Examination of Witnesses (Questions 740-759)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, SIR MICHAEL
JAY KCMG AND
MR PETER
RICKETTS CMG
24 JUNE 2003
Q740 Sir John Stanley: Apart from
the Prime Minister. We now know that as far as the dodgy dossier
was concerned it came very largely off the internet, words were
changed to give it more drama and when the Prime Minister made
his first reference to the document on 3 February said this in
the House: "I hope that people have some sense of the integrity
of our security services. They are not publishing this or giving
us this information and making it up, it is the intelligence that
they are receiving and we are passing it on to people". Everybody
who heard that in the House and outside can have been left in
no doubt whatever that this second document was an authentic,
intelligence-based document, approved by the JIC, when as we now
know that was nothing of the case. The question I have to put
to you, and you are answering on behalf of the whole Government,
because you are the only minister who is appearing—the Prime
Minister, regretfully, is not appearing in front of this Committee—I
have to ask you this in relation to what the Prime Minister said
in the House on 3 February either the Prime Minister seriously
misled the House as to the nature of the second dossier, the dodgy
dossier, or the Prime Minister was himself seriously misled by
his advisers as to the content and the sources of the document?
Which was it?
Mr Straw: It was not either, Sir
John. I do not accept the nature of that question. There is no
question of the Prime Minister acting in the way that you have
suggested. There are three parts to this second dossier, the briefing
paper, part one and part three were based on further intelligence
available to the British intelligence services. As far as I am
aware the veracity of what was said in those two sections has
not been challenged at all.
Q741 Sir John Stanley: Not JIC approved?
Mr Straw: I have made it clear
from the moment I found out about this document, the procedure
for putting it together was completely unsatisfactory. Let us
put that aside. That is one issue. The second issue is notwithstanding
the fact that the procedure was unsatisfactory did this second
dossier say things which were not true. The answer to that is
so far as the first and third sections were concerned is they
said nothing that was untrue, it was both the first and the third
sections, although they were not properly attributed, which were
properly sourced and based in intelligence. The problem arose
in respect of part two, which as everyone now knows was taken
from a PhD thesis on the internet and there were some amendments
made and this part was not properly attributed. It was not intelligence,
it was about a description of the security apparatus of Saddam.
A lot of the information even in the first dossier was taken from
open sources, including things like UNSCOM and IAEA reports. The
changes made should not have been made. If we pick up the key
change that was made, where it says on page 9 of the dossier that
the external activities of one of the security organisations includes
"spying on Iraqi diplomats abroad", I think the original
wording was "monitoring and supporting terrorist organisations
in hostile regimes", the original wording was "opposition
groups in hostile regimes". Those changes should not have
been made but both statements happen nonetheless to be true. In
respect of terrorist organisations, the most serious of changes
being made, you do not need to go to the internet to know that
the Iraqi regime at every level was actively right until the last
supporting the Iranian-based but Iraqi-financed and supported
terrorist organisation MEK, which everyone in this room voted
to be banned as a terrorist organisation three years ago and was
actively supporting rejectionist terrorist groups in Israel and
the occupied territories, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah,
again which everyone in this room voted to ban as terrorist organisations.
Q742 Mr Hamilton: Foreign Secretary,
can I move us back to March 2002, there was an expectation at
that time, and that was partly fuelled by statements from ministers,
that the Government would publish a dossier on Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction; in the event nothing was published until
the 24 September document. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
itself acknowledged there was a Joint Intelligence Committee dossier
at round that time on Iraq in March 2002. On 16 April in the House
of Commons in an exchange with you the MP for Halifax, Alice Mahon,
said: "Will the Secretary of State say whether he intends
to publish the dossier that was in the news a few weeks ago containing
the evidence of mass destruction?" I assume she meant weapons
of mass destruction. You replied: "No one should be in the
least doubt about Iraq's flagrant violation of United Nations
Security Council resolutions, we do not have to wait for the publication
of a dossier". Then, of course, in September the dossier
was published. My question relates to the March dossier itself,
and what I wanted to ask you was whether the March paper was based
on existing intelligence or had new intelligence come to light
round that time?
