Rod Barton

Of course, Rod Barton was not a spy. He was an intelligence analyst in the Australian Joint Intelligence Organisation (later the Defence Intelligence Organisation) - an assessment agency rather than a collection agency, and went on to serve as a weapons inspector for the United Nations and then (briefly) the United States - an overt function which admittedly made good use of experience in the intelligence world. Only his time in the CIA-led Gateway operation was his work clandestine, and could be dignified with the term "spy".

The account is nonetheless a fascinating one as it casts light on some key the Iraq weapons of mass destruction, an issue that shaped much of international politics in the post-Cold War world (and continues to have implications for Iran and North Korea).

Now, it just happens that I worked for Rod Barton in mid-1986 when as a new graduate employed in the Australian Department of Defence I was sent on a three-month rotation to the Joint Intelligence Organisation's scientific and technical intelligence branch. Much of my time there was spent pouring over reports on Iraq's chemical weapons. For the rest of the account I was elsewhere in the Department of Defence and never returned to an intelligence agency. I also did not maintain contact with Barton - as the book explains this would have been hard for a more diligent networker as he spent many years overseas.

Barton's account brought back many memories. The team stopping when the tea lady came around - tea ladies had all gone by the end of the 1980s. General Baker smoking outside the building, at a time when smoke-free workplaces were introduced and even generals were forced out into the cold. My experience in JIO meant that I always listened with interest to news on Middle East weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And it also meant that I was shocked and puzzled why no WMD were found after the 2003 Iraq War - how was it that the intelligence agencies had such a failure?
… (meer)