Examination of Witnesses (Questions 800-819)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, SIR MICHAEL
JAY KCMG AND
MR PETER
RICKETTS CMG
24 JUNE 2003
Q800 Mr Maples: Four years later
you are saying he has.
Mr Straw: Palpably four years
later he has certainly not been stopped. Indeed, far from stopping
the building—
Q801 Mr Maples: I was being very
precise in my question to you.
Mr Straw: I am being precise in
my answer.
Q802 Mr Maples: No, you are not actually,
or you are answering a different question. Your document says
that he is capable of doing these things and he will do it unless
he is stopped. Four years later you are saying he has done it,
he does have the capability. I am asking you if you saw a piece
of intelligence which justified the move from somewhat tenuous
conclusions to absolutely unambiguous conclusions.
Mr Straw: What we saw over a period
was intelligence evidence which arrived at an assessment which
was then accurately reflected in this document.
Q803 Mr Maples: Are you saying that
the JIC document used language like "Iraq has continued to
produce chemical and biological agents", it did not say "may
have done" or "has the capability to"?
Mr Ricketts: This document was
drafted in the JIC structure and approved by the JIC, so responsibility
for it was taken by the Chairman of the JIC. This is certainly
drawing on JIC judgments and, as I said earlier, the point here
is this is a judgment, it is a clear statement of our judgment.
Q804 Chairman: Were any of the ambiguities
altered in the progression from the JIC initial report to what
ultimately appeared?
Mr Ricketts: This document was
drafted in the JIC and, as far as I am concerned, this is the
judgment that the JIC came to.
Q805 Mr Maples: We had evidence from
a former Chairman of the JIC, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, that
this is not the kind of language that a JIC assessment would use,
that actually it is strengthened up considerably. What is more,
for instance in the body of the document it says: "The JIC
concluded that Iraq had sufficient expertise to produce biological
warfare agents", but in the summary you say: "It has
produced biological warfare agents." In the bit about 45
minutes, it says: "Intelligence indicates that the Iraqi
military are able to deploy" and in the summary it says:
"These weapons are deployable within 45 minutes".
Mr Straw: Hang on a moment, it
does not say that, Mr Maples, it says that: "As a result
of the intelligence, we judge that Iraq has . . ." and then
goes on to say some of these weapons. The qualification for those
is very clear. You made a very large claim a moment ago that what
was in the second dossier published at the end of January was
substantially inaccurate and that has damaged confidence in the
Government, but the only thing you have been able to point to—
Q806 Mr Maples: You challenged me
to point to anything and I instantly pointed to one thing.
Mr Straw: I just say this: some
of those things, like the references to "opposition groups"
should not have been changed to "terrorist organisations",
but it happened, they have been changed to "terrorist organisations".
That document, in that respect, was 100% accurate. If the only
factual inaccuracy that you can point to is that where it said
"military security service", it should have said "Iraqi
general security service", then I rest my case.
Q807 Mr Maples: You challenged me
to find anything.
Mr Straw: I would have thought—-
Q808 Mr Maples: I am coming to this
document and saying, for instance, it seems that where you say
about biological weapons "JIC concluded . . .", that
seems to me to be stronger than what it says about the 45 minutes
which is: "Intelligence indicates that the Iraqi military
are capable of deploying within 45 minutes". It says that
on page 19. Those seem to me to be different. That has a ring
of truth about it that is the kind of thing an intelligence assessment
would say, but that is not reflected in the summary. The summary
is much more certain and draws no distinction between the nature
and the quality of the intelligence assessment on those two things.
Mr Ricketts: Perhaps if I could
just respond in my capacity as another former Chairman of the
JIC, Mr Maples. I do not find anything in the language of this
at all surprising in terms of the judgments that the JIC reach.
I do notice at the end of the Executive Summary there is a clear
statement in paragraph seven: "These judgments reflect the
view of the Joint Intelligence Committee." That seems to
me to be absolutely clear, the JIC take responsibility for the
judgments set out in the Executive Summary.
Mr Maples: I have to say "reflects
the views" is exactly the kind of wording which high quality
officials like yourself and Sir Michael use in documents when
we know that does not actually mean these are the words of JIC
or this is a document that they have produced. I am afraid I am
running out of time but there is lots more.
Q809 Chairman: Can you respond in
answer to what "reflects the views" means?
Mr Ricketts: I feel entirely confident
that the JIC took ownership of this document, took responsibility
for it and stand by it.
Q810 Mr Pope: Foreign Secretary,
in respect of the September dossier you told us a little while
ago that it was an iterative process, that drafts were going backwards
and forwards, ministers would put little notes on, small changes
would be made, it was an updating process. Mr Gilligan told us
when he came before the Committee last week that his source, who
he also told us was involved in drawing up the September dossier,
said that the dossier was "transformed" in the week
prior to publication, so between 17 September and 24 September
the dossier was transformed. Was that the case?
