Examination of Witness (Questions 920-939)
MR ALASTAIR
CAMPBELL
25 JUNE 2003
Q920 Chairman: Do you feel now that
you regret publishing it in the first place?
Mr Campbell: I think the idea
of a paper setting out, as it sought to do, the scale of Saddam
Hussein's apparatus of concealment and intimidation against the
UN was a good thing to do. It should not have happened in the
way that it did. I have explained as best as I can, having gone
over it, why that happened. The reality is that had it not happened
like that it would have been a perfectly good thing to do, but
it did happen like that.
Q921 Chairman: And in the circumstances
you were sorry it was done?
Mr Campbell: Yes, obviously I
think it has been regrettable.
Q922 Sir John Stanley: Mr Campbell,
I have to say I found some of the answers you gave to the Chairman
less than credible. First of all, I must put to you your suggestion
that the issue of concealment was some sort of peripheral issue
as far as Members of Parliament were concerned in deciding whether
or not to support the Government is wholly unfounded. The issue
of concealment was absolutely central. The issue was why could
the weapons inspectors not find the weapons of mass destruction
and was it worthwhile going on pursuing that particular avenue
of search. The Government's justification for the war was that
we could not rely on further time being given to the weapons inspectors
because of the programme of concealment. I have to put it to you
that the judgment you have gained that the issue of concealment
was peripheral, I think was profoundly mistaken.
Mr Campbell: I did not say the
issue of concealment was peripheral, I said that paper was not
remotely as significant as the dossier in September 2002. The
dossier in 2002 attracted, I think I am right in saying, more
interest around the world. Number 10, the Foreign Office and the
BBC websites virtually collapsed on the day. It had a massive
print run. It was the product of months and months of detailed
work with the intelligence agencies. It was a huge break with
precedent. It was a very important document. The briefing paper
in February was given to six journalists on a plane to America.
The reason that it was subsequently put into the House was to
inform MPs on it because the Prime Minister, as you may recall,
was in America at the time and was returning to make a statement
on his talks with President Bush. I am not saying the issue of
concealment was not hugely important, I am saying that that briefing
paper was not nearly as significant as the dossier.
Q923 Sir John Stanley: You have just
touched on the second reason why I found your initial answer less
than credible. You said that you were unaware, apparently, of
this mistake, that you believed the so-called `dodgy dossier',
the one which in your memorandum you said you conceived, so it
is your `dodgy dossier', was a dossier which had the same intelligence
veracity, the same level of intelligence approval as the original
September document.
Mr Campbell: No, I did not say
that.
Q924 Sir John Stanley: You said you
assumed it was a document on all fours with the previous one.
You said that in answer to the Chairman.
Mr Campbell: No. The procedures
that the dossier of September 2002 went through were wholly different
from those of February 2003, that is why as a result we have actually
put in place new procedures about how intelligence material is
handled in any documents put into the public domain.
Q925 Sir John Stanley: So you knew
that the procedures that had been followed were wholly different
from the ones that were followed for the September dossier?
Mr Campbell: Not until the mistake
was exposed by the media.
Q926 Sir John Stanley: Mr Campbell,
you are responsible as the Director of Government Communications
not merely for what goes on inside Number 10 but also for the
CIC unit inside the Foreign Office. You cannot seriously pretend
to this Committee that you did not know the procedures that were
being followed for the clearance or not of the second "dodgy
dossier"?
Mr Campbell: I am well aware of
what the procedures were. I am simply saying to you that the procedures
were different. On the dossier of September 2002 the lead person
was the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, it was produced
by the Joint Intelligence Committee; the dossier in February was
not. The point I am making, and that I have made in the memorandum
I have given to you, is a mistake was made within the CIC. I was
not aware that had been done until Channel 4 and then Newsnight
revealed that. I had never heard of Mr al-Marashi, nor had the
other people who had commented on the paper. The changes that
the Chairman referred to on the text were made by people thinking
they were making changes to make more accurate a Government draft.
Q927 Sir John Stanley: So you are
saying to the Committee now, which is confirming what the Committee's
evidence is, that you were aware of the different procedures and
when the document came to you for final putting to the Prime Minister,
you were aware that it had not been through the normal intelligence
clearance processes?
Mr Campbell: It had been through
the procedures as they existed at that time. We put in place new
procedures thereafter. The difference is that the Joint Intelligence
Committee Chairman was responsible for the production of the WMD
dossier in 2002, the second one I was responsible for as the Chairman
of the group which commissioned it. The intelligence agency which
provided intelligence for use in the public domain had authorised
its use in the normal way as the procedures existed at that time.
It was a result of the mistake in the way that it was made that
subsequent to that we agreed new procedures so that anything with
an intelligence input has to be cleared by the Chairman of the
Joint Intelligence Committee.
Q928 Sir John Stanley: When you briefed
the Prime Minister before he made his statement in the House on
3 February, did you tell the Prime Minister that the document
which he as Prime Minister was placing in the Library of the House,
the `dodgy dossier' that day, had neither been seen in draft or
in final form by the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee?
Mr Campbell: There was no need
for the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee to see it
under the procedures as they were then.
Q929 Sir John Stanley: That is not
the question I put to you, Mr Campbell.
