Memory and beliefs a Downer

Apparently Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is a big fan of right-wing Florida-based website, zombietime.com. He has been using material from the site to support his attack on media coverage of a direct hit on an ambulance during the recent conflict in Lebanon, accusing news outlets of inaccurate reporting.

On Monday, Downer suggested the global media were duped in reports of a suspected Israeli missile or rocket strike on July 23 near the village of Qana, saying "it is beyond serious dispute that this episode has all the makings of a hoax".

His initial scepticism was inspired by looking at television footage and photographs, with his first reaction being that "the ambulance would have been pulverised if it had been hit by a missile".

Of course Downer is an expert on WMD's, the subject of another of his current controversies. It has now been revealed that he chose to ignore the advice, delivered personally, by a senior Australian weapons inspector that the US-led weapons hunt in Iraq was seriously flawed.

While Downer has now confirmed receiving the advice, he denies suppressing a damning six-page letter by the inspector, John Gee, who resigned from the Iraq Survey Group, which conducted the search, in March 2004.

The letter outlines in detail interference by the CIA and the Bush Administration in the first reports about the weapons hunt, aimed at avoiding finding that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.

Downer said that he had raised Dr Gee's concerns in April 2004 with the then head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, when he visited Australia.

However, in a news conference at the time, Downer gave no indication that Dr Gee had told him there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Even in the face of damning documentary evidence, revealed this week, Downer still holds firmly to his 'know nothing' line.

In fact, against the word of former senior diplomats who says that the government knew two years ago about AWB's Iraq kickbacks Downer cries "beatup, and another "childish" attempt to discredit the government."

There is no attempt to explain, simply "childish" denial.

So I'm not sure it is so much a matter of forgetfulness and simply seeing things a little differently from the rest of the universe. Alexander marches to the beat of his own toy drum.

All very well, except the man is supposed to be representing his country as foreign minister, making sound judgements on vital issues. The string of nonsensical positions he has consistently taken puts the idea of sound judgement into question.