Melissa Johnson

From: Andrew Gilligan-INTERNET

Sent: Oo July 2003 03 :12 PM
To : Mark Damazer. Richard Sambrook a^d PA, Kevin Marsh
Subject : w`iac we said and what we know (does no`, incoroorate latest uramum-frorn-Africa une)

CLAIMS OF THE BBC'S SOURCE AND WHAT WE KNOW NOW

"45 MINUTES"
(NB : The BBC's source never claimed that anyone had lied, or fabricated evidence - the charge was that
real, but unreliable intethgence had been exaggerated and doubts about its veracity overruled.)

The Prime Minister's claim that "military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45
minutes" (dossier, p4) came from only one, uncorroborated source .
Confirmed within two hours of the story airing by Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces Minister (Today
programme, 29 May .)

his claim arrived late in the dossier .

Confirmed in evidence to the Committee by Jack Straw and Peter Rtcketts-(Q1206, 1218. )

Downing Street ordered the claim to be inserted .

See below.

The information was unreliable and probably mistaken .

It appears ctear that the informant was mistaken . If WMD were held at 45 minutes' notice they coutd not
have been deepty concealed or widely dispersed and would almost certainty have been found by now .

The Government probably knew the 45-minute figure was wrong, even before it decided to put it
m.
The original JIC assessment of the 45-minute claim has been reveated by the Foreign Office in an
unpubtished memorandum to the Committee (IRAQ 27, page 4.) The original JIC assessment does not say
that weaoons could in the Prime Minister's words be "ready" within 45 minutes . It merely says that
~ome coutd be "delivered to units" in that time.

Even on the narrow point, il: would take some further time to make a weapon "ready" once it arrived at
a unit (between 30 minutes and several hours, according to Rupert Penoelty, technical editor of Jane's
Information Group, depending on the weapon and the skill and preparedness of the operators.) So the
figure given by the PM should be greater than 45 minutes, and is wron¢ . The PM may not have known
this, but the person who allowed him to say it shoutd have .

More imoortantly, the revelation that WMD were not even held with units raises questions as to whether
Irao even had a poticy of holdine them at high readiness . A more accurate representation of the JIC
assessment woutd be to say that no unit had WMD, and it would take them at least 45 minutes to get
WMD to any unit.

DOWNING STREET'S ROLE AND THAT OF ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

The dossier was sexed up, made more exciting .

The JIC assessment above shows that the dossier was sexed up in at least the respect of the 45-minute
point . "Delivered to units" became "deployed" in the body of the dossier and "ready" in the Prime

~3Z
i
 Minister's foreword .

As the FAC has noted (Q1092), the language in some parts of the dossier is much harder than in others .
For example, the body text says (page 18, par a 3) : "In mid-2001 the JIC assessed that Iraq retained some
CW agents, precursors, production equipment and weapons from before the Gulf War. These stocks
would enable lroq to produce significant quantities of mustard gas within weeks and of nerve agents
within months . "

On page 19, para 8, however, the dossier states as a fact that "Iraq hos continued to produce chemical
weaoons ." No further details are given of the intelligence which has led to this change of assessment . As
a general rule, the firmer the claim in the dossier, the less it is accompanied by details .

Downing Street ordered the dossier to be sexed up.

The transformation took place at the behest of Downing Street .
On this point, no evidence (as opposed to assertion) which the Committee heard disproves or conflicts
with the claims of the BBC's source and there is much evidence pointing towards the accuracy of his
claims .

Aiastair Campbell's own second memo to the Committee (quoted in the Guardian, 3 July, ) shows that he
.ought 11 changes to the second draft of the dossier that was sent to him on 17 Sep . These included
requests for further information to be included, attempts to give more prominence to certain points,
and attempts to strengthen the wording.

Contrary to his claim that his role was merely "presentational" lQ976) some of his suggested changes,
including some of those adopted, are substantive . For instance, according to the Guardian, he sought to
harden one claim from "may have" to "have." And he "successfully proposed that the section detailing
how long it might take for Iraq to develop nuclear weapons should be explained more clearly, though the
letter does not give details of what changes were made."

Mr Campell's letter denies he sought to include the 45-minute claim in the dossier, saying it was already
there in the "first draft presented to him" on September 10 . But did he learn about the existence of the
45-minute point before September 10 and argue for its inclusion in the draft?

Mr Campbell chaired a planning meeting for the dossier on 9 September (Campbell letter, quoted in
Guardian, 3 July), and the chairman of JIC was present at this meeting. This is also the date on which a
- report referred to the 45-minute claim (Ricketts evidence, Q1218 .) Did Mr Campbell suggest this
,iformation was included in the draft at this planning meeting?

Or did it happen earlier? Mr Campbell admits he saw the JIC assessments on which the dossier was based
(Q1054) . Did he see the 45-minute one and suggest that it was included?

Mr Campbell from time to time has in formal discussions with people in the intelligence services who, to
quote him, "think 'Well, I know that No 10 has got an interest in this particular theme at the moment,
might this be something they might be interested in? Should I discuss it?' They might come to see me and
say 'Look, this has come from this or that, "' (Campbell, Q1055 .)

Mr Campbell had "several discussions" with the Chairman of the JIC about the dossier (Campbell first
memorandum to the FAC, IRAQ 28, p2), which also suggests his close personal involvement .

