Australian intelligence relied on thin and ambiguous information for its assessment of the threat of weapons of mass destruction in pre-war Iraq , an independent report has found.
"There has been a failure of intelligence on Iraq WMD. Intelligence was thin, ambiguous and incomplete," former intelligence chief Philip Flood said in a report that mirrors similar intelligence inquiries in the United States and Britain.
The report also found that Australian intelligence agencies should have known more about the "terrorist capabilities and intentions" of Asian Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) prior to the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian.
The al-Qaeda-linked JI has been held responsible for the Bali nightclub bombings.
"The inquiry has seen nothing to indicate that any Australian agency . . . had any specific intelligence warning of the attack in Bali," Mr Flood said in his report.
"The failure to appreciate the serious nature of the threat posed by JI was widespread outside Australia 's intelligence agencies and in Indonesia itself," he said.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch US ally, sent around 2,000 military personnel to the US-led war in Iraq, citing at the time the need to prevent Iraq 's weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terror groups.
Mr Howard has since said the Iraq war was justified despite the failure to find WMD, arguing the Iraqi people were better off after the removal of Saddam Hussein.