Defence Force officials have been grilled at a Senate estimates hearing over the resignation in 2004 of a senior Australian scientist who had been working with a US team searching for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.
Dr John Gee stepped down because he believed the weapons hunt was corrupted and there were not any WMDs.
He raised his concerns with the Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, in March 2004.
The Defence Department Secretary, Ric Smith, has revealed that the then Defence Minister, Robert Hill, was also alerted to the reasons for Dr Gee's resignation and that of his colleague Rod Barton.
"Their concern was that there was little or no evidence of WMDs that could be substantiated and secondly a concern about the way in which the newly appointed head of the ISG (Iraq Survey Group) it was called wasn't it, seemed to be approaching the issue," he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1778851.htm
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