Independent Denison MP Andrew Wilkie has blasted former Prime Minister John Howard who admits being embarrassed by the intelligence failures that paved the way to the 2003 Iraq War.
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Mr Howard committed Australian troops to the conflict after the US intelligence agencies asserted former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.
The intelligence was wrong.
"I felt embarrassed, I did, I couldn't believe it, because I had genuinely believed it," he told Seven's Sunday Night.
"So, I felt embarrassed and I did my best to explain ... that it wasn't a deliberate deception.''
But Mr Wilkie, a former security analyst turned whistle-blower who quit the Office of National Assessments over the invasion of Iraq, said Mr Howard should be ashamed.
``He should instead feel deeply ashamed but grateful that he hasn’t been charged with conspiracy to commit mass murder,'' he said.
``For him to continue to blame the intelligence agencies is plain wrong. His continued cherry-picking of intelligence is nothing more than an attempt to dishonestly distract people from the fact that politicians, not spies, make wars.
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