Some of Tony Blair's suggestions on a draft were passed to the JIC Chairman via Mr Campbell (Campbell
first memo to the FAC, IRAQ 28, p2 .) This suggests his close personal involvement and is unusual - surely
the chairman of JIC has direct access to the Prime Minister? Also -what were the Prime Minister's
suggestedchanges?

z 133
8 ~~ I ~ lc~qZ
Mr Campbell says that "the changes we made to [the Sept dossier] had nothing to do with the overriding
intelligence assessments" (Q1092 ; my itaLs. ) What is the difference between an intelligence assessment
and an overriding intelligence assessment? Does it mean that changes were made in the detail of
assessments - the very charge made by the BBC's source?

Mr Campbell is also asked about the charge that elements of the dossier such as the 45-minute claim
were given "undue prominence" by him or at his behest . The first time he is asked this (Q1008) he
makes his now famous attack on the BBC and nobody notices that he has failed to answer the question .
Towards the end he is asked again whether he gave "undue prominence" to the uranium-from Africa
claim . He refuses to deny it, replying : "I suppose what you are saying is, were the discussions about how
prominently to deploy that piece of information [uranium-from-Africa .] To be honest with you, I cannot
remember the nature of those oiscussions. I think it was an important point ." (Q1138) .

In March 2003 the Observer reported "fairly serious rows" over the drafting of the dossier between Mr
Campbell and David Omand (Security & Intelligence Coordinator) and Stephen Lander (then head of MI5 .)

Alastair Campbell was certainly regarded as a central figure in the dossier's production by Clare Short
who told the FAC (Q96): "There was talk of a dossier earlier, the publication of intelligence material,
nnd then I tmnk that went quiet for a bit and then it was brought back . Alastair Campbell and co. were
nvaived,_so I left it to them ."

THE FEELINGS OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ABOUT THE DOSSIER

The intelligence services were unhappy about the dossier, because it didn't reflect the considered
view they were putting forward.

Dame Pauline Neville Jones, a former chairman of the JIC, said in evidence to the Committee that
"there clearly was turbulence inside the machine and some people have been talking," (Q382), though
she did not know if they were representative .

In the days following the BBC's story, many reporters with their own intelligence sources independently
corroborated our source's general charge - and some of his specific ones, too, including those against Mr
Campbell . For example:

,chard Norton-Taylor, Guardian 30 May: "British intelligence sources expressed fury at Downing Street's
,ehaviour. They were reluctant to allow Downing Street to use their intelligence assessment because
they feared it would be manipulated for political ends. . . . Caveats. . .were swept aside by Mr Blarr, egged
on by Mr Campbell, welt-ptaced sources said ."

Daniel McGrory, Times 30 May: "Senior sources say they received a barrage of phone calls from staff at
No 10 demanding more evidence . Intelligence chiefs insist that the dossier was written by someone
msioe No 10 and not by British Intelligence . . .agents were wary that frightened defectors who wanted
asylum would say what the British and Americans wanted to hear . . .there was debate amongst
intelligence analysts whether the [45-minute source's] claims should have been passed to No 10, as
senior figures doubted whether it was true, but were under pressure to deliver 'compelling evidence ."'

Glenn Frankelt, Washington Post 30 May: "One official acknowledged that there had been what he
described as 'pressured and superheated debates at the time' between Downing Street and intelligence
officials over the contents of the dossier."

Francis Eihott, Colin Brown, Sunday Teiegraph 1 June, quoted a "senior minister" as saying : "It was Blair
gilding the lily as usual . It [the 45-min claim] was an extrapolation ."

3
JSP,c I bl~~
 Peter Beaumont, Gaby Hznsliff, Observer 1 June : "What we are seeing is something very new, and very
strange . MI6 is sticking its head over the parapet as much as it ever will . . .Ml6 feels tota Lly discredited
and used ." ("source")
"Nd6 feels that it has been pushed rather unwillingly into the limelight by the Government . It is a shot
across the bows ." (a second "source")

Nick Fielding, Sunday Times 1 June, reported that the dossier was the result of a "deal after months of
bitter disagreements between intetligence chiefs and Blair's aides. Campbell had attempted to persuade
the agencies to include hard-hitting conclusions . They were reiuctant to agree because they said the
case was not proven."

Susan Watts, BBC Ivewsniqht, 2 June, quoted a source "Snitimately involved with the process of putting
together the dossier" as saying that the 45-minute claim "was a statement that was made and it got out
of at[ proportion . They were desperate for information, pushing hard for information which could be
released . That was one which popped up and it was seized on, and it's unfortunate that it was. That's
why there is the argument between the intelligence services and No 10, because they picked up on it,
and once they've picked up on it, you can't putt it back from them . . . . It was an interesting week before
the dossier was put out, simply because there were so many people saying `well, I'm not so sure about
that,' because the word-smithing is actualty quite important ."

It is not clear whether the Government believes that alt these reporters are Liars, too. Certainty, the
Government has not complained about any of their reports .

GENERAL POINTS

" Despite the fury of its denials in the last two weeks, the Government did not actually deny this story
for six days after it was first broadcast. instead they denied things that had never been claimed (that
the 45-minute point had been made up, that it was not real intelligence, and so on.)

0 The 45-minute point and the uranium-from-Africa point were the two key headlines from the dossier.
But after the immediate flurry of coverage of the dossier, ministers almost never referred to either
point again . In the nearly six months between October 1 and the outbreak of war, ministers only ever
mentioned the 45-minute point twice that we can trace, and they never again mentioned it in the
House of Commons, despite having a major persuading job to do there. The uranium -from-Afnca, as
far as we can trace, was never mentioned at alt.

Assertions by Government witnesses that the story is untrue are no substitute for evidence that it is
untrue . So far no such evidence has been produced to the Committee . There is evidence which could
probably resolve the question (the drafts of the dossier, access to JIC witnesses) but curiously the
Government has not let the Committee see it.