Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1220-1239)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR PETER
RICKETTS, CMG AND
MR WILLIAM
EHRMAN, CMG
27 JUNE 2003
Q1220 Richard Ottaway: It was decided
not to publish the March draft, so there was a several months
delay. The Prime Minister then said on 3 September, "I think
we ought to publish this" and a first draft was produced.
Mr Campbell was implying that no one tried to get that in, it
was in the first draft.
Mr Straw: No one did try to get
it in.
Q1221 Richard Ottaway: I do not want
a diversion on that. Mr Ricketts, was it in that first draft?
Mr Ricketts: If you mean in the
first draft after the Prime Minister's announcement on 3 September
my belief is that it was.
Q1222 Richard Ottaway: Was that the
first draft of the September document? This is not complicated,
it is not rocket science.
Mr Straw: I agree, it is not complicated,
which is why I am slightly surprised you are asking a series of
questions. We have already explained there was information that
was coming in about Iraq over a 20 year period and that is iteratively
added to. By definition the information was not in draft before
we received the information, it was in draft afterwards and after
it was properly assessed.
Q1223 Richard Ottaway: I do not think
we can take this any further. My understanding, if I can take
your joint evidence together, is a first draft was produced, but
it was in the first draft after the information became available.
Mr Straw: Mr Ricketts and I have
just given you the answer. Mr Ottaway, you ask your questions
and allow me to give my answer in my own way, I have already provided
you with a summary.
Q1224 Andrew Mackinlay: Just a quickie,
the Chairman of the JIC, is he on or is he represented on the
CIC?
Mr Ricketts: No.
Mr Straw: He is not directly represented
on the CIC.
Q1225 Andrew Mackinlay: Indirectly?
Mr Straw: The easiest thing for
us to do is to give you details about the background of who has
been on the CIC.
Q1226 Andrew Mackinlay: We did that
quickly. In the Independent newspaper, I think it was the
Independent newspaper, they actually indicate the number
of sites which are to inspected and numbers which have been inspected
post-war. There were some Parliamentary replies to my colleague
Harry Cohen—which I do not have in front of me—rather
indicating that a lot of this work had been done. There seems
to be a gulf between, if you like, the task perceived or seen
and what has been reported to Parliament. Is there anything you
can tell us in this public session with regard to what has been
done and what is yet to be achieved?
Mr Straw: Again the numbers are
obviously changing. I have a note here that as of 21 June 159
sites have been examined out of the US master list of 578 but
with no confirmed results. The note goes on: "This is misleading
because each known site tends when investigated to throw up several
more previously unknown ones and so far 83 of these ad hoc
sites have been visited. Most, if not all, of the known sites
were also known to the United Nation, as the Iraqis were aware,
so we should not expect to find much evidence there. The Iraq
Survey Group will shift to a more intelligence-led approach to
counter this".
Q1227 Andrew Mackinlay: Indeed. For
the purpose of this morning what you said, in fairness, was the
process was just beginning in terms of the search. I woke up this
morning to Mr Robin Cook on the radio. I think I faithfully summarise
him by saying the issue is not the dodgy dossier, the issue is
they have not found chemical plants, the nuclear thing was found
to be a forgery and just generally they have not found any weapons
of mass destruction. I would not normally be a conduit for Mr
Robin Cook, and also I do not see why you should have a second
bite of the cherry but it would be a great pity if we concluded
our proceedings by not putting to you once more that which he
uttered on Radio Four. What say you to that? I do not want anybody,
whatever side of this they fall, to be able to repeat that without
you being able to rebut it?
Mr Straw: You are very generous,
I am grateful to you. The first thing I would say is I agreed
with Mr Cook in his statement—I paraphrase but I do not
think inaccurately—that the issue of the 45 minutes and
still more about the provenance of the February dossier is a huge
diversion. These were not remotely central to the decision to
go to the war, which was the nature of your inquiry. I say that
to you with respect, Chairman, historians I think would not give
you an alpha marking if you suggested that Mr Gilligan's claim
on the 45 minutes was the basis on which we went to war, because
it was not. It is important but it is important we pin down the
untruth.
Q1228 Chairman: Mr Mackinlay that
has given you the opportunity to respond to your predecessor?
Mr Straw: Robin has a different
view from us, his view was very honourable and he acted entirely
honourably throughout. He resigned on 17 March and he voted against
the Government on 18 March. His view was that containment was
working and for that reason he disagreed with the Government.
I disagree with him and his judgment. I do not have any complaint,
none whatever about the way he behaved, he behaved honourably
and correctly throughout. My disagreement with him is, and I have
said this publically and I have said it to him, the judgments
I made between June 2001 and the day we went to war were based
on very similar evidence and remarkably similar terms to the judgments
he made when he was Secretary of State explaining the decision
to go for Desert Fox in the time that it did and for a later bombing
operation in 2001. I am glad to have this opportunity to say that
the decision to go to war on 18 March was justified on the day
it was made on the evidence that was before the House, the country
and the international community on that day. Nobody in the international
community disputed that Saddam Hussein had the capability for
chemical and biological weapons programmes nor that he was seeking
to build up a nuclear programme. No one disputed in the Security
Council that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to international peace
and security, because that was the phrasing used in SCR 1441.
