Government blocks access to national security records on invasion of Iraq in 2003

Access to records of high-level briefings about Australia joining the 2003 invasion of Iraq in cabinet’s NSC have been blocked.

John Howard, Peter Costello and Senator Robert Hill at the Liberal Party National Convention in Adelaide in June 2003.

John Howard, Peter Costello and Robert Hill have urged the release of records from cabinet’s national security committee regarding Australia’s deployment of forces to Iraq in 2003 after they were blocked from public access despite being open for declassification after 20 years.

The National Archives of Australia is required to make cabinet records available under the Archives Act after two decades, but they were retained by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for the official histories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The NSC was the principal forum for receiving written submissions, oral briefings from military chiefs and intelligence services, and deliberations about the decision to join the invasion of Iraq.

Yet the official cabinet historian, David Lee, was not given access to any NSC records regarding the Iraq war.

This decision has denied the Australian people the right to know about information and discussions at the highest level of government regarding the most important decision ministers could make: sending men and women to war.

The Department and the ­National Archives refused to ­answer specific questions about the decision from The Australian but issued a statement claiming it was a result of “administrative oversights” and appointed former secretary Dennis Richardson to undertake a review.

Mr Howard was not involved in the decision to restrict all ­submissions and minutes from NSC; nor was defence minister Robert Hill nor treasurer Peter Costello, both of whom were also members of the NSC.

“If you are going to make cabinet records available, you should make them all available,” Mr Howard told The Australian.

“I can assure you, I gave no instruction, as the prime minister at the time (to withhold the records).”

Mr Hill, who spoke at the embargoed briefing regarding the cabinet archives in December, said the deliberations in NSC were detailed, robust and lengthy, and the records would demonstrate this.

“I’m more in favour of transparency than otherwise,” he said in response to a question from The Australian.

“If the records reflect what I recall, there is no reason why they couldn’t be made public.”

Mr Costello, who budgeted increased expenditures for deployments to East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq of an additional $500m in 2001-02 and $1bn in 2002-03, also supported the release of NSC records.

“I’ve got no reason to think they should not be released,” the former treasurer told The Australian. “I have no objection to them being released.”

As there was no written submission to cabinet on the costs, benefits and implications of ­Australia joining the invasion of Iraq, the deliberations in NSC are of significant historical importance. Yet the Department did not transfer them to the National Archives.

The NSC comprised Mr Howard and senior foreign affairs, defence, security and treasury ministers along with departmental secretaries, the Chief of Defence Force and the heads of both the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and Office of National Assessments.

In a two-year period from mid-2002 to mid-2004, there were 96 meetings of the NSC that considered 456 submissions.

Yet none of these submissions nor minutes recording decisions in the year 2003 has been declassified for public release by the National Archives.