Examination of Witnesses (Questions 460-479)
MR ANDREW
GILLIGAN AND
MR MARK
DAMAZER
19 JUNE 2003
Q460 Mr Olner: Not the Government's
headlines, your headlines, the media headlines.
Mr Gilligan: Yes, but it was clearly
designed to elicit those sort of headlines. As I say, the implication
of 45 minutes was that Iraq was an imminent threat.
Q461 Mr Pope: Just on this issue
of the 45 minutes, I want to be very clear about what your source
is alleging. Is your source alleging that the 45 minutes did not
exist in the assessment that was inserted by Alistair Campbell?
Mr Gilligan: I will quote his
words again. He said, "It was real information. It was the
information of a single source." My source did not believe
it was reliable. He believed that that single source had made
a mistake, that he had confused the deployment time for a conventional
missile with the deployment time for a CBW missile. He did not
believe that any missiles had been armed with CBW that would therefore
be able to be fireable at 45 minutes' notice. He believed that
claim was unreliable.
Q462 Mr Pope: But that view was not
necessarily shared by the Joint Intelligence Committee because
they did have, albeit a single source, evidence of the 45 minutes.
Mr Gilligan: That is right, absolutely,
yes.
Q463 Mr Pope: Has your source made
any wider allegations or expressed concerns about Number Ten in
general and Alistair Campbell in particular interfering in intelligence
assessments?
Mr Gilligan: He expressed concern
that Downing Street had spoiled its case against Iraq by exaggeration.
I want to make it clear that my source, in common with all the
intelligence sources I have spoken to, does believe that Iraq
had a weapons of mass destruction programme. His view, however,
was that it was not the imminent threat described by the Government.
Q464 Mr Chidgey: On that very point,
we took evidence earlier in the week from Clare Short. Would you
have a view on whether or not your source might have been briefing
her on this issue?
Mr Gilligan: No.
Q465 Mr Chidgey: It seems rather
similar.
Mr Gilligan: It is a hypothetical.
I just cannot comment on it.
Q466 Mr Chidgey: Can I draw you back
to the uranium from Africa claim. You said that your source's
response to that issue was "crisp". Did you have any
more detailed discussion with your source? Could you share with
us how your source analysed that particular issue and came to
the conclusion that his remark should be crisp?
Mr Gilligan: My source believed
that the documents on which the allegation rested were forged.
Q467 Mr Chidgey: That has been proven
subsequently, has it?
Mr Gilligan: Yes. I believe it
was a letter from a minister who had left the Niger government
several years previously.
Q468 Mr Chidgey: Forgery at what
point? There have been some stories in the press that the forgery
occurred in the UK.
Mr Gilligan: These people do not
tell you everything, they are pretty taciturn.
Q469 Mr Chidgey: It is clearly a
very serious matter if somebody in our intelligence services should
have forged the documents that we are referring to.
Mr Gilligan: That has never been
an allegation that we have made or that my source made.
Q470 Mr Chidgey: Have you any indication
from your source of where the forgery is thought to have occurred?
Mr Gilligan: No, I am afraid not.
Q471 Mr Chidgey: Have you any information
at all about how it came to be included in the dossier, who picked
it up and who presented that information, forged or otherwise?
Mr Gilligan: I did not go into
it in sufficient detail.
Q472 Mr Chidgey: It seems surprising
that this suddenly dropped out of the air at a stage when there
was not enough time to check it.
Mr Gilligan: I did not go into
that in sufficient detail with my source to answer that question,
perhaps I should have.
Q473 Mr Chidgey: Do you think it
is possible that it could have been a deliberate plant by somebody?
Mr Gilligan: I have got no evidence
on which to base that view.
Q474 Mr Chidgey: It is possible,
is it not?
Mr Gilligan: I have got no view.
Q475 Mr Chidgey: Moving on, we have
had a lot of very interesting information from you regarding the
intelligence community's view of what was passed in the presentation
of the February dossier. Is it your view that they are generally
angry about that, is that what has motivated them to speak out
now about the September dossier, even though it happens to be
through sources such as yourself?
Mr Gilligan: Specifically about
the February dossier?
Q476 Mr Chidgey: Yes.
Mr Gilligan: Anger is too strong
a word; I would use the world disquiet.
Q477 Mr Chidgey: Do you think it
might stem not so much from the way the information has been used
in this particular case but from the fact that it is a sort of
change in the relationship between the intelligence services and
the Government of the day and the Prime Minister attempting to
bring the Parliament, the Government and the country behind him
on this view that we would have to prosecute this war? He has
possibly gone further than any previous Prime Minister in setting
out the case using intelligence information. Is this maybe the
sort of cultural change to the issue that is causing the disquiet
amongst the intelligence services in that they are not happy that
the previous information that was only shared with key members
of Government is now being perhaps slightly sanitised and shared
with the nation?
Mr Gilligan: I think that is in
part fair. We do need to stress, this story took on the life it
did because everyone else's intelligence sources were saying the
same things as mine were saying to me. One of the complaints made
by some of our intelligence sources, not just mine but across
the press, was that intelligence services are secret and they
do not like necessarily having their work exposed to the public
gaze. Yes, I think that is partly fair.
Q478 Mr Illsley: What you are saying
is that your source told you that the 45 minute claim was unreliable,
is it not?
Mr Gilligan: Yes.
Q479 Mr Illsley: So the claim existed
in intelligence terms but it had not been corroborated and was
unreliable.
Mr Gilligan: Yes.
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