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Mr. Boris Johnson (Henley) (Con): When Alastair Campbell requested and was granted a change in the language about the 45-minute claim, so as to drop the word "may", was that because he had some superior knowledge about the state of readiness of weapons in Iraq, or was it, rather, that he was seeking to embellish or, as Gilligan put it, to "sex up" the dossier?
The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman simply will not accept the verdict of the Hutton inquiry. He is entitled to do that, but I disagree with him. The fact is that, whatever suggestions were made, it was the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee who cleared the entirety of the dossier. That dossier, as Lord
Hutton finds, was not improperly interfered with. That was the finding also of the Intelligence and Security Committee and of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab) rose—
The Prime Minister : I shall give way to my right hon. Friend, and then I must make progress.
Clare Short : I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Surely the crucial point for the world here is that the dossier exaggerated how immediate the threat was, and that was the justification to rush to war by a preordained date, which divided the world, divided the United Nations and has caused a bitter and dangerous situation in Iraq and the Middle East. That exaggeration was the great fault, and it has led to dreadful consequences.
The Prime Minister: First, I do not accept my right hon. Friend's point about the exaggeration, for the reasons given by Lord Hutton and by the Intelligence and Security Committee before him. Secondly—I shall say more about this in a moment—the reason we went to war was that we believed there was a failure by Saddam Hussein to abide by the terms of United Nations resolution 1441. In a moment I shall come to what that failure was.
Thirdly, my right hon. Friend says that there is a bitter situation in Iraq today. There was a bitter situation in Iraq for a long time, and it was caused by a ruthless tyrant who killed literally hundreds of thousands of his people. I know that whatever disagreement my right hon. Friend has with me over the war, she would accept that Iraq is a better place without him.
Before I leave the subject of the Hutton report itself, let me make one final observation. Having produced his findings, Lord Hutton has been accused in certain quarters—we heard that earlier during Prime Minister's Question Time—of putting at risk the freedom of the press or the independence of the BBC. In fairness to him, we should be clear about what Lord Hutton is saying. What Lord Hutton says is that if an allegation of gross impropriety or dishonesty is made against someone it should be checked out first, or if it is made and turns out to be false, it should be withdrawn. That is not to curtail a free press; it is actually to ensure a free society.
Mr. George Osborne (Tatton) (Con): I think the Prime Minister was referring to my question to him. What I asked about was the Government's reaction to the Hutton report—particularly the statement by the Prime Minister's official spokesman, who said that Greg Dyke's initial response did not go far enough, and the behaviour of Alastair Campbell, who over two or three days after the reaction to the Hutton report was parading around the media beating the BBC. The Prime Minister cannot claim that Alastair Campbell was simply operating as a private individual during those days.
The Prime Minister: Surely the key question for everyone—the hon. Gentleman and me, and everyone
concerned with this—is whether we accept the findings of the Hutton inquiry. I assume that he does accept those findings.
The Prime Minister: In that case, we can no doubt have a debate about what happened subsequent to their publication. But let us be quite clear: the allegation that was being made—not just against me but against Alastair Campbell and to an extent, in a sense, against the security services themselves—was that we had done something improper or wrong, in effectively falsifying the intelligence that I presented to Parliament. That allegation never had a shred of evidence to it. It could never be supported. I am glad it has now been withdrawn, and I think it should have been withdrawn in the first place.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend give way?
The Prime Minister: Yes, but then I must try to move on, or others will not have a chance to intervene.
Mr. Kaufman: Has my right hon. Friend seen the article by the editor of the Financial Times that was published at the weekend? The editor said:
- "The Hutton report is about a story that was wrong, defended against furious government complaints by a BBC management that had not bothered to check it, even weeks after it was broadcast, and backed by a board of governors determined to resist external pressure at the expense of obscuring the truth."
David Winnick (Walsall, North) (Lab) rose—
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold) (Con) rose—
The Prime Minister: I will give way to my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman, but then I must move on.
David Winnick: The BBC obviously made very bad mistakes, and—at least as far as I am concerned—no one would wish to justify them. Nevertheless, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that the integrity of the BBC is absolutely essential? Why should we not admit that despite all those mistakes, which undoubtedly and understandably caused the Government much dismay, the BBC is probably the finest broadcasting organisation in the world? Let us say so, and be proud of it.
The Prime Minister: I think we all say how much pride we have in the BBC as an institution, but the important thing—and, as I have said, I hope that a calm and effective assessment of Lord Hutton's report will do this—is to make people understand the best way in which the BBC can preserve its place as an institution in which we can all have pride: if it does launch an
accusation of impropriety that turns out to be false, it should withdraw it. That would actually help the BBC rather than harming it.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: In paragraph 435 of his report, Lord Hutton says that Dr. Kelly had a right to feel
- "badly let down by his employer".
The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is eliding two separate things. Lord Hutton found that there was no underhand or duplicitous treatment in respect of the naming of Dr. Kelly. He did find that within the Ministry of Defence Dr. Kelly should have been informed that his name was going to come out. I have already indicated—I indicated last week—that we fully accepted those findings and that we will do our best to act on them, but that is an entirely different matter from the allegation that was made against us. Of course, where there have been failings in respect of Dr. Kelly we must take account of them. I also said, however—and I would like to repeat it—that some of those officials in the Ministry of Defence, who are good and dedicated public servants, have had the most appalling and difficult time themselves over the past few months. I think we should bear that in mind as well.
Let me now turn to whether the intelligence on which we relied, in part, to go to war was correct. Originally, as the House knows, I wanted to wait until the Iraq survey group had reported fully before any investigation occurred. Last Tuesday, however, David Kay, the outgoing head of the ISG, gave evidence to the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington which, frankly, cannot be ignored. More important still, it is now clear that the ISG itself, under its new chairman, will not make its full report any time soon. President Bush has announced a commission in the United States, and yesterday we announced one here.
I want to make clear, incidentally, that I personally would have been happy for the Intelligence and Security Committee to conduct this inquiry. That was within its statutory remit, and it does an excellent job. But I was pressed hard for a committee of the type headed by Lord Franks after the Falklands conflict, and I agreed to that. I might add that I have now looked at the terms of reference for the Franks committee. It is not correct that the committee passed judgment on whether or not the Falklands war was right. It did not do so.
As I said, I was pressed hard for a committee of that type, and I agreed. The committee will be able to examine the whole issue to do with intelligence and weapons of mass destruction, the difficulties associated with that across the piece, and of course, on Iraq specifically, any discrepancies between the intelligence gathered, evaluated and used by the Government and what the ISG found.
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