He referred to recent comments by the British politician and diplomat Paddy Ashdown, who this week said the NATO-led forces were in disarray and "defeat is now a real possibility". "What a tragedy failure in Afghanistan would be for all of those who have given their lives for the cause or have been badly injured," Mr Fitzgibbon said. "What an ominous development it would be for global security and for the Afghan people. What a tragedy it would be if all the good work done so far in the end were to count for nought."

Before the election Labor signalled a strong commitment to Afghanistan, and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, told the US President, George Bush, that Australia would consider "further reasonable requests" for additional troops. But Mr Fitzgibbon has resisted recent calls by the US for other countries to increase troop levels, saying Australian forces have been hampered by a failure by their "political masters" to develop a clear plan. "What surprised me most was the extent to which Australia had been denied access to important war information and excluded from the strategic-planning processes," he said. "Our people have been going to war, some to make the ultimate sacrifice, but it seems their political masters have been happy to sit on the sidelines." However, the claim drew fierce interjections from the former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer, who said it was disgraceful and "cheap".

Mr Downer said he had always insisted that success in Afghanistan would be difficult and dismissed Mr Fitzgibbon's comment that Australia had been left in the dark on the war planning. "This idea that we were not being shown NATO plans or intelligence is a preposterous lie," Mr Downer told the Herald. "It is incredibly irresponsible to make that point. No intelligence was kept from Australia. We were in constant contact over America's and NATO's plans … That guy is quite puerile."

Australia has about 1000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is the biggest non-NATO contributor to the NATO-led forces. Mr Fitzgibbon, who recently attended a meeting of NATO defence ministers in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, said this week he was concerned that Australia was being excluded from planning processes because it was not a NATO member. "The [NATO] secretary-general made a personal commitment to me that he would do all he could to right this wrong," Mr Fitzgibbon said yesterday.

But Mr Downer said he had repeatedly had meetings with the secretary-general and other NATO officials. He said Mr Fitzgibbon had only been able to attend recent NATO meetings because the Howard government, with several other governments, had called for greater access for non-NATO countries.