Mr Campbell: The answer is no,
because it did not arise.
Q930 Sir John Stanley: The answer
is no.
Mr Campbell: The answer is no,
because it did not arise. There was no need for the Chairman of
the Joint Intelligence Committee to see something which the issuing
agency had already cleared for public use properly, according
to the procedures as they were then, for public use in that document.
Q931 Sir John Stanley: We will see
in a moment whether it was necessary for you to tell the Prime
Minister that. I will come to that in a moment. Were you aware
that the draft of the `dodgy dossier' had neither been seen in
draft or in final form by the Secretary of the Cabinet?
Mr Campbell: I was not aware or
unaware of that. The Cabinet Secretary is not part of the group
that I chair of senior people from various Government departments,
including the Cabinet Office. I had not sent it to the Cabinet
Secretary. The Cabinet Office is represented on that group.
Q932 Sir John Stanley: Do you think
you should have sent it to the Cabinet Secretary, given the fact
that it was going to be placed in the Library of the House of
Commons?
Mr Campbell: It was not the sort
of document that I felt should be sent as a matter of routine
to the Cabinet Secretary.
Q933 Sir John Stanley: In your memorandum
to us[2]Mr
Campbell, you say in relation to the September dossier: "I
emphasised at all times both in our discussions and in any written
outcomes of our various meetings circulated within the system
that nothing should be published unless the JIC and the Intelligence
Agencies were 100% happy".
Mr Campbell: Correct.
Q934 Sir John Stanley: When you came
to brief the Prime Minister on 3 February about the nature of
the `dodgy dossier', did you make clear to him that at no point
had the intelligence agencies been consulted as to whether they
were 100% happy with the document?
Mr Campbell: That there relates
to the September 2002 dossier on WMD.
Q935 Sir John Stanley: It is equally
applicable to this document.
Mr Campbell: It is not because,
as I have explained, the procedures were different. I explained
to the Prime Minister the purpose of the briefing paper, which
was to give it to six Sunday newspaper journalists on a flight
to Washington. I explained where there was new intelligence which
had been cleared for public use and I explained that there was
other material within the document about the nature of Saddam's
infrastructure of concealment and intimidation. I certainly did
not say to him, for example, that this was taken from a Middle
East journal because I did not know that to be the case.
Q936 Sir John Stanley: But you must
certainly have been aware that open sources were being used and
the material had been culled off the Internet because the computer
records show quite clearly that members of your own staff inside
Number 10 were involved in the putting of this material on to
the Internet and were involved in a major way in the drafting
of it.
Mr Campbell: Well, if you read
the memorandum that I gave to you, I think this story of the four
people who allegedly authored the report says a huge amount more
about the reporting of these issues than it does about the reality.
If I may, Chairman, I would like to explain that in some detail.
Q937 Sir John Stanley: Can I just
finish my line of questioning and perhaps we can come back to
that.
Mr Campbell: Yes.
Q938 Sir John Stanley: As you know,
Mr Campbell, the clear inadequacy of your briefing of the Prime
Minister led the Prime Minister to—I am sure inadvertently—very
seriously mislead the House of Commons on February 3. The Prime
Minister said, and I will quote it in full: "We issued further
intelligence over the weekend about the infrastructure of concealment.
It is obviously difficult when we publish intelligence reports,
but I hope that people have some sense of the integrity of our
security services. They are not publishing this or giving us this
information, making it up, it is the intelligence that they are
receiving and we are passing it on to people".
Mr Campbell: That is wholly accurate.
Q939 Sir John Stanley: Every Member
of the House of Commons who heard that would have been in no doubt
that this second dossier was taken through the full JIC process,
had JIC approval, had full JIC status. In fact, as we know, it
was very largely simply culled off the Internet and the House
of Commons a few weeks later took a decision on whether or not
to go to war on this country and this particular document was
an element in that decision. That was a very, very grave failure
of briefing of the Prime Minister by yourself, I suggest, Mr Campbell.
Do you acknowledge that to be the case now?
Mr Campbell: I think that is a
very, very grave charge and I think it is one that I reject. If
you look at the front cover of the document: "The report
draws upon a number of sources, including intelligence material,
and shows how the Iraqi regime is constructed to have and to keep
WMD and is now engaged in a campaign of obstruction of the UN
weapons inspectors". That is accurate. In relation to the
processes with the intelligence agencies, the SIS—the lead
agency on this—volunteered the information for public use.
They were content for it to be used in this paper. The reason
I keep coming back to the difference between the two things is
the JIC process that you describe in relation to the first and
the most substantial report, that was a JIC document, it was produced
by the Joint Intelligence Committee; this was a briefing paper
produced by the team that I chair. The Prime Minister put it into
the House; he did not present it in the same way. If you recall
with the first report, Parliament was recalled for the Prime Minister
to make a statement and a debate to be held upon it. The procedures
for that were different. The procedures that have now been put
in place have been strengthened so that the procedures that applied
to the WMD dossier of September 2002 now apply to all documents
with an intelligence input. That was a change that I was instrumental
in putting in place after this mistake in the CIC was exposed.
2 Ninth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee,
Session 2002-03, The Decision to go to War in Iraq, HC
813-II, Ev 7. Back
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