CANBERRA, July 23, SPA-- Australia was right to send its troops to the war in Iraq and the government was ready to be judged on this at an election later this year, Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday. An independent report on Australia's spy agencies by former intelligence chief Philip Flood, released on Thursday, found that pre-war intelligence was "thin, ambiguous and incomplete". The report mirrored similar U.S. and British inquiries but Howard is adamant he did not take the nation to war on a lie. "The decision to join the military operation was taken by my government -- it wasn't taken by the intelligence agency and I accept responsibility for that," Howard told Australian radio. "In the end, I am the person who gets it in the neck from the electorate if they don't like the way I have run the country and I accept that," he said in Queensland state, where he has been visiting some of the marginal constituencies likely to determine the outcome of an election expected in October. Howard said he had no regrets over sending Australian troops to the war in Iraq in support of Washington but Labor rejected his argument that he had based his decision on the best information available. --SPA 1023 Local Time 0723 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/310274