Examination of Witness (Questions 120-139)
CLARE SHORT
MP
17 JUNE 2003
Q120 Mr Olner: Could I bring you
just quickly to the February dossier. You have made it crystal
clear that if you were a literary critic, you would not be giving
any of the dossiers any sort of—
Clare Short: No, it is not literary;
it is attachment to accuracy.
Q121 Mr Olner: So the grammar was
right?
Clare Short: Well, I have not
checked the grammar. I could go back and do that, but I was not
pretending to do the literary style.
Q122 Mr Olner: Could I just ask whether
the February dossier in particular, these are not your words,
but certainly in most people's words, now termed the `dodgy' dossier,
did any members of the Cabinet see that before its publication?
Clare Short: I do not think so.
I certainly did not read it. This is a shameful piece of work.
To think that in the run-up to a declaration of war when people's
lives are at stake, to lift a PhD thesis off the Internet and
distort it because you know that the young man concerned has complained
that even the words of his PhD thesis were distorted?
Q123 Chairman: He will be appearing
before us.
Clare Short: Is he? Okay. I think
it is shocking. I just am shocked that our government system can
come to this. I do not think we should permit this. Obviously
what has happened in Iraq has happened, but let us learn the lessons
in trying to help the people of Iraq rebuild their country, but
I hope that some lessons will be learned about our government
system and we will not make decisions like this again.
Q124 Ms Stuart: Your final sentence
moved into a question I want to raise with you. After 1441, which
was passed unanimously and countries like Syria did not have to
vote yes, this was seen as a clear indication by the then international
community as a desire to have a second Resolution, and I seem
to recall that even after the final vote, the feeling was they
would not get a final Resolution, so Jeremy Greenstock, in an
article, said that this was a kind of failure of diplomacy because
only 15 countries signed up. They knew in their own minds that
they had not actually signed up to the same thing and we did not
have a dialogue which made it quite clear where do we go after
1441. Do you think that all of that confusion in the mind of the
international community added to a process where the policy essentially
was decided and governments were just looking for evidence to
support it?
Clare Short: No, I do not think
there was any confusion in the mind of the international community.
I think there were two different strategies. I think that the
willingness to use force and the determination of the US to do
so helped to get us 1441. That was a difference and I personally
think that we needed to resolve the Iraq crisis, so I am with
those who say that it was a good to bring it to a head, but that
got us to 1441 and unanimity was remarkable, including Syria.
Of course Syria was pressed by a lot of Arab countries, and being
there as a rotating member it was representing the Arab world,
to co-operate because the Arab world was very keen for the thing
to be resolved by the international community without all-out
war if at all possible, and I think most members of the Security
Council really hoped that inspection and Blix would work. I think
the US wanted to go to war in the spring and the UK, I now think,
had pre-committed to that timetable. I thought then that we were
trying to use our friendship with the US to hold the international
community together and see post-1441, which was a great achievement,
if we could move forward with full international co-operation,
and 64 ballistic missiles were destroyed. That is no small thing.
This is the delivery mechanism for the chemical and biological
weapons, so I think we were getting a lot of success and then
it was truncated, and that is the tragedy. We never found out
whether Blix could have been more successful, and we could have
looked at a sanctions lift, we could have looked at indicting
Saddam Hussein, and I thought that was the route Britain was on,
but now I think Britain was never on that route and that was the
difference. We have to remember with Jeremy Greenstock, who is
a very, very, very fine diplomat, he receives telegrams giving
him instructions and that is the process with the UN, so even
a guy of his seniority all the time, over every country in Africa
and so on, instructions are issued from London, so where he says
that we could not get agreement because one country would not
agree, he has got instructions. You know, he has been appointed
today to be the UK representative in Baghdad. I wonder whether
he has volunteered for his penance. He was going into retirement.
He is taking over from John Sawers.
Q125 Ms Stuart: I think you repeatedly
said that the Prime Minister deceived you, the Cabinet and Parliament—deceived
you deliberately or deceived you on the basis of wrong information?
Clare Short: I believe that the
Prime Minister must have concluded that it was honourable and
desirable to back the US in going for military action in Iraq
and that it was, therefore, honourable for him to persuade us
through the various ruses and devices he used to get us there,
so I presume that he saw it as an honourable deception.
Q126 Mr Pope: Could I just go back
to the answers you gave to the questions that John Maples put
about the decision-making process in the run-up to the war and
during the conflict. You were saying in answer to John that there
was a small unelected coterie around the Prime Minister which
comprised Sally Morgan, Jonathan Powell, David Manning and Alastair
Campbell, and you also said the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee
never met in this period. Is it not also the case that these things
were discussed in Cabinet at the same time?
