Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1320-1339)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR PETER
RICKETTS, CMG AND
MR WILLIAM
EHRMAN, CMG
27 JUNE 2003
Q1320 Mr Maples: Can you say that
again?
Mr Straw: ***
Q1321 Mr Maples: *** ?
Mr Straw: ***
Q1322 Chairman: John asked three
questions relating to the wording on pages 18 and 19. He asked
whether those exact words had been transposed from the JIC assessment
and I heard William Ehrman say "Yes". Was my hearing
correct?
Mr Ehrman: I would have to actually
sit down and look at the precise words but it is wholly consistent
and, as the Foreign Secretary has read out, those were the words
that were in the report.
Mr Straw: In some respects this
document—***—is actually more cautious than the assessment.
Q1323 Mr Maples: If I can just complete
this. I am interested, as you can imagine, in where the Executive
Summary comes from. At what stage of the evolution of this document
from 9 September until the end of the month, when this was ready
for publication, did the Executive Summary come into existence?
Mr Ehrman: I cannot tell you was
it this day or that day, but what I can tell you is when JIC assessments
are being done they themselves essentially have an Executive Summary.
So they put the key points at the front of an assessment, so this
was—
Q1324 Mr Maples: So what was in them?
Mr Ehrman: The team who drafted
the body of the report also drafted the Executive Summary.
Q1325 Mr Maples: So did that 9 September
document you have quoted from have an Executive Summary appended
to it?
Mr Ehrman: Yes, it did.
Chairman: Can we get an answer to that?
It was a simple question from John.
Q1326 Mr Maples: He said, yes, it
did have an Executive Summary appended to it or on the front of
it. Is there some reason why we cannot see that?
Mr Straw: I will read it out to
you: ***
Mr Maples: What I am—
Q1327 Chairman: Complete that and
then we will continue.
Mr Straw: I am trying to be helpful.
Q1328 Mr Maples: You are not going
to read the whole thing out, are you?
Mr Straw: No, I am going to read
the whole of the Summary out.
Q1329 Mr Maples: I was going to ask
if we can have it.
Mr Straw: *** That is almost word
for word.
Q1330 Chairman: Is that the totality
of the Executive Summary?
Mr Straw: No, sorry, that bit
was from the body of the report.
Q1331 Mr Maples: I thought you were
quoting from the Executive Summary.
Mr Straw: The Executive Summary
had the *** points I read out.
Q1332 Chairman: The *** points you
read out is the totality of the Executive Summary?
Mr Straw: Yes.
Q1333 Mr Chidgey: Foreign Secretary,
you will obviously remember that I have been questioning you at
some length about the—Can you hear me all right?
Mr Straw: Can I just say that
Mr Ricketts has said that people are really worried about sharing
this information. I have been doing my best, as I said I would.
Mr Ricketts has pointed out that this is very highly classified
and it is extremely important that it remains so—we will
have to deal with what is there—because of the sourcing.
People are still highly vulnerable. ***
Sir John Stanley: I do not want to say
anything even now except to say I agree with everything you have
said, Foreign Secretary.
Q1334 Mr Chidgey: Back to the more
mundane after that, Foreign Secretary. You will recall over the
course of these sessions I have been questioning you in more detail
about the capability of Iraq to use their multi-use chemical and
petro-chem industries to convert over to production of chemical
and biological weapons. We have had a lot of evidence that points
out the difficulties of making a distinction between the particular
plant and what it is being used for and the ability to switch
from one line of production to another at very short notice. The
whole thrust of my questions to you, and you said you would respond
to me on this,—
Mr Straw: I have sent you the
answers. Have you not seen them?
Q1335 Mr Chidgey: I have not seen
them yet, no. No matter, we can probably go a bit further.
Mr Straw: I signed them off last
night.
Mr Illsley: Iraq 32.
Andrew Mackinlay: Chidgey's name is all
over it.
Q1336 Mr Chidgey: I do apologise,
Foreign Secretary. Clearly much of evidence that was being used
by JIC was based on intelligence sources on the ground because
that is the way it was. I really would have thought that you personally
and your team would have been very, very keen to verify post-war
the accuracy of the intelligence information you were getting,
which obviously helped form the judgment that we should go to
war in term of the capacity and the extent to which Iraq was able
to launch a defence through using chemical and biological weapons.