Mr Straw: It went through a number
of drafts. To say it was transformed—As I said, where documents
like this have been prepared, a core is prepared and it then goes
out for comment. There had been previous drafts and this particular
draft, which I think started its life sometime in early September,
went out, it went out for comment and I had a look at it. The
thing I can say perfectly publicly is that I thought it should
make more reference to earlier inspections because having read
this document I thought it should have a wider audience, referring
to UNSCOM's final report of uncompleted disarmament tasks through
late 1998, things like that, suggestions. I think one of my colleagues
suggested that there should be a foreword. That is what happens.
I think the implication of what Mr Gilligan was saying was that
the judgments were changed, but that was not the case.
Q811 Mr Pope: The implication is
worse than that. Can I just read you what he said. He said: "My
source's claim was that the dossier had been transformed in the
week before it was published, so I asked `how did this transformation
happen' and the answer was a single word, the word was `Campbell'."
What I want to know is, is that true? Can you refute that?
Mr Straw: Yes.
Mr Ricketts: What that implies
is that the entire Joint Intelligence Committee would accept that
their judgments, set out in earlier drafts, would be transformed
at the request of a single official and then still regard the
document as their own, and that certainly does not reflect anything
that I know about the integrity of the Joint Intelligence Committee
process.
Q812 Mr Pope: Could I Just move on
to the decision-making process in the run-up to the conflict because
Clare Short gave us some quite interesting evidence last week.
She told the Committee that: "There was never an analysis
of options, there was never an analysis on paper before any Cabinet
Committee or any meeting, it was all done verbally. It is quite
a collapse of normal British procedures for decision-making".
That seems quite a damning indictment from somebody who was a
member of the Cabinet at the time.
Mr Straw: That was not the case.
I have set out in answers to the further series of questions,
which I think you have had this morning, the degree of examination
and debate that took place in Cabinet. Contrary to what Clare
said first of all, it is not the case, as I think she said, that
the Cabinet had gone into deep freeze between the end of July
and mid-October, that was not the case at all. When Parliament
was recalled for 24 September there was a special session of the
Cabinet on 23 September which dealt with a couple of current items
but the discussion was dominated by Iraq. In addition to that,
I have also set out that she made a point, or I think Dame Pauline
Neville-Jones did, about the fact that DOP had not met since June
2001. That is correct but in its place there is a ministerial
committee with wider membership, which I think met 28 times between
the beginning of the military conflict and the end of April. Can
I just come back on this. Nor is it the case, as Clare claimed,
that all the discussions which were held in smaller ministerial
groups (some of them, yes, relatively informal) were without papers
and, for example, it is simply untrue that there were no papers
that analysed the military options. Of course what is the case,
can I just explain this, which is a reconciliation between what
Clare was saying and what I have just told the Committee, is that
some of these decisions had to be and some of the discussions
had to be very tightly held, and there was a reason for that,
which is that we were involved in very intense diplomatic activity
throughout the period from the middle of July and if you were
involved in intense diplomatic activity to start with, and it
was with our partners in the United States and with other partners
in the Security Council, you have to ensure that these discussions
are tightly held. The communications you have with diplomatic
partners itself are almost always confidential and often secret.
In addition to that, we had to ensure that the military options
were very tightly held too, not least so that none of its detail
could filter its way to Saddam, so that was the reason.
Q813 Mr Pope: One of the things that
Clare said to us was she described it as an entourage in Number
10 (comprising Sally Morgan, Jonathan Powell, Alastair Campbell,
David Manning) that was in charge of day-to-day policy-making,
and what I am putting to you in light of the written answers you
have supplied to us this morning[7]is
there was a gap between when the DOP last met, which was two years
ago, and when the War Cabinet, the ad hoc Ministerial Committee
on Iraq, started meeting, which was on 19 March this year, so
we have got this very long period of time when there was no Cabinet
committee meeting and what Clare was suggesting was in that period
of time the day-to-day decisions were being made by an unelected
cabal of people in Number 10.
Mr Straw: It is untrue. There
has always been an entourage in Number 10 for as long as Number
10 has existed and people need to chill out about that. At any
time there are people who are not in Number 10 who get concerned
about the entourage. That is true if you look at recent history
with Mrs Thatcher and also if you go back to the staff in Number
10 at the time of Harold Wilson, Harold Macmillan, Winston Churchill,
Lloyd George, and so it goes on. As far as the Cabinet was concerned,
Robin Cook provided the complete answer to what Clare was saying
which was that there was the most intensive discussion week by
week by week. I have given the answers here. The Cabinet discussed
Iraq at every Cabinet meeting between 23 September 2002 and 22
May 2003, which is 28 meetings. In addition to that, I do not
think Parliament has ever been more closely involved in a process
leading up, as it turned out, to military action than this Government
has involved Parliament on this occasion. I have done a list and
I am happy to put it before the Committee, but leaving aside routine
opportunities for interrogation of Ministers like first order
Questions and Prime Minister's Questions, I took part in five
debates or statements or evidence sessions between September and
the end of November on Iraq and then seven before military action
took place. It really was the subject of the most intensive scrutiny.
