TONY JONES, PRESENTER: It was a seven-year investigation and at 2.6 million words the Chilcot report is five times longer than War and Peace, but its subject is one war, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Britain's involvement in it. It was handed down yesterday and concluded that the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Well, sprinkled liberally throughout the Chilcot report are references to the former Australian Prime Minister John Howard. The review casts a new light on Mr Howard's behind-the-scenes role as an advisor to the key protagonist, Tony Blair, and the US President George W. Bush and his role as a persuasive partner in what was to become the Coalition of the Willing. I spoke to Mr Howard earlier this evening.

John Howard, thanks for being here.

JOHN HOWARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: Pleasure.

TONY JONES: Now, you've said that the Chilcot report has no implications for Australia, but his most fundamental conclusion, his first conclusion, and I'll quote it here, is that the UK, "Chose to join the invasion of Iraq before peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted." Now that does have big implications, doesn't it, for you, who advised both Blair and Bush, and for Australia?

JOHN HOWARD: Well I don't think I said it has no implications, but what I said was it was primarily related to British involvement, but let me cut to the substance of your question. Of course the Chilcot report talks about the basis of going into Iraq and of course that's relevant to Australia and it's relevant to me because I was Prime Minister at the time. What Chilcot says was that the decision to go into Iraq was based on flawed intelligence. Well, that's a conclusion based on facts that became available after the decision was taken. It is true that the weapons of mass destruction were not discovered. It is equally true that the intelligence advice from the Americans, from the British was pretty firm that they did exist and it's also true that Chilcot has not alleged that the intelligence was contaminated by British Government intervention, which has been a constant criticism of Tony Blair ever since March of 2003.

TONY JONES: Sure. But as I said, his main conclusion was that the war happened before peaceful options for disarmament were exhausted and I'll come to that in detail in a minute. First, let's look at some of the detail in the report in relation to you. In August of 2002 you tell President Bush that a new UN resolution authorising military action against Iraq was essential to win public support. Later that year, Alastair Campbell writes in his diary, "Everyone including tough guys like Howard say that you need a second resolution," and you're telling Tony Blair this. That seemed to be good advice in retrospect. Why did you change it?

JOHN HOWARD: Well I didn't change the advice, but it became apparent - and this is where I disagree with Chilcot's argument that the peaceful options had not been exhausted - it became apparent that we were not going to get that resolution. You're not gonna get a resolution explicitly authorising the use of force because of the attitude taken by the Russians and the French, backed by the Germans, although the Germans were not members of the P5, the permanent members of the ...

TONY JONES: But that wasn't a peaceful option, was it? That was a war-like option.

JOHN HOWARD: No, but let - yes, but the argument ...

TONY JONES: If you're looking for the UN Security Council to authorise a war, that's not the peaceful mechanism he's talking about.

JOHN HOWARD: And we were looking for a further resolution and the further resolution was finally obtained, 1641, and everybody who follows this knows what I'm talking about - that fell short of including the explicit authorisation for military action. And when we had further discussions and we seemed to find a situation where the weapons inspectors weren't making progress, the idea of getting yet another resolution was put forward and it became apparent from that because of the attitude of the French and the Russians, we weren't going to make any progress.

TONY JONES: Sure. OK. 28th January, 2003, you and Tony Blair agreed, according to the report, that you should pencil in a deadline beyond which, even without a second resolution, they should take a decision to go to war. Do you recall saying that?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, if you told me I said that, Tony, I know you will have researched this and I ...

TONY JONES: It's in the report.

JOHN HOWARD: Yeah, look, I'm not gonna argue over that. Look, I'm not arguing that by January and February Tony Blair and George Bush and myself and others were very pessimistic about getting another Security Council resolution explicitly authorising military action, although it had been my belief for a long time and had been Bush's belief and in the final result it was also the belief of Lord Goldsmith, the British Attorney-General, that a case existed under the existing resolutions to take military operations. But, we're talking ...

TONY JONES: Without going for a second resolution.

JOHN HOWARD: No, no, no, no, ...

TONY JONES: But what Chilcot ...

JOHN HOWARD: We'd gone for the second - second resolution.

TONY JONES: No, I understand that. I understand that.

JOHN HOWARD: We'd gone for that. I thought that was a good idea.

TONY JONES: But Chilcot is talking about something different and the arbitrary deadline means that other peaceful methods have deadlines attached to them now and that included Hans Blix and his team and going down the peaceful route of using the weapons inspection team and dismantling their weapons.

JOHN HOWARD: Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

TONY JONES: Now, why was that route and why was an arbitrary deadline put in place that stopped the peaceful route happening?

