Our government needs to be more transparent with 'secret' intelligence

The Prime Minister claims that Australia’s spy agencies are working effectively. Despite allegations from a senior intelligence officer that "critical shortcomings within the Australian system" prevent a full and independent analysis of world events, Howard rejects calls for a Royal Commission to investigate.

“I continue to have full confidence in our intelligence agencies, they do a very good job for Australia,” he says.

Meanwhile, the White House is struggling to explain how a top secret August 2001 briefing to President Bush titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US" failed to alert him to the 11 September terrorist attacks. Administration officials have reluctantly agreed to declassify this document and allow the general public to examine its contents.

If Bush had listened to his loyal Australian ally, especially the sage counsel of one high-ranking politician, this memo might have remained forever secret.

"We, the Government, have vital information which we cannot disclose. It is upon this knowledge that we make our decisions. You, who are merely private citizens, have not access to this information. Any criticism you make of our policy, any controversy about it in which you may indulge, will therefore be uninformed and valueless. If, in spite of your ignorance, you persist in questioning our policy, we can only conclude that you are disloyal."

Has our overwrought Foreign Minister finally snapped? Is John Howard taking a step toward establishing a permanent dictatorship?

No, that particular remark is attributed to one of the government's political ancestors - Harold Thorby, as Defence Minister in 1938. Back then, the Australian elite knew exactly how to deal with obstinate bureaucrats who openly disagreed with government policy and how to silence any public disquiet about the country's strategic direction.

Simply refuse to entertain the discussion.

The spin doctors would never permit such candour from today's political leaders. Even so, the open democratic process is routinely undermined by the very sentiment that Thorby embodied.

Claims about Iraq's imaginary weapons of mass destruction are the obvious example. All three members of the coalition of the most willing now bemoan the failings of their respective spy agencies. The certainty of February 2003 - "The Australian Government knows that Iraq still has chemical and biological weapons and that Iraq wants to develop nuclear weapons" - took six months to dissolve into a shambling set of excuses - "a bonafide judgement based on the assessments that existed at the time".

Can mere private citizens examine the evidence and make their own judgement? No way. This is vital information which cannot be disclosed.

As Lieutenant-Colonel Lance Collins’ letter to the Prime Minister demonstrates, a similar contempt for open scrutiny is evident in earlier foreign policy controversies too - what governments knew before 11 September or the Bali bombings for instance, back during the "children overboard" refugee affair or the Indonesia military-sponsored militia rampages in East Timor.

Rather than a full disclosure of the record, everyday citizens must rely on parliamentary committees or special commissions to investigate in their stead, under the strict proviso that much of the information remains secret. The recent Australian inquiry into intelligence material prior to the Iraq war involved just one day of public hearings. After that, its proceedings moved behind firmly closed doors.

No doubt the final report, eventually released in March, went some way toward restoring confidence in government decision-making. But this partial disclosure is the equivalent of unwrapping a chocolate bar you never get to eat. The public cannot indulge its democratic right to an informed assessment of the government's policy without access to all the valuable facts.

Washington's independent commission into the 11 September terrorist attacks in the US is at least holding more open sessions. But thanks to the dictates of state secrecy, even these proceedings are subject to manipulation.

Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security Advisor, appeared before the inquiry recently for entirely political reasons. She had already given testimony during a closed-session earlier in the year. If this had been open, the general population would have already known something about inner workings of the White House leading up to the atrocities in New York and Washington.

Now, conveniently, just as the Bush Administration needs a platform to counter growing criticism that it initially ignored the al-Qa'ida menace, Rice is finally allowed to appear in public session.

Ever since Richard Clarke, the administration's former anti-terrorism supremo, took to the airwaves last month claiming Bush failed to acknowledge the terrorist threat before 11 September and then misdirected the American response in the aftermath, a new narrative has taken hold in Washington. The popular perception of a capable, decisive leader, steering a wounded nation beyond a devastating and unanticipated attack has been tarnished.

Instead, many political observers tell a sordid tale of a President obsessed with old enmities, pursuing fantastical missile shields while ignoring growing threats (and mostly while on holiday - Bush has spent some 40 per cent of his presidency at one of his official recreational retreats).

Bush's post-11 September record is central to his re-election strategy. Rice went into the inquiry to bolster his fading credibility, dropping a few coy references to secret briefings and a lack of "actionable" intelligence.

And in the end, Americans and the world community at large know a little bit more, and yet a whole lot less.

A similar contempt for the public right to know is evident in Australia. The Government uses the shroud of state secrecy to hide its own failings. Respecting public intelligence demands that the world's leading democracies maintain a more robust commitment to transparency. If our rulers persist with such fulsome arrogance, we can only conclude that they are disloyal.