Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard has admitted that intelligence about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that led to the Iraq War was wrong.

Howard on Wednesday said it was disappointing that searches failed to detect WMDs in Iraq, but that he still believes the decision to commit Australia to the war was in the national interest.

His comments coincided with the release of previously-sealed cabinet documents from 2004 by the National Archive of Australia (NAA).

Each year on Jan. 1, the NAA publicly releases cabinet documents from 20 years prior.

The 2003 documents, which were released belatedly in March 2024 after some went missing, revealed that Howard's government authorized the deployment of troops to Iraq in January 2003, months before it publicly committed Australia to the war in March of that year.

A 2004 inquiry found that Australian intelligence agencies failed to accurately judge the extent and nature of Iraq's WMD programs.

Howard, the second-longest serving prime minister in Australian history, said on Wednesday that the decision to join the war was based on U.S. and UK intelligence.

Without a UN resolution authorizing the use of force, former U.S. President George Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, alleging the mission was "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people," which, however, turned out either to be false or unfulfilled. 

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