Mr Straw: I am glad I said that
because it was true and it makes the point that yes, of course,
we published the September dossier for a reason, which was better
to illustrate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. I remember in
some of those exchanges at the time I brought to the House to
try and convince some of the doubters just over 200 pages of a
very public dossier, which is the last report of UNSCOM, published
on 29 January 1999. I just have to say that my starting point
for getting into this was not the intelligence but it was open
source information, plus statements made by many others on the
record about the nature of the threat. I cannot recall exactly
which document you are referring to but what is the case is that
there were a series of assessments in respect of threats to the
Middle East, including Iraq, which were coming through in JIC
papers and if it were a JIC paper they tried to reflect a current
assessment. We can also give you more detail about this on Friday.
Mr Ricketts: In March a draft
was produced drawing on JIC material with other material as well,
much less detailed than the eventual September dossier but it
was decided not to publish at that time and to build up a fuller
picture, which eventually emerged in the September dossier.
Q743 Mr Hamilton: If I am not mistaken,
Mr Ricketts, ministers really did indicate at the time something
would be published and yet there was a decision made not to publish
at that time.
Mr Straw: Yes. There was no secret
about the fact that we thought we ought to publish a compendium
of information at an appropriate stage about the nature of the
threat posed by Iraq. When early last year there came to be a
significant debate about the Iraqi threat at that stage as well
as looking at intelligence papers I started to look at open source
information. One of the reasons, it goes back to a question raised
by Sir John, if you look through what I have said and the way
I have argued this, and indeed the Prime Minister, we have tended
to argue it on the basis of a great deal of open source information
because there you are not asking people to take on trust what
you are saying, you will say this stuff is available, just as
in the House much later my main argument was based round the final
report from UNMOVIC of 6 March. Yes, there was a discussion about
how we brought the information together and at what stage it was
appropriate to publish it. I am pleased that we did not publish
the matter earlier because at that stage the question of what
international strategy should be adopted in respect of the threat
posed by Iraq was still itself open to discussion. By 24 September
the strategy was very much clearer, the whole of the international
community was clear that the first stage of this strategy was
to go back to the United Nations Security Council and to get what
became Resolution 1441, putting Iraq on notice about active and
immediate cooperation.
Q744 Mr Hamilton: Would it be fair
to say that what changed between March and September last year
in terms of publishing a dossier was the fact that you had begun
to examine all that open source information and were determined
that that is what should be included as much as Joint Intelligence
Committee assessments?
Mr Straw: It was more the political
environment. I will say that I did publish information about the
threat from Iraq. I cannot remember exactly when but certainly
for some weeks, if not months, I would have had this information
and I made it available, because it was a public document. For
example a memorandum to the Parliament Labour Party when there
were first concerns by colleagues about the nature of the threat—
Q745 Mr Hamilton: Can I move on to
September dossier?
Mr Straw: —5 March 2002.
Q746 Mr Hamilton: Moving on to September
24 dossier, a number of assertions were made in here, why were
they so rarely repeated in debates and statements by Government
ministers between the publication in September 24, 2002 and early
2003?
Mr Straw: Which ones do you have
in mind?
Q747 Mr Hamilton: For example we
have talked about the 45 minutes. Some of the points that the
Prime Minister makes in his opening foreword here were then not
subsequently repeated?
Mr Straw: I said in answer to
Sir John and to the Chairman the 45 minutes has been given a life
of its own, which was not justified from this document nor by
the ebb and flow of the political argument about the key issue
before this Committee, the decision to go to war. However, this
document did reflect our overall concerns about the nature of
the threat and the truth is that we did make use of exactly the
same arguments. If you pick up the Prime Minister's introductions,
this is page 4, he talks about the threat to international peace
and security, "when WMD are in the hands of a brutal and
aggressive regime like Saddam's is real". He talks about
the fact that in an inter-dependent world major regional conflict
does not stay confined to the region in question, which is why
we use the phrase, "a threat to the United Kingdom's national
interests", aside from the fact that the illegal al-Samoud
missiles, which we thought existed, identified here, which did
indeed exist, with a range of 650 kilometres had a sufficient
range to attack our direct assets in Cyprus, because those assets
are less than 650 kilometres from the edge of Iraq. If you then
go over page one, Mr Hamilton, you will see that the case set
out there is exactly the case which we continue to use, namely
that Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons before; he had developed
overt, nuclear and biological capabilities as well; he was very
secretive; he concealed these; he was a significant threat to
the region and to international peace and security and he was
in open defiance of a succession of mandatory Security Council
resolutions going back over 12 years to 1991. That was exactly
the case he made. Of course we drew on the same arguments. At
the same time it is certainly the case that we did not keep referring
back to this as though this was the only evidence available, because
palpably it was not. As the debate moved on the significance of
this dossier was overtaken by other evidence entirely open. Once
we got 1441 this judgment was shared by every single other member
of the Security Council, including the other three Security Council
members with extensive intelligence services of their own, China,
France and Russia—Germany came on to the Security Council
in January. The issue after 8 November was about Saddam's failure
to meet the two tests set in 1441, not this because this pre-dated
1441, those two tests were a complete and accurate disclosure
of all of his WMD capabilities and complete and immediate cooperation
with the inspectors. He failed both tests.
Q748 Mr Hamilton: Finally, Foreign
Secretary, can I ask you, and accepting everything you just said
about the way events overtook the publication of this document,
did you at any time from the publication of this document until
the conflict itself started have any doubts about the accuracy
of the information that was published on September 24?
Mr Straw: None whatever, and I
said that in answer to questions and answers, nor do I now. Some
of what is in here has been proved by events, none has been disproved.
Mr Hamilton: Thank you.
Q749 Mr Chidgey: Foreign Secretary,
staying with the dossier I would like to ask you some particular
questions about the section dealing with chemical agent production
facilities in Part 1.
Mr Straw: Is this the 24 September
one?
Q750 Mr Chidgey: Yes. I appreciate
that your Department were responsible for Part 2 and Part 3, and
not for Part 1 but no doubt you are familiar with it and signed
it off at the time.
Mr Straw: Which page are you on?
Q751 Mr Chidgey: Page 19. You will
note that there is a comment to say that UNSCOM had been responsible
for the destruction of the main chemical weapon production facility
at al-Muthanna, and it had not been rebuilt but "other plants
formerly associated with the chemical warfare programme have been
rebuilt", and that included the chlorine and phenol plant
at Fallujah 2. It also says, "In addition to their civilian
uses, chlorine and phenol are used for precursor chemicals which
contribute to the production of chemical agents". I want
to make you aware of the language here, if I may, so that we can
come back to it further on in my questioning, again in paragraph
nine the document talks about other dual-use facilities being
rebuilt, new chemical facilities being built, including the Ibn
Sina Company at Tarmiyah, where the production of chemicals that
were previously imported were now being produced because they
were needed for Iraq's civil industry. Then we have a later reference
to say that at the al-Qa'qa' complex a phosgene plant had been
repaired. There is an important here, it says: "While phosgene
does have industrial uses it can also be used by itself as a chemical
agent or as a precursor for a nerve agent". On page 21 is
perhaps the most balanced comment in this section, where you talk
about the problems of dual-use facilities and you say: "Almost
all components and supplies used in WMD . . . are dual-use . .
. any major petrochemical or biotech industry . . . will have
legitimate need for most materials and equipment". Then it
says, without UN weapons inspectors it is very difficult to be
sure about the true nature of those facilities. At this stage
I would like to ask you four discrete questions that might help
us on the Committee to understand the relationship between the
dual-use and the chemical industry and weaponising. Can you tell
me whether there was any assessment made or were you aware of
any assessment made of the production of the chemicals chlorine,
phenol and phosgene needed to meet the requirements of Iraq's
industry? Was there any assessment made of surplus production
or devotion of production to the military for their use in WMD?
Has any assessment been made that you are aware of or was any
assessment made of the quantities of these chemicals that would
be needed to produce the sort of stocks of WMD that would have
been sufficient to allow the Iraqi Army to mount a sustainable
and credible military action against any attack from the coalition
forces? If there was what sort of quantities are we talking about?
My final question at this point is, was there an assessment made
or are you aware of that gave a view on the degree of the threat
posed by Iraq's WMD capability to our coalition forces, embracing
in all those four questions, were the scientific community involved
in making those assessments? Did the Cabinet Committee agree with
the assessments made by the scientific community or their contribution?
