In his testimony before the Parliamentary Joint Committee's inquiry into Iraq WMD intelligence on 22 August 2003, Mr Andrew Wilkie accused the Government and me in particular of dishonesty, fabrication and distortion.
Mr Wilkie offered no evidence to support his allegations. Indeed the only two specific claims he made are plainly wrong.
First, contrary to Mr Wilkie's assertion, the Government never claimed that Iraq had "mammoth" arsenals of WMD. This was a point which was very effectively made by Senator Robert Ray in his questioning of Mr Wilkie.
Secondly, the Government never claimed active co-operation on WMD between Iraq and al-Qaeda, or a link between Iraq and the Bali bombing. What I repeatedly said was that we must do everything we can to contain the capacity of rogue states such as Iraq to possess WMD because they may give these weapons to terrorists.
Mr Wilkie also asserts that it "beggars belief" that the Office of National Assessments (ONA) did not advise me about doubts among some in the United States State Department concerning Iraq's alleged attempts to source uranium from Africa.
Mr Wilkie's claim is directly rejected by ONA which, in a statement on 10 July 2003, made it clear that it had not informed me of the State Department views.
Mr Wilkie claims that I exaggerated the intelligence received from ONA. Yet my major speeches on Iraq's WMD capability were checked for accuracy by ONA. In other words, ONA clearly did not consider that I had exaggerated or misrepresented its intelligence assessments in these speeches.
I respect Mr Wilkie's right to oppose the Government's policy on Iraq. It is perfectly understandable that people can reach different conclusions regarding the necessity of action even though there may be common ground between them regarding intelligence assessments.
If Mr Wilkie has evidence that the Government misrepresented intelligence he should submit it. It is open to him to do so without breaching his legal obligations not to reveal classified information obtained in the course of his previous employment. To suggest otherwise is absurd.
It is Mr Wilkie who has been guilty of distortion, exaggeration and misrepresentation of both my statements and those of my senior colleagues.