Clare Short: As I have said, the
first discussion at Cabinet was in October time and thereafter
it was discussed at most Cabinets and I often initiated that discussion,
but there were no papers and it would be to ask the Foreign Secretary
how he got on in the last visit to New York, or, to ask the Defence
Secretary this, and then the Prime Minister would speak a number
of times and I would usually say something and some others might
say something, so it was not a thorough investigation of an options-type
discussion, but kind of updates, "Where is everything?",
and then often a, "Yes, I'm very hopeful we will get a second
Resolution" type of assurance. It is that kind of guided
discussion and update, not an analysis of options and a thorough
kind of collective decision-making, but it is kind of giving consent,
I suppose, by not objecting. The Prime Minister would ask the
Foreign Secretary and others to update on what is going on and
then he gives his own conclusion as to where things are.
Q127 Mr Pope: We seem to be getting
conflicting messages really. You said in your resignation statement,
"the Cabinet has become, in Bagehot's phrase, a dignified
part of the Constitution", and it does not really seriously
decide things. It clearly did discuss Iraq probably at every meeting
between the beginning of this year and when you left the Cabinet.
Would it be fair to say that it meets weekly and it cropped up
at every meeting? The reason I ask is that we were told earlier
on today by Robin when he was giving evidence, and I jotted it
down because I thought it was interesting, "You could not
have hoped for a fuller discussion in Cabinet. It was a rare meeting
which did not discuss Iraq", so that seems to me different
from what you said, that there was a collapse in the decision-making
process.
Clare Short: Well, the collapse
in the decision-making process, not having Defence and Overseas
Policy Committee, not having any papers, not considering options,
diplomatic and military options, I think is very, very poor and
shoddy work and is a deterioration in the quality of British administration
which is shocking and this deterioration has been taking place
for some time. There were discussions in the Cabinet, I often
instigated them, but I do not agree with whatever the words about
"you could not have had more thorough discussion". It
was the same kind of discussion we have at Prime Minister's Question
Time in Parliament with people raising their concerns and the
Prime Minister saying, "Yes, I think we will get a second
Resolution", whatever the concern of that week was. It was
not what I consider a thorough decision-making discussion and
there was no kind of collective decision-making. I really mean
what I said and it is not just in relation to Iraq, but it is
more generally, on foundation hospitals, top-up fees. These things
have not been discussed in a way that says, "What can we
do to decentralise the Health Service?" or, "What can
we do to get more money into higher education?" and so on,
and then you get sort of at the last minute the appropriate Secretary
of State saying what the position is and people toe the line.
That was how it operates now and this is not what I think collective
Cabinet decision-making should be like.
Q128 Mr Pope: I am just trying to
get a feel of how this operates, so there is a brief discussion
in Cabinet and presumably votes are not taken, but people are
able to dissent or to put an alternative view and that would be
listened to?
Clare Short: Well, people do not.
Famously we did on the Dome at, I think, the first Cabinet and
the dissent was completely ignored. People do not now. This is
our political system. Yes, this is Iraq and yes, this our Party
in power, but this is our political system, this is our country's
decision-making system and it is not good enough. That is what
I am saying to you and I think your Committee has to take this
seriously for the sake of our country's good governance.
Q129 Mr Pope: Let's move on to what
I think is perhaps the more serious allegation which you made.
In the article that you wrote in the New Statesman in which
you were saying that the Prime Minister deceived us, it seems
to me that the most grave choice one could make against a Member
of Parliament and especially against a minister is that they have
misled the House of Commons. You appear to be concluding that
the Prime Minister has misled us on at least two occasions, first,
by exaggerating the threat posed by the weapons and, secondly,
you were saying that he agreed with President Bush a timetable
for war as early as 9 September of last year. First of all, can
you confirm that those are the allegations because I think those
are incredibly serious allegations to make against a minister?
Secondly, you were telling us earlier on that you had access to
pretty much all the bits of the intelligence data, so I was wondering
if you could tell us how you tried to use that intelligence data
to restrain what you must have seen at the time was the Prime
Minister deceiving Parliament?
Clare Short: It is an incredibly
serious thing to conclude that your Prime Minister has been misleading
you and Parliament, so when the Prime Minister kept assuring me
personally and saying to the House and Cabinet that he was going
for a second Resolution, if you remember, he said quite often,
that he was sure we will get one unless one fickle country might
veto, but I believed in that strategy and I believed in that role
for the UK, so despite people saying to me that a date had been
fixed, which very senior people did say, I still was going along
with believing in the strategy. However, examining everything
that happened and what happened to the Blix process and the views
of all of the other countries involved and the people who work
in the UN system, my conclusion is the sad conclusion that I have
reached and it is even worse than that because I think that this
way of making the decision led to the lack of proper preparation
for afterwards and I think that a lot of the chaos, disorder and
mess in Iraq flowed from not having made the decision properly
and made the preparations properly. However, let me say because
my former Department were getting clearer and clearer about Geneva
Convention obligations—and at first, only the military would
be there—our military took very seriously and started ordering
food and preparing for their Geneva Convention obligations and
did a lot better in Basra than US troops did in Baghdad, but this
unit, which was set up in the Pentagon to govern Iraq after the
conflict, was not properly prepared for its duties, so I think
this way of making the decision on top of the allegations about
misleading us all are a large part of the explanation of the very
bad situation in Iraq now and that is what I am saying.
