Examination of Witnesses (Questions 840-856)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, SIR MICHAEL
JAY KCMG AND
MR PETER
RICKETTS CMG
24 JUNE 2003
Q840 Richard Ottaway: Would it be
helpful if by Friday you were able to break down the January document
to let us know who produced which part of it because it says at
the top that it draws on a number of sources and I think it would
be rather helpful to the Committee if we knew what bits were produced
by whom.
Mr Straw: Of course I can do that
in more detail, but the key point is that part two was drawn overwhelmingly
from this PhD thesis, subject to these amendments which we have
described and which we have identified. My understanding is that
the first and third were drawn largely from intelligence but of
course included some perfectly open information about the nature
of the Ba'ath Party.
Q841 Richard Ottaway: So in truth
when the Prime Minister says it is intelligence that the JIC is
receiving, it is some of the intelligence that the JIC is receiving?
Mr Straw: It never claimed that
it was simply from intelligence. The rubric at the top of page
1 says: "This report draws upon a number of sources, including
intelligence material, and shows how the Iraqi regime is constructed
to keep WMD . . . and is now engaged in a campaign of obstruction
of the UN Weapons Inspectorate", which for certain it was.
Q842 Richard Ottaway: To go back
to the point Mr Maples was making, as a backbencher who does not
get the sort of intelligence you get, you have to make a decision
on this and it was not unreasonable to believe, from what the
Prime Minister was saying, that it was primarily intelligence
based.
Mr Straw: As to burden, in terms
of percentage it is more difficult to measure but I will try to
give you an assessment. Mr Ottaway, I understand the point that
Mr Maples was making and I dearly believe it would have been very
helpful to the Government if the provenance of this document had
been made clear from the start, but I do also say in terms of
should you believe the document or not, yes, actually this document
was accurate and it makes it all the more aggravating that we
have had to deal with the problems that we have about the inadequate
sourcing and the changing of some words.
Q843 Richard Ottaway: Turning to
the September 2002 document, you have sought today to play down
the 45 minutes claim somewhat, and I wrote down the words you
used, that "it has got a life of its own". I just draw
your attention to the fact that it is referred to no less than
four times in the September document and, indeed, on page 17 under
"The current position: 1998-2002", it is described as
one of nine main conclusions, along with uranium being sought
from Africa. You then said that since then it had not been repeated.
Of course, the President of the United States repeated it in his
State of the Union address and you in your speech at Chatham House
repeated it as well.
Mr Straw: I did not say it had
not been repeated although, I must say, I had forgotten that.
One of your other colleagues, I think, claimed that nobody in
the United States ever mentioned 45 minutes, well it turns out,
Sir John, that the President of the United States did in his State
of the Union address.
Sir John Stanley: No, he did not.
Q844 Richard Ottaway: I stand corrected.
Mr Straw: It was part of this
but plenty of other things in a document which has an Introduction,
Executive Summary and a body. It was repeated four times. I think
when people got this document subsequently they judged the 45
minute claim in context. It was not the revelation, the flash
from the Gods, that led people to change their minds at all, it
was simply one part of the evidence, the overwhelming evidence
was about Iraq's use and capability of chemical weapons, its capability
of biological weapons, its drawing up of a very extensive nuclear
programme which it had, which was discovered in the mid-1990s,
and all the other things that followed. This was further and better
particulars. I just make this point: the 45 minutes issue was
no more an issue in terms of the decision to go to war than a
wide range of other matters until Mr Gilligan made his claim on
the Today programme on 21 May.[8]
Of course, I understand why people are now interested in this,
but if you are looking at the decision to go to war, to claim
with the benefit of hindsight since 21 May that this 45 minutes
claim was somehow central to the consideration of that decision
to go to war, that is simply not the case because people looked
at the very much bigger picture. Here was Saddam, he was a threat
to international peace and security, he had refused to comply
with a Whole series of mandatory United Nations Security Council
resolutions, we had gone back to the United Nations, he had been
given a final opportunity to comply, he failed to take it, and
even then, let me say, was given an ultimatum by us, was offered,
as both Donald Rumsfeld and I did in the middle of January, the
opportunity to leave Iraq and be given safe haven and, as Donald
Rumsfeld said on that occasion, a far better alternative than
war, and I agreed with him, and he was given a 48 hour ultimatum
once a decision was taken.
Q845 Richard Ottaway: Do you still
stand by the 45 minutes claim?
Mr Straw: It was not my claim.
I stand by the integrity of the JIC. This is a really important
point—really important. I stand by the integrity of the
people on the Joint Intelligence Committee—
Q846 Richard Ottaway: Do you still
believe the claim?
Mr Straw: —who made the
assessment. I believe that they made the assessment properly.
Let us be absolutely clear about this. This was not my claim in
the sense that I simply got together a pile of documents and thought
"That is a nice idea". This was intelligence which came
into the agencies in the normal way and was then subject to assessment
in the normal way and was made by the JIC. I accept the claim
but did not make it.