JOHN HOWARD: But, but overlaying all of this was the judgement you have to make about whether you were going to get the necessary resolution from the Security Council. And it was blindingly obvious by early 2003 to me and to Bush and to many others that the Russians for their reasons and the French for their reasons, veto-wielding members of the Security Council were not going to agree. And that's one of the reasons why somebody like Simon Crean, the then Leader of the Opposition, said, "Well, if the Security Council were to authorise military action, we might take a different view." He knew that the French and the Russians were not going to change their position.

TONY JONES: Sure, but ...

JOHN HOWARD: I'm not saying that was based on any private information. It was just a reality.

TONY JONES: No, no, no, but I completely understand that, but the obvious point here is that going for a resolution to allow you to go to war is not a peaceful way of resolving it. It's going to war.

JOHN HOWARD: Yes, but ...

TONY JONES: Whereas the Hans Blix method of going in, finding the weapons and taking them away was a peaceful method and you created a deadline.

JOHN HOWARD: Yes, but - no, no, but look, it was self - it was evident to us that that process was not working and it was also evident that it was part of the Saddam Hussein strategy for it not to work because subsequent to the invasion, the Iraq Survey Group, which established there were no stockpiles, actually reported that it was the strategy of Saddam Hussein to somehow or other buy off the weapons inspection process or get rid of that, and once that had been taken off his back, his idea was to reconstitute his WMD programs.

TONY JONES: OK. I've read the report, so I can sort of see how this lays out in a timeline and on February of 2003, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK ambassador to the UN, reports that you, John Howard, were told by Dr Blix that while there was no evidence of a fundamental shift in the Iraqi approach, Blix had detected the possibility shift in the future. Do you recall being told that?

JOHN HOWARD: I remember having a meeting with Hans Blix. I had several meetings with him.

TONY JONES: And Kofi Annan on this occasion.

JOHN HOWARD: And Kofi Annan. And they were very much opposed to - no matter what the circumstances were, they were opposed to any kind of military action. Now I understand that. I'm not - I'm not moving away from that. But in the end, decision-makers, and leaders of governments are decision-makers, you have to make a judgement and a judgement has been made with the benefit of hindsight by Sir John Chilcot that the peaceful options had not been exhausted. Now, ...

TONY JONES: Can we just quickly go through this though? Because, yes, you were told - so you were told this by Hans Blix.

JOHN HOWARD: No, no, but I was - yes, but I don't - I don't ...

TONY JONES: You didn't accept it.

JOHN HOWARD: But I didn't accept everything that I was told by Hans Blix and neither one should.

TONY JONES: OK, but let me just ...

JOHN HOWARD: You've got to make your own judgement about these things.

TONY JONES: So let me go back to the report. On 13th February, 2003, you have a breakfast meeting with Tony Blair. Did you tell him that Blix was optimistic?

JOHN HOWARD: I would have reported what Blix told me and I would have certainly reported that, but I would have also had my views about bursts of optimism from Hans Blix in the past. And, I mean, Hans Blix was a - he was a genuine employer and servant of the UN and a weapons - understand all of that. But I ...

TONY JONES: Who proved to be correct, incidentally, in his view that there were no weapons.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, there were lot of people in the intelligence agencies of Britain and America and Australia who didn't agree with that and if you ask me do I agree with - take the word of the intelligence agencies rather than Hans Blix, I'll take the view of the intelligence agencies.

TONY JONES: OK. So at this same meeting, Britain's ambassador to the US now, Sir David Manning, advises the meeting that there'd be - there would be a need to challenge Dr Blix's assessment, that there'll be some movement on the process or some movement on the interviews. So he's basically saying if Blix comes out with an optimistic view, we need to be ready to challenge it.

JOHN HOWARD: Well that's your interpretation ...

TONY JONES: No, it's not my interpretation.

JOHN HOWARD: ... of what David Manning is saying.

TONY JONES: It's Chilcot's interpretation.

JOHN HOWARD: Yeah, well, look, you are all entitled to those interpretations and I don't pretend to have read the 2.6 million words. I haven't. You're ahead of me on that, Tony, but I do know that I was possessed of the information and the attitude of people at the time and a lot of what Sir John Chilcot has said, no matter how much he denies this, is of course based on subsequent knowledge. I mean, it is information after the event.

TONY JONES: Yes, but he does - it's interesting because you're in these critical meetings and I don't think any of us knew how deeply you were involved at the highest levels in counselling Blair and others on what to think, for example, what to think about Dr Blix. We didn't know that. That's never come out anywhere.

JOHN HOWARD: Well Tony, stop trying to flatter me. I know exactly what you're trying to do. Let's just go back to the issue. Now the issue is that this is after all ...

TONY JONES: Can we stick - can we stick - we're in this - but we're in this meeting.