Nobody disputed that at all, not withstanding that he had 130
days in which to co-operate actively, completely and immediately
with the weapons inspectors he failed to do so. The only question
was, what do we then do in the face of that threat and that defiance?"
We came to the view, and I am quite clear it was justified, that
the only thing to do was to, first of all, issue an ultimatum
to him and if he failed to take that to take military action.
I very much hope that, of course, we find further corroborative
evidence about Saddam's chemical and biological capabilities and
his nuclear plans, but whether or not we do the decision to take
military action was justified on the date, 18 March, on the basis
of perfectly public information, for example these two command
papers which I published which laid out the full facts of Saddam's
defiance.
Q1229 Andrew Mackinlay: I asked Alastair
Campbell the other day, and I want to ask you whether you know
if it is in train, basically in relation to the dodgy dossier
he said that the security intelligence folk said, here is a parcel
of intelligence you can put in the public domain, and it then
emerged in the February dossier. I then asked him, if that is
so can you highlight that for us and he was somewhat anxious about
that. Can I say for the record the reason why I thought about
this was because when we had Mr al-Marashi's evidence he gave
evidence which he said in his estimate, and he had gone through
this pretty thoroughly, he thought something up to 90% of that
dossier was drawn either from his work or Jane's or these
other publications. It does seem to me quantum is going to be
important, if it is only 10% intelligence, if it is only 15% intelligence
it does alter the nature of that document. In a sense I want to
put that to you in open session, is it substantial intelligence?
Do you reiterate it is substantial intelligence, is it half or
is it—?
Mr Straw: Mr Mackinlay, what can
I tell you is as we speak this analysis is being done to highlight
which parts of part one and part three were drawn from intelligence.
That will be with the Committee as quickly as possible. The process
of this was unsatisfactory, we have all accepted that. The differences
should have been made clear. However, I would also say, and I
hope the Committee are able to conclude this, that in every material
particular, this document, the February 3 one, was and remains
accurate.
Q1230 Mr Maples: I wonder if I can
go back to the weapons of mass destruction dossier?
Mr Straw: The September one.
Q1231 Mr Maples: I want to find out
the process by which the document came into being. These are not
trick questions, presumably in the period between March and the
decision to publish a dossier there were lots of JIC reports coming
out on the state of Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.
By the time the decision was taken, just before the decision was
taken to publish a document, which you told us was taken late
summer, late August/early September, at that point would all of
the JIC assessments about Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction
have been in one JIC paper or in a lot of different papers?
Mr Ricketts: They would have been
in a series of papers. The September dossier pulled together work
from a number of different JIC assessments.
Q1232 Mr Maples: This was a culminative
process. Each edition of the JIC paper, not the draft of this
document, but the JIC assessments that were being circulated to
ministers like yourselves, they did not simply build on the one
before, there was a new one.
Mr Ehrman: No. The implication
of that is we just regurgitated what was in earlier drafts, that
is not true. Each time a JIC assessment is done you look at the
intelligence, you analyse it, you see what is new, you do not
just accept that what was in the previous one is taken as read.
Q1233 Mr Maples: Just before the
decision was made to produce a document for publication there
was in existence a JIC assessment, presumably the latest one at
that point, which would have included everything that JIC thought
was relevant about Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction for
ministers to see.
Mr Ehrman: There was a series
of JIC assessments which covered different aspects of the programmes.
Q1234 Mr Maples: I am confused now,
I thought what you said to me is that each edition updated the
previous one and made the previous one irrelevant.
Mr Ehrman: These were done over
the years, not everyone covered every aspect.
Q1235 Mr Maples: At this point there
would have been several JIC papers in existence which were relevant
to this document. The Prime Minister in his introduction said
this is based in large part on the work of the Joint Intelligence
Committee, what other organs of Government were feeding in information
at this point other than JIC?
Mr Ricketts: Parts two and three
cover other issues where the Foreign Office took the lead in drafting
them, the history of the UN weapons inspections and Iraq under
Saddam Hussein.
Q1236 Mr Maples: Would it be far
to say that part one was based entirely on the JIC assessment?
Mr Ehrman: There is a lot of open
source material, like UNSCOM reports.
Q1237 Mr Maples: No secret material
available to you that did not come through JIC, it was either
from JIC or it was open source material or available from UNSCOM?
Mr Ricketts: Can I make one point
on the JIC process, the JIC process does not only draw on secret
intelligence, the JIC papers put together secret intelligence
but also publically available information, diplomatic reporting,
material from a whole series of places. It gives a complete assessment,
so in any JIC assessment there will be secret material but also
material from other sources.
Q1238 Mr Maples: When the decision
was taken in late August or early September to produce a document
for publication somebody took these various JIC assessments and
produced a first draft of what became this publication. What I
am interested in is, who produced that first draft? Was that produced
from within JIC?
Mr Ehrman: The JIC Chairman was
in charge throughout September.
Q1239 Mr Maples: Presumably there
was a first draft of this paper?
Mr Ehrman: If you go right the
way back to March the process was that a paper was commissioned
and the assessment staff even then put together a draft, that
was with help from other departments.
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