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Crucial changes to the dossier that set tone for conflict (23 August 2003) A slightly edited version was published in the Independent on Sunday (24 August 2003). The full extent of the changes made to the Government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction became clear for the first time yesterday, when the Hutton inquiry into David Kelly's death published all the drafts on its website. The document published on 24 September went through four drafts in less
than three weeks, after a meeting chaired by the Downing Street director
of communications, