Roy Hattersley on Blair War Lies
frank
Intelligence officer's 'unease' at Straw's Iraq claims
By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor
18 August 2003
A senior intelligence officer who wanted to inform Parliament of his
concerns about the Government's Iraq dossier was told by his superior at
the Ministry of Defence not to take the matter further, Hutton inquiry
documents show.
An explosive letter, revealed in full as Downing Street officials
prepare to give evidence to Lord Hutton's inquiry this week, makes it
clear that the officer, whose name has not been revealed, felt "very
uneasy" about claims made to MPs by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary.
Mr Straw said that the intelligence community had no complaints about
the dossier but the intelligence officer had formally registered his
concerns last September.
The officer, who described himself as "the most senior and experienced
intelligence community official working on WMD", said on 8 July he
feared that he "might be judged culpable" if he didn't come forward to
correct Mr Straw's remarks to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and
asked for advice on whether to do so. However, after David Kelly was
found dead, Martin Howard, deputy chief of Defence Intelligence, wrote
to the official to suggest that he should not take the matter any
further.
Last night, Richard Ottaway, Conservative MP for Croydon South and a
member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, accused the MoD of an
attempted "cover- up" and urged the officer to contact the committee. Mr
Ottaway said: "This official clearly wanted to correct what Jack Straw
had told us and was advised not to."
The revelation came as Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence,
was alleged to have told friends that he expected to "carry the can" for
the Kelly affair. This week senior Downing Street officials will
testify, starting today with Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's chief of
staff. Alastair Campbell will appear tomorrow.
The retired officer's letter was not published along with other
documents last week because its confidential details had not been
removed or "redacted". Finally published this weekend on the inquiry
website after repeated requests from The Independent, it shows the full
extent of his worries over the Kelly affair.
The letter stunned observers when only parts of it were read out at the
inquiry last week. It stated: "As probably the most senior and
experienced intelligence official working on WMD, I was concerned about
the manner in which intelligence assessments for which I had some
responsibility were being presented in the dossier of 24 September
2002."
The officer had formally complained on 19 September that he was unhappy
with its use of intelligence. He wrote to the Defence Intelligence Staff
technical department and Tony Cragg, the then deputy chief of Defence
Intelligence.
However, what was not revealed during the hearing was that the officer's
letter had referred explicitly to Mr Straw's failure to tell MPs the
full truth of such concerns.
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Comment
A war fought under false pretences
The Hutton inquiry has already answered the crucial question
Roy Hattersley
Wednesday August 13, 2003
The Guardian
No doubt, the fireworks come later. We can look forward to Alastair
Campbell treating the Hutton inquiry in the same cavalier fashion that
he addressed the House of Commons select committee; the BBC angrily
refuting the allegation that the Today programme would rather make news
than report it; and, top of the bill, the prime minister defending his
integrity against the charge that he wilfully exaggerated the case for
going to war.
There will be dramatic days ahead. But Monday's opening session -
intended as only the sighting shots in a battle which will last all
summer - got very close to answering the crucial question that lies at
the heart of the inquiry. However and why Dr Kelly died; whoever added a
claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45
minutes; and whether or not Alastair Campbell "sexed up" the dossier
that described Saddam's capability, one thing is now clear. If we had
known in March what we know today, neither the House of Commons nor the
British people would have supported the decision to go to war - a rather
more important issue than whether or not the BBC was critical of one of
its reporters' literary style.
There can no longer be any doubt about the status of Dr Kelly. We may
yet learn of minor eccentricities and we already know that he resented
the way in which he had been treated by the Ministry of Defence. But he
was a scientist who knew more about Saddam's weapons programme than
anyone else in Britain - perhaps anyone else in the world. He was
neither a fantasist nor a fraud, but an acknowledged international
expert. And he believed that the claims were exaggerated.
He was not alone. Martin Howard, deputy chief of intelligence at the
MoD, told the inquiry that two intelligence officers had made formal
complaints about the way in which the government dossier - constructed
to justify the war - was written. Their objection was precise and
covered three specific areas: "the recent production of weapons of mass
destruction", the claim that those weapons could be deployed within 45
minutes and the "importance of chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein". They
believe that the dossier's treatment of each suffered from the same
fatal flaw. "The existing wording is not wrong but it has a lot of spin
on it."
What intelligence sources judged to be possible came to be represented
in the government's dossier as a certainty. Might became will. And, in
the case of the 45-minute warning only one source argued that the danger
was definite. In the words of Martin Howard the critics challenged "the
level of certainty" expressed in the foreword and executive summary of
the document. And the impression that an attack was imminent was
increased by the addition, a couple of weeks before it was published, of
the 45-minute claim. Britain was asked to go to war because we and our
allies faced a real and present danger. But only in the land of might
have been.
The country and the Commons were doubtful enough about the war even when
they were told that Saddam's lethal capability was certain. If they had
known that it was only the supposition of some intelligence officers,
the opposition to military action would have been irresistible. And the
doubts do more than undermine the dossier that changed the public mood.
They make the decision to go to war itself indefensible. If young men
and women are sent to die, the politicians who send them need to be sure
that the sacrifice is justified. In Iraq, soldiers were sacrificed for a
hypothesis which was rejected by some of the intelligence officers who
were qualified to make a judgment.
Much of the evidence given on Monday confirms how imprecise a business
intelligence gathering is. Conclusions are reached on the basis of
probability. The dossier that justified war was the result of what
amounted to a collegiate discussion, with some members supporting the
eventual wording and some dissenting. It is impossible to justify war on
a majority vote, a difference of opinion or a compromise over
conflicting judgment about its necessity. Britain went to war under
false pretences.
The inquiry will grind on. Alastair Campbell will, no doubt, be
acquitted of personally and exclusively adding the 45-minute warning to
the dossier, though there will be no doubt that Dr Kelly made that
allegation and the BBC was justified in reporting it. That means that
the BBC will almost certainly be vindicated. The prime minister will
undoubtedly assert that he remains certain of the moral justification
for the war. Civil servants may be censured and ministers may lose their
jobs. We can look forward to weeks of lurid headlines. But nothing the
inquiry reveals in future can be more important than the single fact
that it demonstrated last Monday. The government exaggerated the threat
from Iraq. If it had given the country an honest account of the danger
the outcry against military action would have been too great for the
government to resist or the prime minister to survive.