Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1400-1419)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR PETER
RICKETTS, CMG AND
MR WILLIAM
EHRMAN, CMG
27 JUNE 2003
Q1400 Mr Hamilton: I am sorry to
go back to this wretched BBC/Andrew Gilligan business, the reason
we are all going on about it, well certainly my concern is it
is hugely damaging.
Mr Straw: Of course.
Q1401 Mr Hamilton: One of the things
I put to Alastair Campbell, and he was not qualified to make a
judgment on this, is if we are absolutely sure, the Government
is absolutely certain, JIC is absolutely certain that its assessment
of intelligence is right, from what you are saying, can there
not be a break with precedent, can you not show one of the senior
executives at the BBC under oath the assessments that you have
got to lay the whole matter to rest?
Mr Straw: It is an interesting
idea. Let me just say that. I think they will probably wait for
your inquiry amongst other things and the ISC, but there is a
prior issue here which is that ministers and officials are not
in the business of telling lies and one of the problems we have
got with modern journalistic culture is that in the BBC, and for
example just before you came I mentioned The Guardian,
you can say to these people this is simply wrong and they will
go ahead and print it. As parliamentary accountability of ministers
has increased and I believe the standards which were high anyway
have gone up because of the increase in that accountability and
other things, so the standard of journalistic culture in this
country has gone down, and we all suffer from it.
Q1402 Mr Hamilton: The problem is
that the public believes that journalists are telling the truth
and politicians are lying?
Mr Straw: I know. It is damaging
for everybody, not just the party.
Q1403 Mr Hamilton: Of course it is.
Mr Straw: I take note of the point
you make, Mr Hamilton.
Q1404 Mr Hamilton: Thank you very
much. One final very brief point. Obviously the other big concern
is that the public believe that the intelligence was dodgy, the
45 minutes thing we have heard about, the uranium question—
Mr Straw: We did deal with that.
Mr Hamilton: All right. I will not deal
with that then.
Q1405 Mr Maples: Foreign Secretary,
in paragraph four of the confidential document which you have
made available to us, in relation to this dossier it says: "4.
Representatives from the Number 10 and FCO press offices were
present on at least one occasion". Were they present on the
same occasion?
Mr Straw: I do not know, sorry.
I assume so. Yes, they were.
Q1406 Mr Maples: Who were those people?
Mr Straw: ***
Q1407 Mr Maples: Do you know whether
or not Alastair Campbell was present at any of those meetings?
Mr Straw: He was not at that meeting,
I am told. I am told by the other side he was at neither meeting.
Q1408 Mr Maples: He was at neither
meeting that either of you two were present at?
Mr Straw: No.
Q1409 Andrew Mackinlay: That gentlemen
is whom?
Mr Straw: ***
Q1410 Mr Maples: In the document
which you circulated to us describing how this thing came into
being, answers to our very original questions, we asked you "Did
ministers or special advisers ask for amendments to the document
before it was published". You said "As noted, ministers
and special advisers offered comments during the drafting process
in the normal way". In this document, in the red folder,
you refer to yourself and Mr O'Brien offering comments but you
do not refer to special advisers offering comments. I wonder,
presumably special advisers did offer comments or you would not
have said it, and who was the special adviser who offered comments?
Mr Straw: I have two special advisers,
both are here. Dr Williams did not offer any comments and Mr Owen
offered some drafting ones.
Q1411 Mr Maples: Do your special
advisers normally see checked reports?
Mr Straw: They see ones as relevant.
Mr Ricketts: Provided they are
cleared to do so.
Q1412 Mr Maples: I was going to ask
about their level of clearance.
Mr Ehrman: Providing they are
appropriately cleared.
Mr Straw: They are highly reliable,
my special advisers.
Q1413 Mr Maples: We were told by
Dame Pauline Neville Jones that when she was Chairman of JIC no
special adviser would ever have seen a JIC report.
Mr Ricketts: With respect, the
world has moved on a bit since Dame Pauline was Chairman of the
JIC.
Q1414 Mr Maples: It has moved on
because the whole place is stuffed full of politically appointed
special advisers.
Mr Straw: Hang on a second, that
is not true. When I worked as one of the first political advisers
in the 1974 Government there were two. I have two. It has actually
not changed that much.
Mr Maples: Your press secretary is a
political appointment too.
Q1415 Chairman: Move on, Mr Maples
Mr Straw: I have got to go, that
is what has changed.
Q1416 Mr Maples: Paragraph eight
says the Executive Summary was drafted by the same people as the
co-ordinated document. The foreword to the dossier was drafted
in Number 10. Do you know who drafted it?
Mr Straw: I do not, no. It went
back to the JIC.
Q1417 Mr Maples: Can I ask you one
really final question. You said in reading out bits of the Executive
Summary to us that they really were substantially the same as
what was eventually published in the document. Would it be fair
to say that the Executive Summary to the 9 September document
is, in all material respects, the same as the Executive Summary?
Mr Straw: I think the JIC report
is in all material respects the same. The Executive Summary of
the JIC report is much shorter than that. Bear in mind, that drew
also from open sources as well, the history of that.
Q1418 Mr Maples: What I am going
to ask you—
Mr Straw: Sorry, Mr Anderson,
I am afraid I am really going to have to go.
Q1419 Mr Maples: Can I ask you, could
we read, in confidential conditions, the Executive Summary to
the 9 September report and compare it with—
Mr Straw: —I gave it to
you completely. I dictated it.
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