JOHN HOWARD: No, I think we've got to go back to the issue.

TONY JONES: We're in this meeting ...

JOHN HOWARD: Well it's not the only meeting I had. I had lots of other meetings.

TONY JONES: This is one that's recorded by Chilcot.

JOHN HOWARD: Yeah, but I can tell you about a meeting I had with Sir Richard Dearlove, who was the head of MI6, at Stoke Lodge, the residence of the Australian High Commissioner in London, in which he showed me the latest transcripts of conversations and repeated his very strong view that Iraq did have stockpiles of weapons. So let's - let's put the perspective that you're in my position as Prime Minister of the country and I'm getting advice about the possession of weapons of mass destruction from intelligence agencies. Now, I know that has turned out to be flawed. I know that. I accept that. Nobody can argue with that. But as somebody once said, context is everything and the context ...

TONY JONES: But Mr Howard, we're trying to fine the context here when it comes to why the peaceful option of going with Blix was ignored. And here's what David Manning ...

JOHN HOWARD: It wasn't ignored.

TONY JONES: Here's - well, hang on. Let me - let me just ...

JOHN HOWARD: It was assessed to have been something that wasn't going to work.

TONY JONES: Let me just read you what Chilcot says David - Sir David Manning's advice at the breakfast meeting was to the people round the table. He said Blair should focus in public on the underlying message that there was not a fundamental change in attitude, but he should privately challenge the idea that the peaceful option might work and publicly state that it's dead in the water. So, they're looking at Blix being optimistic and they're trying to work out how we can get that out of the public space.

JOHN HOWARD: Well that's the interpretation that you place on that.

TONY JONES: Chilcot.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, Chilcot places on that. But Chilcot of course is very negative about Blair, he's very negative about most aspects of the British Government's conduct. He's entitled to be that. A lot of people are and I accept a lot of people are negative about my position on this. But what you've got to understand is that he can't escape the influence of subsequent knowledge and it's very, very difficult when you're dealing with situations like this to do so objectively without putting yourself in the shoes of the person who's got to make the decision, and in his place was Tony Blair.

TONY JONES: We're now trying to put ourselves in your shoes, in other words, to find out what really happened. Did you at the breakfast meeting also make the case that a second resolution was not needed for legal reasons? You've just mentioned that.

JOHN HOWARD: Well the legal advice we had was that there were sufficient and that was the legal advice that we tabled in Parliament.

TONY JONES: And you told this to Tony Blair, but as it turns out, you were way ahead of him at the time because he didn't know or think that at the time.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, I don't know what he thought and I'm not claiming I was way ahead or way behind him. I'm just I'm telling you that we got legal advice, which I tabled in the Parliament, saying that sufficient authority existed under previous resolutions to take the action that we did.

TONY JONES: Tony Blair, at that breakfast meeting, was surprised to hear that and said, "No, they need the second resolution."

JOHN HOWARD: Well - well, I'm just telling you what - these are facts.

TONY JONES: OK. Yeah, I know that.

JOHN HOWARD: And I don't automatically ...

TONY JONES: Again, Mr Howard, I don't know that people really understood how deeply you were involved in helping persuade ...

JOHN HOWARD: Well I think people understood ...

TONY JONES: Helping persuade Blair and helping persuade Bush.

JOHN HOWARD: Yeah. But I don't think Tony Blair needed any - any - he had a very strong view about the rightness of the action he took and he quite correctly resents the allegations that he took the nation to war based on a lie, which even Chilcot acknowledges that is not the case. I mean, very interesting - if you're dissecting what Chilcot has said, one of the things he does acknowledge is that the intelligence was not contaminated by the intervention of the British Government, yet it's been a constant complaint all along.

TONY JONES: Alright. Two days before the invasion there was a diplomatic cable which says that you told President Bush in a phone call that the Iraq issues were one of morality and not just legality. I mean, how do you separate out those two things just before going to war?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, I think that's a fairly unexceptional statement. You can feel that there's a strong moral case for doing something and you can feel there's a strong legal case as well. What's wrong with that as a (inaudible)?

TONY JONES: Is it possible to have a moral case, but not a legal case and still go to war?

JOHN HOWARD: Well I think you - well I think you'd need both and we did. On the information available to me, I had both. There was legal authority, and given Saddam's track record and given the very real fear obtained by the Americans and many other people around the world that after September 11 there was a real danger there was going to be another terrorist attack in the United States and it was a question of when and where, not if.

