Written Evidence to the Hutton Inquiry and the Butler Review
by Brian Jones
For reasons that I shall explain here, I have decided to use the facility offered by this website to make available for public scrutiny the written evidence I provided to the Hutton Inquiry and the Butler Review. It has not been released previously.
So far the Chilcot Inquiry has provided precious little documentary evidence as background to the public evidence sessions in which it is hearing witnesses. It is not clear whether this is a willing decision of the Inquiry or a consequence of the protocols imposed by the government. However, the result is that there is uncertainty with regard to the sources the Inquiry is using and the assumptions it is making about the evidence it hears.
Such uncertainty is likely to inhibit those who might be inclined to offer clarification or additional information to the Inquiry because potential new witnesses are unsure whether it is already aware of the information they know about. There may also be some reluctance to submit complicated information through a Secretariat whose loyalties are unclear and which may decide to prevent public release under one or other of the exclusions offered by the protocols.
Before releasing these documents, I consulted Lord Hutton and Lord Butler. They were both content for this information to be made public. I also wrote to my former employer, the Defence Intelligence Staff of the Ministry of Defence, to offer it the opportunity to request redaction of anything it felt might be sensitive in case I had made a misjudgement in drawing up a document that I considered did not require classification. They responded positively and made no request to withhold any information. I thank all those I consulted for taking the time to consider my proposal and replying so promptly.
The document I am making available (pdf file) is an exact copy of the written evidence I provided to the Butler Review which included my evidence to Hutton. It consists of a main paper and five other papers supplied as annexes. They are not necessarily best approached now in the order presented to Butler in 2004.
The first Annex (A) is, in a chronological sense, the first document of the sequence. It is the witness statement (pdf file) I provided at the request of the Hutton Inquiry. It was submitted on my behalf by the Treasury solicitor after it had been given security clearance by the MoD. Although no changes were requested this meant it was available to the government in advance of me giving oral evidence to that inquiry, and in hindsight I feel it was less than ideal that some witnesses could have acquired an early warning of what I was going to say. Much but not all of what was contained in the statement emerged in my oral evidence in September 2003. Lord Hutton appeared to discount some aspects in his report by including no mention of it. When I gave oral evidence in camera to the Butler review in April 2004, it was the information contained in and surrounding my statement to Hutton that was most closely examined. Because that was a private hearing I was able to say more than I had said to Hutton. I see no reason why a transcript of my session with the Butler review should not be released, although some redactions would be appropriate for security reasons.
Annex C is an article I wrote for the Independent newspaper a week after Lord Hutton issued his report. I wrote it because I felt an important element of my evidence had not emerged. It was, and remains, my belief that the reservations of the DIS analysts generally, which had been reflected in comments on the draft of the dossier had been finessed by the use of an intelligence report which they were not shown. Although I did not know it at the time that report had been withdrawn as unreliable before the Hutton inquiry started. We learned later that Lord Hutton had not been informed of this. Annex D is the report of an interview that was conducted with me by Paul Waugh for the Independent which I felt provided additional context in relation to what had happened generally and with regard to Hutton.
Annex E was an attempt to illustrate for the Butler review how I felt the September 2003 dossier’s Executive Summary might have better represented the intelligence assessment of Iraq’s WMD capabilities at that time. Elements of it were used (without attribution) in the final report of the Butler review.
In Annex B I tried to provide the review with a description of the individual weapon systems that make up WMD and included information on utility and effects. I fear that this information did not penetrate deeply into the review’s awareness, although it is vital to an understanding of some of the problems faced by specialist intelligence analysts in communicating the significance of their assessments.
The main body of the submission tried to focus on the terms of reference of the review by discussing the main elements of the intelligence process as it related to WMD and the problems I believed hampered the analysts. I said that I thought that intelligence analysis was the poor relation of the intelligence community, under-funded and under-represented in the central machinery. I thought the JIC was too heavily biased in its membership towards those with a primary interest in the policy consequences of intelligence assessments. I recommended a fundamental review of the intelligence community and its relationship with the policy community. Although I was not questioned on this in my interview with the review, I believe this had some influence on its final report but, unfortunately, my main recommendations were disregarded. I concluded my written evidence with a discussion about the intelligence on Iraq’s WMD and its assessment which, I think provided more context than had emerged at Hutton.
Altogether the volume and content of this document represents a considerable challenge to the casual reader. I hope those who find the time to study all or part of it will find that it contributed to their understanding of the problem of Iraq’s WMD. There is no doubting there were problems, but they were not correctly represented in government statements.
I also hope that others who provided written evidence to previous inquiries might be encouraged to disclose them for public scrutiny.
7 Responses to “Written Evidence to the Hutton Inquiry and the Butler Review”
Comment from BlairSupporter
Time December 7, 2009 at 8:10 pm
To Tony Simpson,
(Apologies for copying and pasting, Mr Ames and Mr Jones. My concern for accuracy, you understand.)
We select from the ‘evidence’ what suits our case, do we not, Mr Simpson? Let’s be blunt about this, for goodness sake!