Q130 Mr Pope: Could I briefly ask
you about the intent here. I can see what you are saying, but
it seems to me that there is a different way of looking at this,
that the Prime Minister genuinely believed that Iraq posed a threat,
that he desperately wanted the second Resolution not just in terms
of the wider international community, but in terms of domestic
politics, and he must have been devastated when he failed to secure
a second Resolution and it made life much more difficult for him
and actually he has acted honourably in all of this. If he has
misled the House of Commons or the public, it was not his intention.
Clare Short: You have to ask if
you reach that conclusion, and I agree that is a possible conclusion,
why Blix could not have more time. The only thing we were told
on that was that we could not leave the troops in the desert,
but you can rotate troops and you can bring some home, so you
can do that. A lot was at stake here, and the Prime Minister did
try very hard after the failure of the first Resolution that they
tabled as US/UK/Spain simply saying 1441 was not fulfilled. And
they could not get support for that and despite ministers going
to Africa and so on and the US trying to press Chile and Mexico,
they just could not get the majority for that. So the Prime Minister
tried for this Chilean so-called compromise with the six points
that would be required to be fulfilled if Blix was to be successful,
including Saddam Hussein going on television, if you remember
that discussion, but he was saying then that he could get the
US to give us a few more days, but the target was still March,
so this is the thing which drives me to my conclusion, that there
had to be military action by March at the latest. Now, that, I
think, closed down any prospect of a second Resolution and then
we were misled about what France was saying. I do not like this
conclusion, but I think the facts lead you here when you scrutinise
it all and, as I say, I can only assume that the Prime Minister
thought that Saddam Hussein needed to be dealt with. This was
an honourable thing to do and "I've got to use my influence
and my persuasive powers to get us there". There is a legal
problem then.
Q131 Mr Pope: Should he consider
his position?
Clare Short: I think we should,
as a country, get to the bottom of it and the lessons of it. That
question is a separate issue.
Q132 Andrew Mackinlay: Am I correct
in saying that the Cabinet did not meet from the time of the start
of the summer parliamentary recess round beyond the Labour or
Conservative Party Conferences? Is that right?
Clare Short: Yes. The Cabinet
does not meet when Parliament is not meeting. This business of
being asked if I wanted to raise anything and I said Iraq and
the Prime Minister said not and then he said he would talk to
me in Mozambique was before and after the summer recess period.
Q133 Andrew Mackinlay: So in terms
of arguing there is Cabinet collective responsibility, it goes
into deep freeze between the end of July and the third week in
October?
Clare Short: Well, it does not
meet.
Q134 Andrew Mackinlay: Just a ballpark
figure, how long did the average Cabinet meeting last in your
experience of six years of Government?
Clare Short: Something under an
hour.
Q135 Andrew Mackinlay: And there
are various subjects to discuss?
Clare Short: You start off with
next week's business and there are other areas.
Q136 Andrew Mackinlay: Are Cabinet
minutes—I was a town councillor—done like local authority
minutes? Are there minutes circulated with "resolved"
and "recommended" on them?
Clare Short: The minutes are very
lean, but this is the deep part of the British tradition. They
are very limited. They are there but the Head of the Civil Service
sits there with a book writing everything down and there are two
others, one for home and one for foreign because they change at
the end of the table, so a much bigger record is kept which presumably
comes out 50 years later or however many years it is.
Q137 Andrew Mackinlay: With the Queen
Mother it will be a hundred years, I suspect.
Clare Short: They are lean.
Q138 Andrew Mackinlay: You have revealed
some interesting things about the machinery of government, you
have shown us some of the flaws in the thinking in some of the
intelligence, but where I think there is agreement is that you
actually said you did not think containment was working?
Clare Short: Containment was hurting
the people of Iraq too much. We could not go on with sanctions.
Q139 Andrew Mackinlay: So you were
frustrated by this. I did not want to interrupt you, you said
it could not go on like this. You also recognised he posed a threat
or would develop the weapons of mass destruction if he had not
got them, though I take the point on that terminology. It really
comes down to whether or not there should have been more time
for Blix, in which case you seem to think the French and others
would have fallen into line if there had been continued frustration
by Saddam Hussein. Would that be correct?
Clare Short: I think we had to
deal with it and we should have done our very best to keep the
international community acting together, but we had to be willing
to contemplate military action to resolve it. That was my position
throughout and I still think that is right, we should not have
just left it indefinitely with the nature of the regime and the
nature of the suffering of the people. But I think the prize of
having unanimity at the Security Council and getting 1441 and
getting the dismantling of 60 ballistic missiles was very considerable,
and we should have gone on for a bit longer to see how much more
we could get.
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