Howard passes abuse buck

2004-06-01 09:12

Canberra - Prime Minister John Howard on Tuesday denied charges of misleading parliament over when Australia first became aware of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Howard blamed defence officials for giving him wrong information.

His statement followed revelations on Monday that an Australian army lawyer had made five visits last year and early this year to Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison where the abuses occurred, contradicting claims by Howard that he knew nothing of them until April.

Although no Australian troops are involved in the abuses, the government's knowledge of them has emerged as an embarrassment to Howard ahead of an election late this year as he tries to fend off criticism of his government's involvement in the Iraq conflict.

He insisted last week that he only learned of the abuses in April, when photographs were first published showing US soldiers humiliating and mistreating the prisoners.

But the Sydney Morning Herald reported this week that Major George O'Kane visited the jail five times between August and January, that he had seen Red Cross reports in October about the alleged abuses and that he had passed the information on to his superiors.

The government was accused this week of a "cover up" after it refused to allow O'Kane to appear before a Senate committee to answer questions about what he knew.

Howard, who called a news conference before leaving on Tuesday for Washington for talks with President George W Bush, faced a barrage of questions about the abuse scandal instead of the overseas trip he wanted to talk about.

He denied misleading public or parliament but said he had relied on information from the defence department, which had turned out to be wrong.

"I am very unhappy that I was misinformed by the defence department," he told reporters. "Everything that I said was based on the advice of the defence department. I did not set out to mislead anybody."

- AFP