition to the war last year.
In July last year, Britain's Blair Government
was at the centre of a scandal after the suicide of Dr David Kelly, a senior
defence scientist. Dr Kelly was publicly accused of leaking a story that claimed
intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "sexed up" to justify the
war.
Ms Errey, 43, explained her views to a
parliamentary committee, but her testimony was not mentioned in the committee
report.
She said she was a highly regarded official
within the Defence Science and Technology Organisation until her opposition to
the war became known.
She worked on the Collins Class submarine
project and in DSTO's international division and had access to all the reports
submitted to Dr Chessell. She also had the responsibility to brief him on issues
of importance, including what Senator Hill needed to know.
"Something that was going to Chessell, a letter
for him, I would read and generally draft a reply before I even showed it to
him," she said. "If I thought the minister needed to be aware of an issue, I'd
draft the ministerial briefing."
Ms Errey said there was debate in Dr Chessell's
office in the months before the war over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"His staff were the weapons inspectors, part of
Hans Blix's UN team," she said. "So Chessell had a duty of care because his
staff were the inspectors.
"The UN team was saying 'We haven't found any
WMDs. Let us finish our job'. That was different advice to what the intelligence
reports were saying.
"The Government was saying, 'Look, the
Americans are right and it's time to go in'. I didn't agree."
Ms Errey received a letter from Defence on
Monday that terminated her employment "on performance grounds". But she said:
"The real reason is I took a stand against the war. If I hadn't taken that
stand, I'm sure I would have been given leave without pay."
At the start of the war, Mr Howard said: "We
are determined to join other countries to deprive Iraq of its weapons of mass
destruction, its chemical and biological weapons."
A spokeswoman for Senator Hill said: "Ms
Errey's case was a matter for the Defence Department and the Public Service
Act."
Updated/Revised:
Monday, April 12, 2004 04:16:22 -0700