Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence


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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