SYDNEY, March 11: A senior Australian intelligence analyst on Tuesday became the first government insider to resign in protest at what he called the government’s “abhorrent” hardline stance on disarming Iraq.

Andrew Wilkie, a senior analyst at the Office of National Assessments (ONA), which briefs Prime Minister John Howard on foreign affairs, called Australia’s apparent willingness to join an invasion of Iraq “dumb and not worth the risk”.

“War should always be the last option and the thought of Australia supporting an invasion of a sovereign state when there are other options yet to be explored I find abhorrent,” he said.

Wilkie, a former army lieutenant-colonel, tendered his resignation ahead of the publication Wednesday in a weekly news magazine of an article in which he pours scorn on the government’s argument for following the US into a war to disarm Iraq.—AFP