Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1380-1399)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR PETER
RICKETTS, CMG AND
MR WILLIAM
EHRMAN, CMG
27 JUNE 2003
Q1380 Chairman: Is that correct?
Mr Ehrman: I am not aware, no,
since the war we have not found any CW sites.
Q1381 Sir John Stanley: There has
been a huge search of things within a 45 minute radius?
Mr Ehrman: Not a huge search,
no, there has not. As I have mentioned, some of the sites have
been gone through, a proportion of the sites, but the ISG, which
is the sizable body, is only now deploying—
Q1382 Andrew Mackinlay: New sites
have been found.
Mr Straw: I want to underline
the point Mr Ehrman made a little while ago. We have a serious
problem in terms of the work of the Survey Group because of the
looting and disruption of sites.
Q1383 Sir John Stanley: I want to
ask you to clarify, and this is a very important point that was
not clear to me when you got on to discussing the source of the
45 minutes. As I understood you in what you said, we are talking
about ***
Mr Ehrman: Yes.
Q1384 Sir John Stanley: *** ?
Mr Ehrman: ***
Q1385 Sir John Stanley: *** ?
Mr Ehrman: ***
Q1386 Sir John Stanley: All sorts
of people have all sorts of motivation. In terms of testing this
it is quite evident that your *** source out there has a very
high degree of reliability but the question certainly in my mind
is whether the *** source might have been wanting to create a
favourable position for himself if the worst happened or whether
he was in a trade. There are all sorts of questions in my mind.
Let's remember the whole of this 45 minutes hangs on this one
source. Just before everybody jumps in, I am not going to give
any credence to the manipulation accusation that Mr Gilligan has
made but Mr Gilligan's source has proven to be spot on in two
respects, spot on in saying to Mr Gilligan there was one single
source, confirmed by the Government. He has also proved to be
spot on in your evidence today Foreign Secretary, that the 45
minute intelligence came at the last moment shortly before the
publication of the document. Again he said that.
Mr Ricketts: He has also been
proved to be dead wrong in saying relating to missiles.
Q1387 Sir John Stanley: I am not
giving any credence to that, but everything we have now heard
suggests that he was a well-placed source.
Mr Straw: How well-placed I do
not know. I would make this point about the reliability of sources.
Q1388 Sir John Stanley: Is there
anything specific you can tell us. This is a very key point on
the *** person who provided the information.
Mr Straw: Sir John, allow me to
make this point. ***
Mr Ricketts: Could I add two points
in amplification of the Foreign Secretary. This did fit with our
assessment of the modus operandi of Iraqi sources and our
knowledge of them in the past so it is not arriving in a vacuum.
Secondly, as the Foreign Secretary says, the Secret Intelligence
Service are professionals and are having to deal with these questions
all the time as to whether sources or sub-sources are exaggerating
or have a personal agenda, and in the judgment of the professionals
this was a credible source *** So the advice of the professionals
to us is that they checked and they checked down the line rigorously
about this report.
Q1389 Sir John Stanley: In the key
word you used Mr Rickets, ultimately it came down a judgment.
Mr Ricketts: Everything does in
this business, I think Sir John.
Sir John Stanley: Judgment, single source,
and a lot of profile (and in my view more than profile) hung on
the decision to put this into the document. But anyway, I fully
accept that the JIC community—and I have got the highest
possible respect and I was, as you know, trenchant in the session
with Andrew Gilligan about the implications that his accusations
were having for the integrity of the security services, which
I thought were totally unjustified, and that is still very much
my position.
Mr Pope: Chairman, what time are you
intending to end this session?
Chairman: We did say midday and I am
aware Fabian has not yet had any input.
Andrew Mackinlay: I have not had an input
at all in this private session and I have been waving at you.
Chairman: A number of colleagues want
get in. Fabian?
Mr Hamilton: I think colleagues who have
been here the whole time should pick up first and I will step
in.
