Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 200-219)

17 JULY 2003

MR ANDREW GILLIGAN

  Q200  Ms Stuart: So I understand it.

  Mr Gilligan: Without the opportunity to compare it with our transcript, I am afraid I simply cannot answer that question.

  Q201  Chairman: Was that transcript obtained from the BBC?

  Mr Gilligan: My statement that the weapons did have the range to reach Cyprus was an allegation that had been made before. It was simply an extrapolation from the range of the CBW missile which is within range of Cyprus.

  Q202  Chairman: Are you asking the Committee to say that your statement that it was already known only refers to missiles reaching Cyprus and not to the 45 minutes?

  Mr Gilligan: Yes. The 45 minutes was a new point and it was treated as new by all the press.

  Q203  Chairman: Did you say so at the time?

  Mr Gilligan: As I say, without access to the transcript, I simply cannot remember. You would need to provide me with access to the transcripts. It is really a little difficult for me to start talking about things which I said many months ago and which I was not expecting to be asked about.

  Q204  Sir John Stanley: Mr Gilligan, as you know, the Director of the CIA, Mr Tenet, gave private evidence yesterday in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. At the same time he issued a public statement and this was all in r

  elation to how the 16 words about uranium from Africa had got into the President of the United States' State of the Union address. If I could just quote you a final paragraph of his statement, because it bears on what is the central issue in the evidence that you have been giving to this Committee, Mr Tenet said as follows: "Portions of the State of the Union speech draft came to the CIA for comment shortly before the speech was given. Various parts were shared with cognisant elements of the Agency for review. Although the documents related to the alleged Niger/Iraq uranium deal had not yet been determined to be forgeries, officials who were reviewing the draft remarks on uranium raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues. Some of the language was changed. From what we know now Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct, ie, that the British Government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. This should not have been the test for clearing a presidential address. This did not rise to the level of certainty as should be required for presidential speeches and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed." As The Independent today says in relation to Mr Tenet's statement, "In his statement Mr Tenet accepted that he bore overall responsibility for approving the speech but said there was pressure to make the claim". In your earlier evidence to us you again gave the impression that there was a degree of pressure. I am not referring specifically to Mr Campbell here, but there was a general undercurrent of pressure to try to make the September dossier, as you alleged, more newsworthy than might otherwise have been the case. What I would like to ask you is, did you find evidence of that pressure being applied in the conversations with just the source for your 45-minute allegation you made in relation to Mr Campbell or did you find that generally among the four sources to which you referred when you came before the Committee last?

  Mr Gilligan: The four sources I mentioned were people within the intelligence community, as the evidence I gave makes clear. They were people within the intelligence community who had expressed disquiet to me about the Government's handling of intelligence on Iraq. Their disquiet included the fact that the intelligence was being over-interpreted, to put it mildly, in support of the proposition that Iraq was a serious and grave threat. Remember one of them was concerned about the link between al-Qaeda and Iraq which he said was unproven. Another was concerned about the September dossier. Another was concerned about the February dossier. The evidence that George Tenet has given that the CIA warned the British Government against including the uranium from Africa claim in its dossier before the dossier was actually published I think supports one of my sources' claims that the uranium from Africa claim was regarded as questionable. It is an important piece of further evidence which supports some of the claims made by my source.

   Q205  Sir John Stanley: So in answer to my question, and it is for you to put it in your own words, you are saying to us that the suggestion of pressure was one that came to you from all of your four sources or not?

  Mr Gilligan: How I would characterise it is how I characterised it to the Committee originally. The sources were concerned about the use that was being made by the Government of intelligence material on Iraq in a number of ways. I cannot really go very much further than that.

  Q206  Sir John Stanley: Can you tell the Committee what was the form in which the pressure was applied?

  Mr Gilligan: I have not mentioned pressure. As I say, my sources were concerned about the use that was being made of intelligence material on Iraq. The source who showed me the al-Qaeda document, for instance, was concerned that a rather firmer link than was justified by the evidence was being made between Iraq and al-Qaeda. He believed that there was no clear evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. He was sceptical about the claim made to that effect, made by the Prime Minister on 29 January in the Commons and by his spokesman on the same morning in the official briefing, and he showed me the document which I referred to in my earlier session, which seemed to—

  Q207  Sir John Stanley: This is the top secret document?