Can I say finally on this one before you answer me, it seems to
me, generally speaking, when we have these meetings with our American
friends about the "Axis of Evil" and whatever else,
they are very good about telling us about the capability of other
countries but they are very bad about telling us about the intent,
and they leave it to politicians. It seems in this case we are
very clear about the intent but not too sure about the ability,
just as a throw-away remark.
Mr Straw: To pick up the point
that you were making to me in the public session, we have as much
interest as anybody else, and to a degree much greater, in finding
as much corroborative evidence of the judgments that were being
made in advance of military action. Aside from anything else.
there is an obvious political dimension to this which is the more
firm evidence we can get post war the more reassurance we can
provide to people who have got questions about the decision to
go to war. That goes without saying, I am really repeating myself.
I am still very clear about the nature of the threat from Saddam,
which was a combination of both our assessment about his capability,
based on this remarkable evidence, most of which is public, and
our judgment about his intent, again based on good evidence about
his past behaviour. Also just in terms of the intelligence, not
only am I concerned, as we all are, to get as much corroborative
evidence now but, as I indicated to the Committee when I was giving
evidence on Tuesday, aside from the JIC assessments, if I am presented
with a piece of intelligence and I have got questions about it
I will ask. It does not often happen because most of the time
the stuff is clear, with the caveat what it is saying is clear,
but sometimes I will send back a note on a piece of intelligence
I have received saying "Get me more detail". In addition
to that, *** on a number of occasions I discussed with heads of
the agencies and other people, this is in very private conversation,
the nature of the sources, whether the head of the agency really
felt that they were reliable and accurate and so on, because I
wanted to satisfy myself that they in turn really were being very
careful about the sourcing and the reliability of the evidence
we were getting through, and I was satisfied. I just want you
to know that the assessments are made by the JIC, of course, but
I start with all these things from a position of scepticism, as
any good officer in the agencies will do, because of the nature
of both human intelligence and others.
Q1337 Mr Chidgey: Can I just continue,
I have had a chance to read your note quickly when you were talking,
thank you very much for that, and it still does not provide us
with anything further than was in the original September document,
particularly in regard to the dual use of the plants at the Ibn
Sina Research Centre. It still tells us that it has the capacity
to deliver or to produce phenol and chlorine. It does not tell
us there is any evidence that weaponised chemical weapons were
produced?
Mr Straw: We have done our best
to answer it. By the way, there is a typo on your question which
was: "Was there any assessment made of surplus production
or devotion of production?", it should be "diversion"
of production in the typed version you have got there.
Q1338 Mr Chidgey: I am sorry, can
I just hear that answer again, I was not able to hear it because
the Chairman was talking in my ear, I do apologise.
Mr Straw: I draw attention to
the fact that in your question 2 we mis-typed it and I apologise.
It says: "Was there any assessment made of surplus production
or devotion . . .", it should be "diversion". That
is the first point. The second point, and we have done our best
to answer your questions here and answer them quickly, is a large
part of the Iraqi's capability was based on dual-use facilities
and that is inherent in the nature of chemical and biological
weapons. It is to a degree with respect to nuclear weapons too.
If you had had the pleasure of going through the endless pages
of the Green List under 1284, the dual uses you will have seen
that the United Nations got down to the description of the chemical
compounds that could be used in a dual use way, this was hundreds
and hundreds of pages that they, with the help the UNSCOM and
UNMOVIC and others, had identified as dual-use compounds and engineering,
so it is an immensely complicated area.
Q1339 Mr Chidgey: Very quickly, it
has not been possible to confirm through analysis at those sites
that there were production lines for chemical weapons rather than
industrial use at this time?
Mr Ehrman: At this time, no. I
mentioned to you what UNMOVIC had done in terms of going over
some of those sites. The Foreign Secretary mentioned the sites
that had been gone through since the war, the 159 as of 21 June,
but we have nothing confirmed, as he said—
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