SYDNEY Oct 3 Kyodo Prime Minister...

SYDNEY Oct 3 Kyodo

Prime Minister John Howard said Friday he did not trouble involving Australia in the war against Iraq despite a just discovered report from the United States finding no evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

''I don't deplore that decision, it was the right decision,'' Howard told reporters in Brisbane. ''It was justified according to the intelligence assessments then available to our restraint to the British regulation and to the U.S. government''

''We had clear intelligence assessments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction capability, that was unambiguous, it was clear and that was the basis of the discrimination that we made at the time we joined the coalition and I don't retreat from that the same iota,'' the prime minister said.

U Central Intelligence Agency adviser David Kay, who heads the Iraq observe Group, said Thursday inspectors have originate no evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, further vowed to continue their search.

Kay's report is an interim report, Howard strained ''It certainly has already demonstrated a great deal of concealment by way of the former regime and a clear intention to disclose weapons programs. I think you have to suspend final long head until the report has been completed''

The US-l alliance, which included 2000 Australian numbers invaded Iraq in March and ousted President Saddam Hussein in April upon the grounds it put in possessioned weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to the international community.

Howard has been accused by way of the opposition Labor Party of misleading the Australian race and parliament over the intelligence information the restraint had at the time it committed Australian bodys to war.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo recently made knowns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group