Andrew Gillqan-INTERNET

From : Andrew Gdllgan-INTERNET

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\
For background

Dear Colleague,

The following takes what the BBC's source actually said and what we actuatly reported and compares it
to other evidence now in the public domain (mostly through the Committee) about the now-famous
dossier . It 1s my belief that on most of the claims reported this is no longer a single-source story.

Please do not quote from it, or describe it as an "official BBC response" - it is not- It is just for your
background understanding . This information fed into what was presented to the Governors on Sunday .

Andrew G1(ligan

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 of
exaggeration, and that real, but unreliable intelligence had been included in the dossier, despite doubts
about its veracity )

The Prime Minister's claim that r'mihtary 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 .)

This claim arrived late in the dossier .

Confirmed 1n evidence to the Committee by Jack Straw and Peter Ricketts (Q1206, 1218 .)

Downing Street ordered the claim to be inserted,

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 See below.

The information was unreliable and probably mistaken .

It appears clear that the informant was mistaken . If WMD were held at 45 minutes' notice they could not
have been deeply concealed or widely dispersed and would almost certainly have been found by now .

The Government probably knew the 45-minute figure was wrong, even before it decided to put it
In .
The original JIC assessment of the 45-mmute claim has been revealed by the Foreign Office deep in an
unpublished memorandum to the Committee (IRAQ27, 24 June 2003, page 4; may be published with the
report or in the later third volume .) The original JIC assessment does not say that weapons could in the
Prime Minister's words, be "ready" within 45 minutes, It merely says that some could be "delivered to
units" in that time.

Even on the narrow point, it 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 Pengelly, technical editor of Jane's
Information Group, depending on the weapon and the skill and preparedness of the operators .) So the
figure _Oven by the PM should be greater than 45 minutes, and is wrong. The PM may not have known
,his, but someone advising him should have .

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

URANIUM FROM AFRICA

The dossier claimed that Iraq had "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" (exec summary,
p6 .) The British ambassador to the UN, Jeremy Greenstock, confirms that this claim related to Niger
(Independent, 30 June 03 .) The source was sceptical about this claim .

In Sunday's New York Times, a former US ambassador, Joe Wilson, outs himself as the anonymous former
diplomat sent on a mission by the CIA to Niger to investigate these claims in March 2002 - six months
nefore the publication of the claim in the 6lair dossier . He found the reports to be false . He says that it
is inconceivable that this information would not have been passed to the British (Independent on
Sunday, 29 June 03. )

In the NY Times he writes : "I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life In
September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British Government published a "white paper"
asserting that Saddam presented an immediate danger . As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to
purchase uranium from an African country ." After the President also mentioned it in his State of the
Union, citing the British dossier, Wilson approached a friend at the State Department to remind him of
his concerns .

He also writes that "based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the
war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons
programme was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat ."

DOWNING STREET'S ROLE AND THAT OF ALASTAIR CAMPBELI_

The dossier was sexed up, made more exciting .

~ i :3~~~Ct~ tf
 The JIC assessment above shows that this occurred at least in respect of the 45-mmute point . "Delivered
to unit" became "deployed" in the body of the dossier and "ready" in the Prime Minister's foreword .

As the FAC has noted (Q7092), the language in some parts of the dossier is much harder than in others .
For example, the body text says (page 18, para 3) : "in mld-2001 the JIC assessed that Iraq retained some
CW agents, precursors, production equipment and weapons-from before the Gutf-War. These stocks
would enable Iraq 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 has continued to produce chemical
weapons ." 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 hy 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
ctaims . .

Alastair Campbell's own second memo to the Committee (quoted in the Guardian, 3 July,) shows that he
sought 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" (Q976), 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 Campetl'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 tetter, quoted in
Guardian, 3 July), and the chairman of JIC was present at this meeting . This is also the date on which a
JIC report referred to the 45-minute claim (Rcketts evidence, Q12i8 .) Did Mr Campbell suggest this
information was included in the draft at this planning meeting?

Or did it happen earher7 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 informal 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,
night this be something they might be interested in? Should I discuss it?' They might corne 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 Z8, pZ), which also suggests his close personal involvement .

Some of Tony Blair's suggestions on a draft were passed to the JIC Chairman via Mr Campbe[[ (Campbeit
first memo to the FAC, IRAQ 28, p2 .) This suggests his close personal involvement and is unusual - surely
the chan man of JIC has direct access to the Prime Minister? Also -what were the Pnme Minister's
3

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 suQeested chanRes7

Mr Campbell says that "the changes we made to [the Sept dossier] had nofhing to do with the overriding
intelligence assessments" (Q1092 ; my itats.) 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 ha 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 discussions, I think it was an important point." (Q1138) .

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

Mr Campbell says the first draft he saw was on September 10th . But in his evidence he describes the
dossier as "the product of months and months of work with the intelligence agencies,"

Alastair Campbell was certainty 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,
and then I think that went quiet for a bit and then it was brought back. Alastair Campbell and co . were
involved, 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 Paulme 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 :

Richard Norton-Taytor, Guardian 30 May "British intelligence sources expressed fury at Downing Street's
behaviour . 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 Blair, egged
on by Mr Campbell, well-placed sources said ."

Daniet McOrory, Times 30 May : "Senior sources say they received a barrage of phone calls from staff at
No 10 demanding more evidence . ., there was debate amongs : 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 Frankell, 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 ."

~~c ~1~ ~o~E.

 Francis Elliott, Cofan Brown, Sunday Telegraph 1 June, quoted a "senior minister" as saying : "It was
8lair
gilding the hty as usual . It [the 45-min claim] was an extrapolation." 

Peter Beaumont, Gaby Ninshff, obseryer 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.- .MI6 feels totally discredited
and used ." ("source") - _
"MI6 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 intelligence chiefs and Blair's aides. Campbell had attempted to persuade
the agencies to include hard-hitting conclusions . They were reluctant to agree because they said the
case was not proven ."

Susan Watts, BBC Newsnight, 2 June, quoted a source "initimatety involved with the process of pulling
together the dossier" as saying that the 45-minute claim "was a statement that was made and It got out
of all 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
Nhy 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 pull it back fmm them . . . . lt was an interesting week before -
the oossier was put out, simply because there were so many people saying 'well, I'm not so sure about
that,' because the word-smtthing is actually quite important,"

It is not clear whether the Government believes that all 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 inteiligence, and so on .)

" 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-Africa, as
far as we can trace, was never mentioned at ail .

" 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 the Government
has not let the Committee see it.

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