Examination of Witness (Questions 980-999)
MR ALASTAIR
CAMPBELL
25 JUNE 2003
Q980 Andrew Mackinlay: Who would
have done that?
Mr Campbell: The Chairman of the
JIC wrote the Executive Summary.
Q981 Andrew Mackinlay: Did subsequently
any member of the SIS complain about the production or the conclusion,
anything about the document or the manner of its presentation?
Mr Campbell: Not to me and not
to the Prime Minister.
Andrew Mackinlay: You are not aware of
that? Thank you very much.
Q982 Richard Ottaway: Mr Campbell,
the Prime Minister today and you this afternoon have said that
every word of both the dossiers is true. As you are well aware,
the September 02 document has nine main conclusions of the current
position, one of which is that uranium had been sought in Africa
and had no civil nuclear application in Iraq. Are you still saying
that is true?
Mr Campbell: I am saying that
is the intelligence that the JIC put forward. I am not an intelligence
expert and my position on this is if something comes across my
desk that is from John Scarlett and the JIC, if it is good enough
for him, it is good enough for me.
Q983 Richard Ottaway: Given that
the documents on which that claim was based have been passed to
the International Atomic Energy Authority and found to be false,
have the JIC notified you they had doubts about this?
Mr Campbell: I am aware of the
issue. I am equally aware, and this is probably something best
raised with the JIC than with myself, that the JIC say it does
not necessarily negate the accuracy of the material they, the
JIC, put forward.
Q984 Richard Ottaway: You are saying
rather what the Foreign Secretary said yesterday and saying this
is not my claim, we are just passing on intelligence here.
Mr Campbell: I am certainly not
and the reason why I say if it is good enough for John Scarlett
it is good enough for me is that I completely accept the integrity
and professionalism of their process.
Q985 Richard Ottaway: As far as you
are aware, he is still standing by that claim?
Mr Campbell: As far as I aware
the claim he puts in this document, whilst I understand there
is this issue to do with forgeries, my understanding (and again
this is something that is not necessarily my expertise) is that
that is not British intelligence material that is being talked
about.
Q986 Richard Ottaway: The second
main conclusion that is being queried is the 45-minute point,
which you have dealt with quite extensively in your memorandum.
The Foreign Secretary made a similar point yesterday about the
45 minutes. Are you saying the same today that this is what the
intelligence people are telling you and it must be true?
Mr Campbell: When the first draft
of the September 2002 dossier was presented to Number 10, I think
I am right in saying that was the first time I had seen that and
again, as I say, having seen the meticulousness and the care that
the Chairman of the JIC and his colleagues were taking in the
whole process, I really did not think it was my place, to be perfectly
frank, to say, "Hold on a minute, what is this about?"
What is completely and totally and 100% untrue—and this
is the BBC allegation, which is ostensibly I think why the Chairman
called me on this—what is completely and totally untrue
is that I in any way overrode that judgment, sought to exaggerate
that intelligence, or sought to use it in any way that the intelligence
agencies were not 100% content with.
Q987 Richard Ottaway: You use some
rather interesting wording in your memorandum that to suggest
it was inserted against the wishes of the intelligence agencies
was false. Was it put in at your suggestion?
Mr Campbell: No, otherwise—It
existed in the very first draft and, as far as I am aware, that
part the paper stayed like that.
Q988 Richard Ottaway: Have you gone
back to the JIC on that point since publication?
Mr Campbell: I can assure you
that I have had many, many discussions about this issue with the
Chairman of the JIC, not least in preparation for this hearing.
Q989 Richard Ottaway: And they are
still standing behind it?
Mr Campbell: Absolutely, absolutely.
In relation to that particular story, which as Sir John Stanley
said to the BBC correspondent last week, is about as serious an
allegation as one can make, not just against me but against the
Prime Minister and the intelligence agencies, they are basically
saying that the Prime Minister took the country into military
conflict and all that entails—loss of military and Iraqi
civilian life—on the basis of a lie. Now that is a very,
very serious allegation.
Q990 Richard Ottaway: Can I suggest
it is Parliament that took the country into war.
Mr Campbell: The allegation against
me is that we helped the Prime Minister persuade Parliament and
the country to go into conflict on the basis of a lie. I think
that is a pretty serious allegation. It has been denied by the
Prime Minister, it has been denied by the Chairman of the Joint
Intelligence Committee, it has been denied by the Security and
Intelligence Co-ordinator and it has been denied by the heads
of the intelligence agencies involved, and yet the BBC continue
to stand by that story.
Q991 Richard Ottaway: You believe
that time will prove you right on that one?
Mr Campbell: I know that we are
right in relation to that 45-minute point. It is completely and
totally untrue, and I do not use this word—
Q992 Richard Ottaway: I am talking
about the substance.
Mr Campbell: It is actually a
lie.
Q993 Richard Ottaway: You are being
accused of being involved in its insertion in the document. I
am quizzing you on its veracity.
Mr Campbell: I am saying in relation
to that if it is good enough for the Joint Intelligence Committee,
it is good enough for me. I am not qualified to question their
judgement upon it but I have seen and been privy to the kind of
processes and the meticulousness with which they approach that.
When you have a situation when all of those people, from the Prime
Minister down, the Foreign Secretary, the FCO Permanent Secretary,
the heads of all the agencies deny a story and the BBC persist
in saying it is true, persist in defending the correspondent whom
you took evidence from last week, when I know and they know that
it is not true, I think something has gone very wrong with the
way that these issues are covered.
Q994 Richard Ottaway: One of you
is wrong.
Mr Campbell: I know who is right
and who is wrong. The BBC are wrong. We have apologised in relation
to Mr al-Marashi and I think it is about time the BBC apologised
to us in relation to the 45-minute point.
Q995 Richard Ottaway: I will leave
that to the BBC, if you do not mind. Can I move on, in the preparation
of the September 2002 document did the Government ever receive
any information from the intelligence services that Iraq was not
an immediate threat?
Mr Campbell: Sorry, can you just
repeat that point?
Q996 Richard Ottaway: Did the Government
ever receive any information from intelligence services that Iraq
was not an immediate threat?
Mr Campbell: Not to my knowledge.
I really do think that is a question for the intelligence agencies.
Q997 Richard Ottaway: You were looking
at the intelligence there.
Mr Campbell: I do not see all
the intelligence and I would not expect to see all the intelligence.
Q998 Richard Ottaway: But you were
having meetings with the JIC.
Mr Campbell: I was but that is
not a point of which I am aware. You asked whether the Prime Minister
received any and I am saying it is not for me to know.
Q999 Richard Ottaway: You will be
well aware of the source of this question because it was on the
radio this morning; is it true that the intelligence agencies
produced a six-page dossier March 2002 which stated there was
no new evidence of a threat from Iraq?
Mr Campbell: Not that I have seen.
The genesis of the September 2002 document, as again I set out
in the memorandum, did start out as a broader document that was
being prepared in the Foreign Office about the general issue of
weapons of mass destruction, including other countries that it
was looking at. It was as the Iraqi issue developed during the
course of that year that a decision was taken by the Prime Minister
and his colleagues to focus on Iraq and focus in the way that
we duly did on the report on the intelligence assessment of Iraq's
WMD.
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