Examination of Witness (Questions 1380
- 1399)
TUESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 1998
VICE ADMIRAL
ALAN WEST
1380. In terms of arms supplies?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) In terms of military
support.
1381. If it was a matter of deducing from
it that arms were being supplied, would not the DIS officer also
have been alerting the Foreign Office to the fact that there was
prospective breach of the arms embargo involved in that telephone
conversation?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) *** I am content that
at no stage did our people feel the Foreign Office were not fully
aware of all the intelligence that we had.
1382. On February 14th, which was actually
the date Major Hicks arrived in Conakry, interestingly, and following
the observation the Chairman made in his opening remarks, on the
very day of his arrival he linked up with Mr Rupert Bowen, of
whose past the Committee has been informed. The following day,
February 15th, Major Hicks reported back to the DIS in London
that Mr Bowen had told him that they were expecting a shipment
of small arms in the next few days for onward delivery to the
Kamajors. This information was passed to the DIS on February 15th
but it was not passed to the FCO because Major Hicks had not apparently
yet set up his arrangements with Mr Penfold, who was now back
in post, for passing his information simultaneously to the FCO
as well as to the MoD. The Legg Report recounts that four days
later, on February 19th, a system for simultaneous transmission
of Major Hicks' report to both the MoD and the FCO had been established.
The question I would like to ask you is, once that had been established
on February 19th was Major Hicks' report of February 15th, which
was hard documentary evidence of arms supplies about to arrive
in Sierra Leone, passed on directly to the Foreign Office; after
the communication arrangements had been set up on February 19th?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) If I could just clarify
the communication arrangements. Basically his report still came
into the MoD, it is just that we sent them out on a distribution
list but the one of the 15th had not included the Foreign Office,
as you say. The reason for that is there is a sort of modality
that ***, when he goes into the patch belonging to a British High
Commissioner or Ambassador, he does not send off reports that
he has not cleared with that particular man, and he had not had
a chance to clear that, so when he sent it he also wrote on it
***, "Please do not dist[ribute] this to the FCO because
I have not done that yet". However, I do not think that that
is significant because he *** was convinced and believed, and
I think he was probably right, that Mr Penfold knew very well
all of the stuff he had in that signal; that although he had not
cleared it with him, he knew it, therefore it was not something
which was going to surprise the Foreign Office as far as we were
concerned. When we then moved on to the next date, that signal
was not reiterated, but the next of his reports, because the caveat
that this had not been cleared had gone, then automatically on
the list of people it was sent to, the Foreign Office was there.
1383. So the February 15th report was not,
now delayed, sent on to the Foreign Office?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) No, it was not, no.
Sir John Stanley: Of
course, as Legg brings out, there were the most extraordinary
successive failures on the subsequent Hicks' reports in actually
getting them circulated in the Foreign Office and successive reports
were extraordinarily destroyed.
Mr Rowlands: One query
about the Hicks report and the information, that is information
that is recorded in 6.53 of the Legg Report?
Sir John Stanley: I
am just coming to 6.53, may I continue?
Mr Rowlands: I am
asking about the question of Liberia.
Sir John Stanley
1384. This is what I am coming to. May I
continue? The intelligence report that is referred to in paragraph
6.53 of Legg, which was received by AD(E) on or about February
19th, saying "... that President Kabbah had engaged Executive
Outcomes/Sandline to prepare and lead a military force from bases
in Liberia to oust the junta ...", did that report emanate
from the DIS or did it come from another source?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) You know your way around
the Legg Report slightly better than I do.
1385. Paragraph 6.53.
(Vice Admiral Alan West) (After a short pause) I
am not sure who this report was from, I am sorry.
1386. This is important for the Committee.
Could you tell us subsequently, if you cannot tell us now, whether
that was a DIS report or not? If not, what the source was, or
the agency? When I say "source", what the agency was
that provided it if it was not the DIS? I think it could only
have been two others.
(Vice Admiral Alan West) I am looking to see what
ones came out from me about that time. I would have to look and
see exactly what that one is.
Chairman
1387. But you are prepared to follow Sir
John's suggestion?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) Yes. What I cannot do,
I cannot give you the actual reports, but I can tell you where
it came from.[3]
Sir John Stanley: I am just asking to know
which agency it came from.
Chairman: The source.
Sir John Stanley: I
am not going to use "source", I corrected that. Which
agency. I am not into sources.
Chairman: Is that
your point, Mr Rowlands?
Mr Rowlands: Can I
be clear what the Vice Admiral is going to give us? If it is from
his section, presumably some explanation would be required as
to why Liberia comes into it.
Sir John Stanley
1388. That is my next question.
(Vice Admiral Alan West) I apologise for not being
absolutely deep into the Legg Report, but I was told that was
not to be gone over again, so I have made a point of not digging
around in it.
1389. I think you have been sent the Committee's
terms of reference, which is basically what we are taking our
marching orders from.
(Vice Admiral Alan West) Yes.
1390. This report which is referred to in
6.53 was, we know, seen by one official for certain and that was
Mr Murray. Mr Murray discounted this crucial report on two grounds.
Firstly, because it referred to arms and, secondly, because it
referred to Kamajor camps in Liberia. The question I would like
to ask you is, is it the case that the reference to Liberia was
the only place referring to Kamajor camps in this particular piece
of intelligence? Was Liberia the sole place or was it one place
where Kamajors may be located?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) As I say, I would have
to go and look at this.[4]
Chairman
1391. You will come back to the Committee?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) I will come back. ***
1392. But you can communicate to the Committee
whether there was reference to similar camps in Sierra Leone as
well as Liberia in that report?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) Yes.
Sir John Stanley
1393. We are assuming that the Liberia reference
was accurate.
(Vice Admiral Alan West) ***
1394. Can you fill the Committee in as best
you can on the background to that?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) I will certainly
look to see what that report is. Will someone by giving me these?
Is someone else taking this down, so I do not have to write it
all down? That would be useful.
1395. Can you tell us when the DIS first
received intelligence information that a military counter-coup
was being planned by ECOMOG and may have had President Kabbah
in association with it? When was that first intelligence information
received by the DIS?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) I will have to go ploughing
through again to see that. (After a short pause) It
is very difficult to pin down an exact date in those terms. If
you think of it, we were getting constant reporting of a number
of issues and we were building up a picture of what was going
on in the country, and to give a precise date———
We were certainly getting information. ***
Chairman
1396. ***?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) *** Of course mercenaries
have been involved in Sierra Leone for years and years, as you
know.
Chairman: Yes.
Sir John Stanley
1397. I do not know whether you can help
the Committee further, because it is evident from the documents
that certainly some officials in the Foreign Office were saying
over quite a considerable period that they had absolutely no knowledge
of the military counter-coup. What is of interest to this Committee
is when the intelligence was first received by DIS that a military
counter-coup was being planned and when that was passed to the
Foreign Office.[5]
Could you perhaps subsequently help us with that?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) ***
Chairman
1398. ***?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) ***
Sir John Stanley
1399. Was that passed to the Foreign Office?
(Vice Admiral Alan West) *** It would have had
a fairly full distribution, I am sure it would have been. ***
I will have to check.
3 Note by Witness: The intelligence report referred
to at paragraph 6.53 of the Legg Report was not produced by the
DIS. Back
4
Note by Witness: The question relates to material referred
to at paragraph 6.53 of the Legg Report which was not produced
by the DIS. Back
5
Note by Witness: 6 February 1997. Back
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