TONY JONES: Let me ask a final question on this because we've spoken about this before on several occasions, but this is a personal question. If you were to revise your opinions on the righteousness of joining the war, looking at everything that's happened since then, if you were to do that, would that - and bearing in mind that there were hundreds and thousands of civilian casualties - would that in the end weigh on your conscience?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, the whole thing has weighed on my conscience the whole time. This idea that it was a result of some blindingly different view you arrive at in the middle of the night, you suddenly get a conscience. I thought about the morality and whatever of this very, very deeply and I thought it was the right thing to do. And I don't accept that all of the deaths that have occurred in Iraq since 2003 are directly the result of the intervention. I think a lot of the chaos now in Iraq is a result of a premature American withdrawal and a failure to fully consolidate the benefits of the surge that were carried out under General Petraeus. You've got to remember that in, what?, 2010, there were elections held throughout Iraq and this is something that General Peter Leahy, if I can call him back, mentioned in his television interview this morning and that was a remarkable achievement given the history of Iraq. And I think the failure of the transition from the surge and the benefits of the surge, the failure of that to be consolidated, partly due to the premature American withdrawal, is one of the reasons why Islamic State has been so rampant in that part of the world in recent times.

TONY JONES: Yep. But does this suggest to you that a note of caution should be taken by future governments when getting into bed with the United States, so prone to failure in major events like this?

JOHN HOWARD: Well I think you always exercise caution before you enter a military conflict. I exercised a great deal of caution.

TONY JONES: Now I'm talking about whether our allies - whether our allies, the United States ...

JOHN HOWARD: And then I'm talking from my own experience and it's directly relevant to your question and because it was an operation conducted in conjunction with the United States. The United States is a hugely important ally for Australia and we should never lightly dismiss the value of that alliance. That doesn't mean to say you give a blank cheque or you give a tick to everything the Americans want to do. You treat each operation on its merits and that's what I have done.

TONY JONES: Should we be more cautious, given the history that we've seen unfold in Iraq? Should we be more cautious as Australians in going to war with America?

JOHN HOWARD: I think we should always be cautious before going to war, no matter who it is with and no matter what the theatre is and no matter what the circumstances are.

TONY JONES: Let's move on to just a couple of quick questions on Australian politics. Is Tony Abbott too old now to become Prime Minister at some time in the future?

JOHN HOWARD: (Laughs) I don't think it's likely to happen and I don't think it's productive to the peace, order and tranquillity of the Liberal Party for me to get into a detailed response. Look, Tony Abbott ...

TONY JONES: But if the leadership were to become vacant.

JOHN HOWARD: But it's not going to become vacant. The last time I spoke to Malcolm Turnbull, which was quite recently, he didn't give me the impression he wanted to give it up.

TONY JONES: It could become vacant by a stalking horse making a challenge. That's happened in the past.

JOHN HOWARD: No, I - can I throw caution to the wind - we've just been talking about caution -and say that's not gonna happen?

TONY JONES: just going back to Tony Abbott though, do you think he's too old to become Prime Minister now? I mean, you obviously ...

JOHN HOWARD: My mind is whirring and I think Tony Abbott is younger than Malcolm Turnbull and I think he's younger than Bill McMahon was and so forth. Look, Tony, this is a - this is a game. Nobody is ...

TONY JONES: So he's capable of becoming Prime Minister at some time in the future, according to you?

JOHN HOWARD: If we can - if we can talk in generalities, nobody is too old or too young. It depends on the circumstances, on the ability. The Liberal Party made a decision. Malcolm Turnbull looks as though he's gonna have a majority in his own right. Tony Abbott was a fantastic campaigner. He won a big majority in 2013. He nearly pulled off a remarkable result in 2010, but the party changed leaders and I accept that and I want the Liberal Party to be successful so I'll work as closely as I can with the leader of the day.

TONY JONES: Whoever that may be.

JOHN HOWARD: Well of course, but I don't think it's gonna change.

TONY JONES: So, this final question you can answer. Do you believe Tony Abbott should move on now or is it OK for him to keep the leadership baton in his rucksack?

JOHN HOWARD: Just as I advised Malcolm Turnbull to stay in Parliament after he was rolled by Tony Abbott in 2009, I think if Tony Abbott still has the desire to serve in Parliament, he ought to stay there and that's the advice I've given him.

TONY JONES: I was talking about the leadership baton in his rucksack.

JOHN HOWARD: You are - you are - you haven't lost your touch in these games. But - I hope I haven't - I hope I haven't become too old to realise it.

TONY JONES: We have seen revolving-door leaderships in both parties, so it's not a game, it actually ...

JOHN HOWARD: Yeah, of course we have. Yeah, well let me - let me - jokes aside, I don't think there's any questioning of Malcolm Turnbull's leadership in the Liberal Party at present, I really don't.

TONY JONES: John Howard, it's always fascinating talking to you. We thank you very much for joining us.

JOHN HOWARD: Thank you.