The implication of what Clare was saying was that somehow there
were decisions being made without reference to Ministers. That
is simply untrue. Apologies, Mr Chairman, for taking a little
bit of time on this but I think it is important to see the sequence
of things here. In July, as the issue of Iraq had become a much
bigger issue in the international arena, the question before Ministers
was how do we get this issue before the United Nations, and that
required the United States President to make that decision. There
was not actually any argument, whatever position people subsequently
took, about whether we went to war or not, there was nobody inside
Cabinet nor in the country that did not think it was a sensible
approach. There was a very intensive level of diplomatic and other
activity to secure that. However, by 12 September President Bush
went to the General Assembly and made this very fine speech at
which he committed himself to the UN route. The next stage was
delivering that Security Council Resolution. Again there was no
argument about this, everybody wanted this. There was very intensive
discussion to get the Security Council Resolution; we got it by
8 November. Then there was the issue of getting the Iraqis to
comply. You know the story there, but alongside that there was
the issue of military deployments. Of course what happened, as
would happen in any government I guess, is, yes, we looked at
military deployments and these were additional considerations
made in meetings in which some or all of the people you mentioned
were present. They included Number 10 officials plus others including
the Chief of Defence Staff, the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary
and myself, often heads of agencies, sometimes Mr Ricketts or
Sir Michael Jay as well. Then those decisions were reported to
Cabinet. Then—and this is in a sense the defect in Clare's
analysis—as soon as decisions were ready, announcements
were made to the House of Commons. On 18 December there was an
initial announcement made by Geoff Hoon in the House of Commons
about potential military deployments and he made a series of further
statements as well.
Chairman: Mr Pope, would you make this
the final question please.
Q814 Mr Pope: My final question is
on a different topic and it is questioning you in your role as
the Minister responsible for some of the intelligence services.
Mr Gilligan told us that it was a commonplace for people in the
intelligence services to give information to a variety of newspapers
and to himself. I put the question to him do people who work in
intelligence services on a regular and widespread basis brief
journalists and is that an on-going process and he said: "That
does seem to be the fact of the case." Is that the fact of
the case and are you happy as the Minister responsible that there
appears to be widespread briefing by members of the intelligence
services to journalists?
Mr Straw: I do not believe that
to be the case. I know a number of people personally who are members
of the intelligence services, aside from those I am responsible
for more widely. They are people who go to immense lengths to
ensure that the trust that is invested in them is not compromised.
It is true, as Mr Gilligan confirmed he knows this to be true,
that because of the intense interest that the public and the media
have in intelligence agencies, they have some arrangements which
are entirely official for—
Q815 Mr Pope: —These are unofficial.
Maybe they are the rogue elements that have been talked about.
Mr Straw: —for the briefing
of the press, and of course we take seriously any allegations
of this kind. I just want to put on the record that having been
responsible over the last six years first for the security service
MI5 and now over the last over two years for SIS, MI6 and GCHQ,
I think the overall level of the quality of staff, their integrity
and their commitment to their work is second to none.
Q816 Chairman: When you see us on
Friday perhaps you could provide the instructions to personnel
in respect of contacts with the press.
Mr Straw: I am happy to do so.
Q817 Andrew Mackinlay: I want to
ask you this: you said that the dodgy dossier was an acute embarrassment
to the Government; it was also an acute embarrassment to those
of us who supported the Government in the division lobbies, and
would do so again tonight for other reasons. But it was an acute
embarrassment and therefore we are legitimately angry. I thought
we rather stopped Sir Michael's flow because he was opening out
just what was the genesis of this document, who handled it and
I really want to go back to that, either through you, Foreign
Secretary or Sir Michael, directly. Who handled this, who were
the authors, and did it go to the Prime Minister in his Red Box
to be signed off? Did the Prime Minister see it?
Mr Straw: I think the short story,
a perfectly obvious point and I will bring Sir Michael in on the
particulars, is there are people who believe there is some kind
of conspiracy behind this document which, as I say, was unsatisfactorily
produced but, as I say, which is also very important, nothing
in it of any seriousness is inaccurate but, yes, of course it
is still an embarrassment.
Q818 Andrew Mackinlay: Of course,
I understand.
Mr Straw: : There was no conspiracy
behind it. It was not remotely in the Government's interest to
produce a document with this provenance. To put it in the vernacular,
it was a "complete Horlicks" in terms of the way it
was produced.
Q819 Andrew Mackinlay: So how did
it come to be produced?
Mr Straw: It should not have happened.
7 Ninth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee,
Session 2002-03, The Decision to go to War in Iraq, HC
813-II, Ev 70. Back
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