  Mr Gilligan: That is right, which seemed to cast doubt on those claims being made by the Prime Minister and his spokesman.

  Q208  Sir John Stanley: Without using the word "pressure" again, can you in your own words attribute some sort of causation to the fact that a greater degree of certainty was being attributed to intelligence than was justified on the basis of the intelligence source? I think that is what you are saying to us. To what do you attribute that?

  Mr Gilligan: The sources were concerned that the intelligence was being over-interpreted to support the case that Iraq was perhaps a greater threat than it actually was. As I said, the person who expected me to put out on al-Qaeda, for instance, did not say Alastair Campbell made Tony Blair say this. He did not say that. He did not mention names. He did not say that pressure had been applied. He just said that it had happened and one must assume that that was happening at the behest of the Government, but that is an assumption that is not—

  Mr Olner: Rather a large leap.

  Q209  Sir John Stanley: Sorry; can the witness just conclude his answer to my question?

  Mr Gilligan: That is my answer.

  Q210  Sir John Stanley: Could you just repeat that before Mr Olner's interjection?

  Mr Gilligan: My sources were concerned that intelligence about Iraq was being over-interpreted by the Government, by the Prime Minister, specifically in the case of al-Qaeda, to a conclusion that it did not warrant, so that was the allegation in respect of al-Qaeda.

  Q211  Sir John Stanley: Did anybody in the Government, apart from your source about 45 minutes, make any suggestion at any point that what you have described as over-interpretation was coming at the behest of Number 10, as I say, apart from what you originally said to us was your source for the 45-minute claim?

  Mr Gilligan: The over-interpretation was being done by Number 10.

  Q212  Sir John Stanley: Was being done by Number 10?

  Mr Gilligan: Yes. The clear import of what my source for the al-Qaeda claim said, for instance, was, "Here is the intelligence. I am showing you the intelligence. This is what it says. Compare this with what the Prime Minister said in the Commons on 29 January. Compare this with what his spokesman said at the lobby on the same morning. They do not match up. Over-interpretation is under way."

  Q213  Sir John Stanley: You referred to, I think, three particular instances. You have covered the 45-minute claim. As far as the dodgy dossier, the February one, is concerned, are you alleging any over-interpretation of that?

  Mr Gilligan: The dodgy dossier, as has been described to you in evidence, came about again as the result of the Government's desire to make a pressing case for Iraq's being a serious and current threat, or an immediate threat, as one minister described it.

  Q214  Sir John Stanley: Could you just clarify which minister you believe used the word "immediate" because that has been denied strongly by the Foreign Secretary?

  Mr Gilligan: It was Geoff Hoon in a speech in Kuwait towards the end of February. He said, "The issue of Iraq is an immediate issue for our security", or something like that, and in an interview with the Today programme the same morning he used a similar formulation.

  Q215  Chairman: "Immediate" linked with "threat"?

  Mr Gilligan: I can get you the exact quote if you need it

  Q216  Sir John Stanley: I would be grateful for the exact quote.

  Mr Gilligan: The implication was that it was an immediate threat. The word "immediate" was used in that context.

  Q217  Chairman: There is a difference, with respect, between using the word "immediate" and saying there is an immediate threat.

  Mr Gilligan: "The issue of Iraq is an immediate one for our security". That is roughly what I remember Mr Hoon saying and that strikes me as implying an immediate threat, but I would have to look at the exact quote before I said—

  Q218  Sir John Stanley: Could we have the two quotes, both in Kuwait and on the Today programme?

  Mr Gilligan: Sure.

  Q219  Sir John Stanley: Perhaps you would just continue what you were saying in answer to my question about you alleging that there was over-interpretation of the February dossier.

  Mr Gilligan: The February dossier, as I said, was intended to further the case that Iraq was a threat. The extent of my conversation, as I mentioned in my previous evidence, was that the intelligence services were extremely unhappy and expressed disquiet that this dodgy dossier had not been cleared with the JIC in its final form.


 
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