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Alan Howarth (Newport, East): May I assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we do, indeed, take a very robust view? For example, we take the matter of the qualification of the GCHQ accounts very seriously indeed. We think that the Government should take it seriously, and for my part, I am not entirely satisfied that quite the appropriate note of contrition is struck in paragraph 8 of the Government's response. It is a serious matter if accounts should be qualified. It is very serious in the private sector, and it should be so in the public sector, and that is the view of the Committee.
Mr. Campbell: I know the right hon. Gentleman well and I know that he would not give an undertaking of that kind unless he meant it. However, when the report is looked at from outside by those of us who do not have access to the same information as the Committee, it does not provide us with the detailed information for which we would hope.
Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley): Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that, if we were to publish all the figures in place of the asterisks, both year on year and in terms of the resources and capital featured in the table, and all the other paragraphs to which he referred, not only Members of Parliament, but
people in general, would be able to construct or deconstruct ideas about where things are moving in terms of resources and money going into the different agencies? While it may not be clear to us here, the fact is that many people around the world might like to know that information, to our disadvantage.
Mr. Campbell: My only answer is that the United States has just as much to keep secret as we do—some might argue that it has rather more—and it seems to me that it has a greater degree of transparency. Of course, we will find out about that higher transparency in the two investigations that are being conducted in the Senate and the House of Representatives. I think that I have made my point and that members of the Committee have had an adequate opportunity to respond.
Let me draw to the attention of the House a matter to which the right hon. Member for Devizes also referred. On page 21, in paragraph 67, the Committee was moved to say:
- "GCHQ has reduced analysis effort in a number of possible trouble spots. These developments confirm our belief that the problem of collection gaps has worsened and therefore risks are being taken with national security."
It is inevitable that the most topical feature of the Committee's report is its continuing examination of the role of intelligence in relation to Iraq, which is dealt with on pages 24 and 25 and in paragraphs 80 to 83 in particular. There have already been some exchanges about those paragraphs, and I do not think that I need seek to repeat them. It would be quite wrong of us to anticipate the Committee's conclusions, but it is notable that it was moved in paragraph 82 to make what I first thought of as implied criticism, but is perhaps more correctly described as express criticism, of the dossier of February 2003. Some might say that that criticism was muted; the dossier has certainly not been described, in colourful language, as a Horlicks. None the less, I have no doubt that the Committee will wish to return to that issue in the light of the evidence given to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and in its own evidence taking.
I cannot pass by the opportunity to say that the mistake of February 2003 was no minor mistake of process, but a substantial error. I believe that the dossier must have been influential. Indeed, it was no doubt issued because it was thought that it would be influential. The report highlights two errors. First, it points to the use of unattributed material from the work of a PhD student, which was apparently 12 years old. Secondly, it refers to a failure to check with the relevant agency or the Joint Intelligence Committee. It was that which gave rise, in that rather inelegant phrase of Mr. Chris Patten, to something of a double whammy. It was more than simply an error of process.
I hope that the right hon. Lady's Committee will examine precisely and in detail how that occurred.
I hope also that the Committee will seek to determine the provenance of the 45-minute claim. I want to pose some questions that are not hypothetical, but relevant to the Committee's continuing investigation. Where did that 45-minute claim come from in the first instance? What qualifications, if any were attached to it? Through whose hands had the information passed, and who first took the decision to insert it into documents passed to No. 10? Who in No. 10 took the decision to give it the prominent position that it occupied in the dossier, particularly to put it in the foreword?
We should not allow the somewhat artificial exchanges between Mr. Alastair Campbell and the BBC to obscure an issue that goes right to the heart of the Government's position, and which I hope the Committee will also examine in detail. It is this: was the intelligence sufficient in volume and quality to sustain the decision to go to war? In other words, as it has been put recently, did policy dictate intelligence or did intelligence dictate policy? How reliable was the 45-minute evidence, which we now understand—on the basis of what the Minister with responsibility for the armed forces said—to have come from one unsupported source? Would that normally be acceptable on an issue of such significance?
I have two further questions for the Committee. What significance will it attach to these two facts: first, that no weapons were launched at 45 minutes' notice; and secondly, that some weeks after the cessation of hostilities no weapons have been found that are capable of being launched at 45 minutes' notice? I hope—indeed, I am confident—that the Committee will not be distracted by the froth of charge and counter-charge that has to some extent obscured those issues, which I regard as being of fundamental importance.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex): I fully concur with the questions that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is asking, which are very important, especially those concerning the role of Mr. Alastair Campbell and whether he availed himself of the special powers to instruct officials that were granted to him on his appointment, and which no previous press officer in No. 10 has ever had. Does he think that it might fall within the Committee's remit to judge whether the information passed to the Attorney-General might have affected the opinion that he eventually gave to this House, which was so instrumental in swaying the House's opinion?
Mr. Campbell: That issue was canvassed on a previous occasion when we debated these matters, and I offered some professional experience to say that when one is shown the opinion of counsel, one should always insist upon seeing the statement of facts that was presented to counsel before he issues that opinion. In relation to the Attorney-General's opinion, which we all know to have been material and influential, it would be a matter of some interest to know precisely what set of facts was presented to him before he reached the conclusions that he felt constrained to utter publicly.
Of course, Mr. Campbell, to whom the hon. Gentleman referred, is no shrinking violet, and he gave no impression at all of being intimidated by the Foreign Affairs Committee. I hope that reports suggesting that
the Committee may split along party lines will prove to be unfounded, because that would be deeply damaging to the reputations of the process of parliamentary scrutiny, the Select Committee system, and in turn, I suppose, the House of Commons.Let me return, if I may, to the main issue. The House and the country are entitled to know whether the Committee that is chaired by the right hon. Member for Dewsbury, which is charged with the responsibility of scrutinising intelligence-gathering agencies, is satisfied that the material placed before the Government by those agencies and, in turn, before the House by the Government, was sufficient to justify military action. That question goes right to the very heart of the Government's position, since there is no doubt that they based their justification on the presence of weapons of mass destruction and the imminence of their use. It is true that Foreign Office Ministers now say, no doubt correctly, "We never used the words 'imminent' or 'immediate.'" However, one has only to cast one's mind back to remember the atmosphere of the time, particularly after the enormously powerful speech that the Prime Minister made, with passionate certainty, in the debate that led to the vote of the House endorsing military action.
Mr. MacShane: I wonder whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman is aware of this statement from the September dossier:
- "the threat from Iraq does not depend solely on the capabilities we have described. It arises also because of the violent and aggressive nature of Saddam Hussein's regime. His record of internal repression and external aggression gives rise to unique concern about the threat he poses."
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