Q847 Richard Ottaway: So really you
are just the advocate for the intelligence information that is
put in front of you? On that point, do you agree with the Member
for Livingston when he appeared in front of this Committee, your
predecessor, he was talking about the way intelligence is put
together and he said: "It is not perceived, it is not invention"—he
was talking about the sincerity of yourself and the Prime Minister—"it
is not coming up with intelligence that did not exist, but it
is not presenting the whole picture. I fear the fundamental problem
is instead of using intelligence as evidence on which to base
the conclusion of a policy, we used intelligence as the basis
on which we could justify a policy on which we had already settled".
First of all, do you accept the cherry-picking argument that only
certain bits of intelligence were being presented?
Mr Straw: No, I do not. I certainly
accept what Robin says when he says intelligence necessarily gives
an incomplete picture by definition. What you therefore have to
do is have a very clear system of assessment in respect of that
assessment and why we have a JIC process. It is why I quite often
(not only in respect of Iraq) ask further questions about the
provenance of particular sources and I will go into this in some
more detail on Friday. But the case, Mr Ottaway, we made—and
I just want to repeat this—did not depend on the 45-minute
claim or any other individual claim, it depended on the overall
assessment of the behaviour of Saddam and the threat that he posed,
and most of that was in the public domain. I know that you and
I think Mr Maples put to Robin what was said on his behaviour
by Derek Fatchett and Doug Henderson in 1998 and I myself put
to Robin what he wrote in the Daily Telegraph on 20 February
2001 in which he says: "We believe that Saddam is still hiding
these weapons in a range of locations in Iraq and Iraq is taking
advantage of the absence of weapons inspectors to rebuild weapons
of mass destruction." What I readily accept is this: Robin
on the basis of evidence judged that containment could work; I
did not, and that was the difference.
Chairman: With brisk questions and brisk
replies we can make progress. Mr Illsley, on this point.
Q848 Mr Illsley: In reference to
the second dossier I think you said again a few moments ago that
it was substantially correct. The Committee has received evidence
from a Professor[9]which
goes through that document page by page and indicates that pages
6 to 16 are all taken from internet sources, and pages 2 to 5
relate to the claims made by Hans Blix to the UN Security Council,
which are then contrasted with other claims with the suggestion
that those claims are wrong. The numbers of soldiers in the document
have been substantially increased. To give you one quote from
it, the original article referred to forces being recruited from
regions loyal to Saddam and comprise 10,000 to 15,000 "bullies
and country bumpkins". In the document that was published
by the Government this then became "10,000 to 15,000 bullies",
so words have been omitted, words have been added. The whole context
of some parts of this document have simply been mistakenly put
in there. The changing of names of organisations like General
Intelligence to Military Intelligence suggest in a Government
document that an organisation was founded in 1992 apparently before
it had been created. There are a whole series of inaccuracies
which have been put to us by Professor Rangwala.
Mr Straw: I have already accepted
that there are sections from the internet, particularly in respect
of the PhD thesis, should not have been changed. We have been
over this before. If there are basic points made in that document
which are themselves inaccurate I have yet to hear them, and I
will go through his particular evidence, but the basic points
made in the document about the nature of the regime and its failure
to comply with the weapons inspectors and security structures
were accurate. That does not excuse a separate issue which was
about the provenance of the document but nor should you produce
the defects about providing provenance for the document as a reason
for saying therefore the document was inaccurate.
Q849 Chairman: Foreign Secretary,
that document was sent to you. It would be helpful if you had
a note with your observations on Mr Rangwala's submission.
Mr Straw: I will try and get that
to you by Friday[10]
Q850 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Secretary,
when you answered my previous series of questions you said towards
the end that you believed in the total veracity of the September
document, the September JIC approved assessment of Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction. I must put it to you that I can see no basis
on which you can say that unless the weapons of mass destruction
programme on the scale set out here is actually uncovered in Iraq,
unless you believe that Saddam Hussein had a covert, secret massive
destruction programme of his WMD. The Prime Minister, you will
remember, looked at that possibility in his speech in the House
on 18 March and he said: "We are asked now seriously to accept
that in the last few years, contrary to all history, contrary
to all intelligence, Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those
weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd." I wholly
agree with the Prime Minister, it is palpably absurd to suggest
that the scale of this WMD programme has been secretary destroyed
by Saddam Hussein. The issue is not whether he had some capability
of some potential, so please do not ride off on that one, the
issue is whether he had it on the scale set out to Parliament
and to the British people and was used as a justification for
war. I put it to you that there is no way you can say that this
is correct until weapons of mass destruction on the scale set
out in this document are uncovered.
