Iraq letter 'suppressed' by Downer

A DAMNING six-page letter on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was suppressed by Austrailian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, according to a former senior diplomat.

Dr John Gee, a world-renowned expert on chemical weapons, worked with the US-led weapons hunt, the Iraq Survey Group, after the war and wrote the critical letter when he decided to resign.

In it he warned the Australian Government the hunt was "fundamentally flawed" and that there was "a distinct reluctance on the part of many here and in Washington to face the facts" that Iraq had no WMD.