[link|http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/16/1034561164432.html|CIA claims it knew of attack]

John Howard when asked about the report says - noone passed any such report to him.
Other Oz agencies say - although we share intel with US, noone passed that one to us.
US ambassador in Oz also says he was not aware of any such report.


FULL NEWS REPORT ...


CIA warned of attack 14 days before

By Mark Riley and Tom Allard
October 16 2002

The Central Intelligence Agency issued an intelligence report listing Bali among possible targets of a pending terrorist attack just two weeks before the weekend's devastating Kuta bomb blast, the Washington Post is reporting.

The warning was based on intercepted communications picked up in late September, which signalled a strike against "a Western tourist site". "Bali was mentioned in the US intelligence report," the paper says.

All information gathered by United States and Australian intelligence agencies is shared between the countries. But the Prime Minister, John Howard, said yesterday he had no knowledge of the US report.

The US embassy in Jakarta issued two travel notices, on September 26 and October 10, warning Americans and other Westerners to "avoid large gatherings and locations known to cater primarily to a Western clientele, such as certain bars, restaurants and tourist areas".

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs' most recent travel advice before the attacks was on September 20. It urged Australians to maintain high levels of personal security amid a risk of bomb explosions, including in tourist areas, but said tourist services were "operating normally" in Bali.

Mr Howard said the US report "hasn't been brought to my attention, no. We had no warning of the specific attack that occurred. There have been general warnings about the deteriorating security position, the deteriorating terrorist position in Indonesia."

The official Australian death toll rose to 30 last night. A further 180 people remain missing and 113 Australians have been injured.

The Federal Government had airlifted 86 injured people from Bali by last night. Only seven patients remained in Darwin Hospital, with the rest sent on to other capital city hospitals.

Ten patients, two of them in a critical condition, were in Sydney hospitals. Fifteen critically injured people have been flown from Darwin to other major centres, two of whom had since died.

In Bali, police said yesterday they were "intensively questioning" two Indonesian men tracked down after one of their identity cards was found near the site of the bomb blasts.

The Washington Post report did not specify whether the communications were intercepted in Indonesia, where the Australian Defence Signals Directorate has primary responsibility for eavesdropping, or as part of the CIA's intelligence sweep across Asia and the Middle East.

Australian intelligence experts said the existence of the advice would suggest a huge breakdown in the international intelligence community before the Bali attack.

"It would be an unthinkable and unforgiveable failure of the intelligence network," said Warren Reed, a former head of the Indonesian desk of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.

"If the Americans had this information, they would have passed it directly to us and others in the intelligence club."

The US ambassador to Australia, Tom Schieffer, said yesterday he was not familiar with the reported US intelligence.

But a US embassy spokesman in Canberra said there was no closer intelligence-sharing arrangement in the world than that between the US and Australia. "It's a hand-in-glove arrangement ... I don't think there's anything that hasn't been sent," he said.

Mr Howard defended Australia's consular warning to travellers to Indonesia and Bali as "strong" and "quite strong".

Two days before the attack, the US issued a worldwide warning notice again urging tourists to avoid "clubs, bars and restaurants" where Westerners congregate. The Australian Government did not issue a similar warning.

The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, rejected any suggestion the Government could have done more to alert Australians to the threat of a bombing.

However, questions over the adequacy of the intelligence system before the bombing may be investigated by the Senate.

Greens Senator Bob Brown said he would support an inquiry if there was sufficient evidence of intelligence failings.

He said the best time to think about constituting an inquiry was in mid-November, when Parliament next sits. The Australian Democrats and Labor said it was too early to consider an inquiry but did not rule out their support.

[link|http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/16/1034561213880.html|PM reverses earlier position re US warnings of Bali as target]

Unless John Howard does some unbelievable smart talking, this could be the biggest blow ever to his Prime Ministership........


The warning tourists never heard
By Tom Allard, Mark Riley and Marian Wilkinson
October 17 2002


The Prime Minister, John Howard, yesterday admitted that Australia received recent US intelligence identifying Bali as a possible target of a terrorist attack on Western tourists but had decided not to change its advice to Australian holidaymakers.

The revelation came a day after Mr Howard, along with other members of cabinet and the US ambassador to Australia, Tom Schieffer, said they had been unaware of any such intelligence.

Mr Howard told Parliament that Bali had been mentioned in recent intelligence reports as a site, along with other tourist locations across Indonesia, in which there was a risk of "possible terrorist activity against United States tourists".

"This intelligence was assessed by agencies and the view was formed by them that no alteration in the threat assessment level, then at a high, applying to Indonesia was warranted," he said.

The most recent Australian travel advice on Indonesia prior to the terrorist attack was on September 20, several days before the US intelligence mentioning Bali was disseminated.

The notice advised travellers that bombs had been exploded in Indonesia, including tourist areas, and that further explosions "may be attempted".

However, it also said, in bold type, that tourist services were "operating normally" in Bali.

Up to 20,000 Australians were on the island at the time of the bombing.

The US changed its travel notice twice after September 20 in response to threats identified by the CIA. It specifically warned its citizens to avoid bars, restaurants and tourist areas in Indonesia where Westerners gather.

The US warning urged Americans and Westerners to "avoid large gatherings known to cater primarily to Western clientele including certain bars, restaurants and tourist areas".

Mr Howard maintained yesterday that Australia's travel advice had been adequate and that there had been no intelligence that "specifically warned" of a bomb attack in Bali on October 12.

But the Greens Senator Bob Brown said the revelations meant a parliamentary inquiry into suspected intelligence failures ahead of the Bali massacre was now inevitable.

"There are serious concerns about the intelligence warnings or failure to warn," he said. "It is easy to be wise in hindsight but it's part of our role as parliamentarians to make sure that we do review the warnings or the failure of warnings before the Bali bomb blasts."

Labor and the Democrats have not ruled out supporting such an inquiry.

A former regimental intelligence officer with the Australian Army in East Timor, Andrew Plunkett, said the lack of a more specific warning based on the intelligence at hand constituted "another tragic intelligence failure" at a managerial level in the Department of Foreign Affairs.

"I've seen it happen where diligent intelligence officers pass on significant information on activity in Indonesia that is later hosed down and wordsmithed by careerist departmental officers for political purposes," he said.

"They water down the intelligence so as not to upset the Indonesians and because they place the narrow short-term business interests of Australian companies in Indonesia ahead of human security and our long-term national interest."

In admitting to a silent Parliament that his Government had received the US intelligence, Mr Howard also ordered a full review by the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security of all relevant material received by Australia's spy network on terrorist threats in Indonesia before the Bali bomb blast.

Australia elevated its official threat assessment of Indonesia following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, but specifically excluded Bali from the warnings.

In Bali yesterday, no clear leads emerged in the investigation of the bomb blast despite a swirl of rumour and speculation about the detention of suspects. Australia has posted a $2million reward for the capture and successful prosecution of the terrorists.

The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, and the Indonesian President, Megawati Soekarnoputri, agreed yesterday to formally establish a taskforce to investigate the attack, including Indonesian, Australian, British and American investigators.

Mr Howard told Parliament that 30 Australians had been confirmed dead and that the death toll would "rise considerably".

The Government is also considering a permanent memorial to the victims.