Mr Straw: Let me say this in response
to you, Sir John. Again, to repeat the point, what was in that
dossier was corroborated by earlier evidence provided by UNSCOM
and later evidence contained in UNMOVIC reports. If you want further
corroboration, I did not refer in my speech on 18 March, nor in
the much more extensive statement that I gave on 17 March, to
this September dossier. I did refer to the 173 pages that Dr Blix
had provided to the Security Council on 7 March of unresolved
disarmament issues. Of course, it would be hugely helpful if further
corroboration of the extent of these programmes was found, but
the fact that evidence cannot be found does not mean that the
programmes did not exist. Overwhelmingly, the rational explanation
for Saddam's behaviour, all the evidence, has to be that programmes
of the scale identified existed. What was in that dossier was
also in here. It is in here that reference is made on 6 March
2003 to the fact that UNMOVIC believed in respect of 10,000 litres
of anthrax—I am trying to dig out the exact statement—they
said there was a substantial presumption that they still existed,
and there were 29 separate clusters, a whole series of unresolved
questions. My point is this: leave aside our dossier, look in
here. It would have been utterly irresponsible for the international
community in the face of this evidence here and Saddam's behaviour
going back over 25 years to have simply sat on our hands and done
nothing about his failure to comply with the United Nations. That
was at the heart of the argument.
Q851 Mr Pope: Just a quick final
question about the February dossier and Mr al-Marashi's evidence
to us last week. Put in a nutshell, it appears that his thesis
was downloaded off the Internet by someone—we will probably
find out tomorrow by whom—that was not accredited to him,
his permission was not sought, some of his work was changed, as
we have heard, and there were some inaccuracies in the final document.
But worst of all—I just find this incredible—Mr al-Marashi
is an Iraqi, his family are still in Iraq, and it seems to me
that nobody at any point anywhere in the Government gave any thought
to the effect that linking him intimately with the case for Britain
going to war would have on his relatives in Iraq. Do you think
that whoever compiled this document owes him an apology?
Mr Straw: He is owed an apology
and I am very happy now to give an apology on behalf of the Government.
Of course he should have been asked his permission and it is one
of the many errors that were made.
Mr Pope: That is very helpful, thank
you.
Q852 Andrew Mackinlay: One thing
you might clarify for me about Hamill and Manning; one is FCO
and one is Department of Defence.
Mr Straw: Sir David Manning is
the Prime Minister's principal diplomatic adviser, very shortly
to be Her Majesty's Ambassador in Washington and Mr Hamill, Sir
Michael?
Sir Michael Jay: Mr Hamill was
working at the time for the Communications Information Centre,
the CIC.
Q853 Andrew Mackinlay: I am not being
sarcastic, but his fingerprints are on this document we have focused
on. Manning would not have seen this document, would he?
Mr Straw: I do not know.
Q854 Andrew Mackinlay: The final
thing concerns Cabinet government. The Cabinet did not sit from
the rise of Parliament at the end of July around to beyond the
third week of October. I am wrong?
Mr Straw: Cabinet met in the very
last week of July. I cannot give you the date but I am pretty
certain about that. It definitely met on 23 September.
Chairman: Two final points, Foreign Secretary.
Firstly, there are questions which we hope to address to Sir Michael
at the beginning of this afternoon's session which will begin
at 3.15, which have not been resolved this morning. Secondly,
a final thought, you have said that the only rational explanation
is that those weapons of mass destruction existed. Do you think
it might be time now to think the unthinkable that in fact Saddam
had destroyed those stockpiles or at least, as Sir John has said,
a large part of those stockpiles from the time when UNSCOM made
its report and that perhaps—
Sir John Stanley: I most certainly did
not say that. I agreed with the Prime Minister that it was palpably
absurd to suggest that Saddam Hussein had a secret WMD destruction
programme.
Q855 Chairman: I am sorry, that the
quantities were substantially less and that possibly there were
valid reasons why Saddam Hussein deliberately kept up the pretence,
namely to keep his enemies at home and abroad in fear and trembling
and also perhaps for reasons of national prestige?
Mr Straw: I saw that that was
one speculative explanation offered. No, I think for international
peace and security it would have been irresponsible and rash,
to pick up your phrase, to have thought the unthinkable here and
completely inconsistent with the burden of the evidence and what
we knew and know about Saddam, completely inconsistent with that.
I must go, I am afraid. I am happy to see you again on Friday
but I will just make this point: there were the most intensive
inspections of the Saddam regime between 1991 and 1995 and it
was not until a combination of the inspectors coming across some
evidence and, above all, the defection of his son-in-law that
anything was known of any significance about the scale of the
biological weapons programme and the nuclear programme. I think
Mr Taylor or Dr Samore made the point in respect of the Soviets,
that the ability of totalitarian regimes to conceal programmes
is really astonishing, but it is there. No-one has to speculate
about the nature of this regime and what it had done, it is all
here in perfectly open sources.
Q856 Chairman: Our debate will continue
on Friday morning and with Sir Michael briefly at the start of
this afternoon's session.
Mr Straw: We will make arrangements
about what proportion of the session on Friday is in private and
which public.
the claim made on 29 May.
8 Note by Witness: The Foreign Secretary intended to
refer to Back
9
Ninth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 2002-03,
The Decision to go to War in Iraq, HC 813-II, Ev 30. Back
10
Ninth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 2002-03,
The Decision to go to War in Iraq, HC 813-II, Ev 74. Back
| 