For me I found these five numbered snippets from Brian Jones’s report interesting:
1)
The intricacies of this situation would quite possibly never have been clearly visible to Secretaries of State, Prime Ministers and Presidents, so their perceptions of the real situation in Iraq may have been distorted to the point where they believed there was good evidence that Iraq retained chemical and/or biological weapons. The pressures created by 9/11 may have further confused perceptions.
2)
At some stage I became aware that a direct relationship had developed between David Kelly and officers of the SIS, so I ceased to be aware of the full scope of his visibility of intelligence or his involvement with it.
During the course of 18 September 2002 I spoke briefly with David Kelly when I encountered him working in the office of my BW staff. I understood him to be reviewing the latest available version of the dossier. The nature of our conversation that day was, as usual, casual and informal. In the course of it I asked him what he thought of the latest version of the dossier and was surprised, in view of the concerns expressed by my staff to which I have referred, when he responded that he though it was good.
Although I met David Kelly a few times after the dossier was published before I retired and he was aware that I had raised my concerns about the dossier up to DCDI, at no time did he indicate to me that he personally shared any reservations about the dossier. The impression I gained is that he thought it was broadly in line with the views he held on Iraq, and that its publication might help to resolve the existing stand-off. I have a recollection that in one conversation after the UNMOVIC inspections of Iraq had commenced he observed that the threat of military action had at least produced this positive
result.
3)
It is important to stress that Dr Jones is full of praise for the way Tony Blair has seized on the issue of nuclear, chemical and biological proliferation. “I think he is one of the very few world leaders who has really grasped this issue,” Dr Jones said. “He uses a broad brush in using the term WMD but I really do think it is probably, as he says, the security concern of at least this part of the 21st century.”
He is also wary of the dangers posed by inquiries such as that led by Lord Butler. “There is an enormous potential for this inquiry over the period for which it is operating to absolute cripple the ability to analyse intelligence on WMD during what seems like a very critical period,” he said. “These guys are going to be pressed enormously to come up with the information that the inquiry needs. The only guys who can do it are the guys at the sharp end, pursuing these very important issues on Libya, on Iran and North Korea.”
4)
Dr Jones, who will be called by the Butler inquiry, said he wanted to make it “absolutely clear” that he made no comment about whether it was right to go to war. But the case based on WMD was flawed and misleading. “There were problems with the case that was made in terms of WMD, but I don’t think it is reasonable to say simply that that made it wrong. Like everyone else, I have broader opinions on politics and things that I don’t know about. But I do know about WMD.”
5)
Intelligence also indicates that Iraq is preparing plans to conceal evidence of these weapons, including incriminating documents, from renewed inspections. And it suggests that despite sanctions and the policy of containment, Saddam has continued to keep his ballistic missile programme alive and that some activity has been beyond that which is legal. He has at least preserved the basis for reactivating his offensive nuclear, biological and chemical warfare programmes.
//////////
So there we are, Mr Simpson. One takes a position from evidence available and builds a case round it.
Moderator note:
Post corrected for cut and paste formatting errors. No changes have been made to the text.
Pingback from Part 2 – The “Iraq Inquiry Digest”. Brian Jones contribution on WMDs « Tony Blair
Time December 8, 2009 at 2:38 am
[...] I may be wrong in this assumption, that this contribution at Chris Ames’ Iraq Inquiry Digest by Brian Jones was expected to cast further doubts on Blair in Iraq and the motives of Blair in Iraq. Death by a [...]
Comment from John Bone
Time December 8, 2009 at 9:57 am
Has the public ever been told what the evidence was in the secret compartment?
Comment from Tony Simpson
Time December 8, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Dear BlairSupporter,
Please identify yourself. Who are you?
Comment from BlairSupporter
Time December 8, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I prefer to remain anonymous, if you don’t mind, Mr Simpson. The reason is, in fact, to cause minimum discomfiture to others, not myself, in case you wondered.
It is partly because I once belonged to another political party (mainstream) and partly because the other half is presently involved in yet another mainstream party.
I have never belonged to the Labour party, btw. Disappointed with the other two, I would join it now, if Blair were leading it again.
Comment from Grundoon
Time December 8, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Mr. Simpson,
Of what good would it do to have Blair Supporter identify himself? The security of a nom-de-plume in this day and age is advantages to those of us who prefer to monitor developments, comment upon them, and not bring pressure on friends and family who may have other viewpoints. It is enough that he defends Mr. Blair while others attack.
Comment from Tony Simpson
Time December 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm
This important document poses some direct questions for John Scarlett, who chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee whilst the flawed Dossier of September 2002 was under preparation. In particular, the Dossier’s Executive Summary overstated the actual intelligence on Iraq’s capacity in chemical and biological weapons. The Summary echoed the Prime Minister’s studied hyperbole in his Foreword to the Dossier, and to that extent bolstered it. That deceipt probably helped to swing the vote for Blair at Westminster in March 2003. Last week, we heard from Lord Boyce that, had Parliament voted to allow the inspectors more time, which was what Chris Smith’s amendment sought, he would have withheld the order for British troops to join the invasion. Is the Chilcot Committee complicit now in a further attempt at deceipt of the public? The questions for Scarlett are here in black and white. Will they be put?