Q1390 Andrew Mackinlay: Our colleagues
on the Hill, Carl Levin, the senior Democrat in the Senate Armed
Services Committee and another guy, criticised and probed in comparable
sessions to here whether the CIA had been as forthcoming with
intelligence to UNMOVIC as they should have been. I know you do
not answer for the CIA but because we are in private session,
do you think the United States were as up-front as they could
or should have been or did the United Kingdom have to prompt them,
what is your read of the candour from that side?
Mr Straw: Honestly, Mr Mackinlay,
you would have to ask the CIA and UNMOVIC that. I genuinely cannot
answer for the CIA.
Q1391 Andrew Mackinlay: You are happy,
in other words?
Mr Straw: They were co-operating
at the time and we co-operated a great deal. I know the CIA were
co-operating. ***
Q1392 Andrew Mackinlay: ***
Mr Straw: We co-operated fully.
***
Q1393 Andrew Mackinlay: I would have
thought that could be woven into the public domain, this lack
of discussion between—
Mr Straw: ***
Q1394 Andrew Mackinlay: We were right
in history at the time as well. The third and final point I want
to go to is going back to this business not so much of Gilligan
and the BBC and your colleagues in government, but I am concerned
about the constitutional point. It is a matter of fact if you
go back to Chapman Pincher and the guys like the academic whom
you authorised (or your predecessor did) the Mitrokhin papers,
but the point—
Mr Straw: ***
Q1395 Andrew Mackinlay: What I am
trying to say is demonstrably there are people at high level who
either by convention or specific authorisation do talk to journalists/academics
and it has struck me throughout these hearings that it needs to
be re-visited because it does seem to me there is an absence of
ground rules, that while there is this tremendous culture of secrecy,
quite prudently, quite correctly, you cautioned about this today,
absolutely, there is one glaring area where there is a licence.
Really all I want to ask you is do you not think now in the light
of what has happened and the representations we have made there
is a need right across the security intelligence services to re-visit
the ground rules? I am not saying you do not have an intercourse
with these folk but it is a bit anarchical.
Mr Straw: I do not think it is
anarchical. I understand the point you are making, it was an authorised
publication.
Q1396 Andrew Mackinlay: I do not
want to go down that road.
Mr Straw: I said what I said in
open session on Tuesday about the integrity of the staff in the
agencies. I also spelt out these arrangements for there to be
some press briefing of journalists, (who have to be trusted to
a degree because otherwise the relationship would not be there)
by people acting on behalf of the heads of agencies. I do not
find that a problem because the consequence of much greater public
parliamentary scrutiny of what the agencies are doing is they
have to be able to explain in broad terms what they are doing
to a degree they did not have to 50 years ago. 50 years ago the
existence of SIS, the Security Service and GCHQ was denied and
none of those were statutory bodies either. What can I say except
to say that I understand the point that you are making. ***
Q1397 Andrew Mackinlay: ***
Mr Straw: ***
Chairman: Time is short and four colleagues
want to make, hopefully, brief questions, Fabian, John Maples,
David and Greg. Not David? Thank you, David.
Q1398 Mr Hamilton: Apologies I was
late, Network Rail, I am afraid. I will try and be very brief.
On the question of the rocket engine I thought this was a very
good illustration of the way that the Iraqi regime was constantly
trying to lie and pull the wool over the eyes of UNMOVIC inspectors.
You mentioned there was evidence, I think I am right, from one
of the *** people that they had imported 500 of them. My question
is do we know how powerful those engines might have been? I do
not understand rocket technology but great play has been made
of the fact that ballistic missiles were being developed that
could have reached Cyprus and Israel.
Mr Straw: They have a variety
of applications but they were using them, I am reliably informed,
in the Al-Samoud 2 missiles which had a range of up to 200 kilometres.
Mr Ehrman: And which were declared
by UNMOVIC to be illegal.
Q1399 Mr Hamilton: Can these rocket
engines be adapted to go further? Can you put three engines in
a rocket to make it go three times as far?
Mr Straw: They tried I am told.
We will send you a note.
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