Mr Straw: My interim answer is
fairly short. Because of their technical nature I will have to
submit a paper[2]May
I say, this may be for the convenience of the Committee, we will
do our very best and we will try to respond very quickly to your
questions to get these back by Friday. If it is for the convenience
of the Committee I am perfectly happy for the opening part of
the evidence session on Friday to be in public to deal with issues
like this.
Q752 Mr Chidgey: I will move quickly
on because I know other colleagues want to make their contribution.
Can I turn back to the dossier, I have just discussed with you
this particular part on chemical production facilities, which
seem to be fairly even-handed, if we now look at the executive
summary the language seems to change to me, if you look at page
5, paragraph 6 we now have a statement that the judgment is that
Iraq does continue to produce chemical and biological agents.
It has military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons
and some of these weapons are deployable—we know about the
45 minutes. My point is that we go from the difficulties of interpreting
dual-use into a definite statement that Iraq has these weapons.
Then when we move on further towards the front and we look at
the foreword we now see that the language is even stronger. We
now see that assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt
that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons
and there is no doubt a threat of serious and current—
Mr Straw: Which page?
Q753 Mr Chidgey: This is the foreword
by the Prime Minister. I am really looking to know, do we know
who actually drafted the executive summary from the body of the
report and then the foreword because the language does seem to
change?
Mr Straw: Is that the question?
Q754 Mr Chidgey: That is the question.
Do you see my point?
Mr Straw: Yes. The Prime Minister
signed the foreword.
Q755 Mr Chidgey: Is this Number 10?
Is this the JIC?
Mr Ricketts: One point, the whole
document, including the foreword, was shown to and approved by
the Joint Intelligence Committee, so the foreword was not some
and separable part of the document that was written elsewhere,
it is was all cleared through the Joint Intelligence Committee.
What you are seeing in the executive summary is the assessment
and the judgment that our intelligence community brought. Having
looked at all of the various factors you drew attention to in
the body of the document the JIC exist to make a judgment to ministers
and that is the judgment they came to.
Q756 Mr Chidgey: There is reference
in the foreword to the assessed intelligence, can you tell us
how current that intelligence was at the time?
Mr Ricketts: This document drew
on the most up-to-date intelligence that was available to us.
Q757 Mr Chidgey: We have already
received evidence from previous witnesses to say it was very difficult
to get current intelligence from Iraq.
Mr Straw: It was on the most up-to-date
intelligence available, I promise you that.
Q758 Mr Chidgey: My final series
of questions is again referring back to chemical production and
what has happened since the conflict to try and resolve these
issues, we have already had the confirmation of the problems of
dual-use in the petrochem and biotech plants in regard to WMD
production. The dossier highlights the new facilities at Tarmiyah.
The point is this, the new facilities are critical, as we understand
it from the evidence that we have taken, that is because the trace
elements of any WMD production remain for a considerable period
on the site. Clearly plants that were previously dismantled by
UNSCOM would still be contaminated even though production had
not taken place for some years. With a new site and a new plant
if WMD production had taken place in that new plant that could
be confirmed quite readily by the trace elements that exist. These
are the questions for you, if I may, have inspections and testing
been launched since conflict at Tarmiyah and the other new plants?
If so, what progress has been made and what has been found? When
are the full results expected? Did the UN inspectors visit Tarmiyah
in the months immediately before the conflict? If so, what did
they find?
Mr Straw: Again, Mr Chidgey, I
will get you written answers as quickly as possible[3]
Q759 Chairman: Do you think you could
get those to us by Friday?
Mr Straw: I hope so. I will not
know until I make enquiries. May I just make this point, Mr Chidgey,
as far as I know, and again I will take scientific advice on this,
your categorical statement that evidence exists where there has
been CBW for a long time is not necessarily supported, it depends
to what extent the facilities have been cleaned up.
2 Ninth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee,
Session 2002-03, The Decision to go to War in Iraq, HC
813-II, Ev 72. Back
3
Ninth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 2002-03,
The Decision to go to War in Iraq, HC 813-II, Ev 72. Back
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