What the public service did or did not do over the Iraq war decision

Documents from 2003, released on Monday under the National Archives Act, show very few cabinet memos and submissions relating to the huge foreign policy decision to join the US-led military effort to disarm the then regime of Saddam Hussein without a United Nations mandate. There was also no cabinet submission on the costs and benefits of going to war.

The released papers point to a powerful cabinet subcommittee, the national security committee (NSC) of Cabinet, where critical decisions were made and which didn't require the endorsement of the full cabinet. Most papers of the NSC at this time have not yet been released. There are also full cabinet memos with brief oral reports from Prime Minister John Howard noting "extensive discussions" with the US president and UK prime minister.

One March 18 cabinet minute without submission stands out as ticking off the final authority for Australian military action in Iraq. The minute notes Iraq's "continued possession and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction" - weapons that were never found.

It adds to debate over what is seen as a political decision to go to war, according to the National Archives of Australia's cabinet historian David Lee.

"It does show, and I think public servants have said in commentaries to journalists and writers, that they felt that this decision was a political one by ministers and not something for them to be giving their strategic advice," Dr Lee told The Canberra Times.

"If you look at the operation of the public service and cabinet, is that such a good thing to have happened? I'd say no.

"I think like other people, like Graeme Dobell, it would have been beneficial for cabinet to have a heads up of what Australia is getting into and what the US is getting into in Iraq."

The NSC comprises the Prime Minister and senior ministers covering defence, security, intelligence, and foreign affairs. The Chief of Defence Force, heads of Foreign Affairs, Defence, and the Office of National Assessments also attend.

Robert Hill, who served as defence minister in the Howard Government in 2003, defended the practice of working through the details on national security issues - such as cost, benefits and implications of Australia's entry into the war - in the cabinet subcommittee.

He said it was a sensible way to deal with detailed issues

"Nobody was ever going to tell Ric Smith (Defence secretary) what to do and he was part of those debates in the National Security Committee of the cabinet," Mr Hill said.

"And of course on the military side, I had Peter Cosgrove, the CDF, Angus Houston, Air Force, and Chris Ritchie as the head of the Navy. All strong individuals have strong views on these things.

"And on the foreign affairs side, Ashton Calvert was the secretary. He was intellectual. He was strong. He could put as good an argument as anybody on Australia's strategic interests and they all participated in a series of debates."

Dr Lee said that the role of the public service had shifted in the early 2000s, after two decades of reform that started under the Hawke government.

Department heads went from having jobs for life, to contracts that could be renewed at the government's discretion - a move that saw the power of ministers significantly increase.

"We don't have the evidence of what public servants are telling ministers and Mr Hill would have more evidence of that. But I think we can see that the public service has changed over a period of a decade or so," Dr Lee said.

"They can't operate, in my view, with the same kind of frankness as the Arthur Tanges or the James Plimsolls of the 60s and 70s, or the treasury secretaries who were enormously powerful officials back then."

READ MORE:

But he said the Iraq decision stands out as having needed serious foreign policy analysis before the intervention.

"You've got experts there who held posts in Iraq, who knew the country very well, who could have given advice," Dr Lee said.

"But really, the government then isn't in a position where it wants this advice, because it's really predisposed to join with the US planning to do so.

"There's a wide expectation in the media, and I was in the public service back then, people knew it was coming. So that was the situation that was faced by the public service then."

The Prime Minister and cabinet currently decide when the country should go to war, without the approval of the Parliament.

The Albanese government is creating a powerful new parliamentary joint committee to boost parliamentary oversight of defence.

It is a response to the parliamentary review of international armed conflict decision-making, the so-called war powers inquiry.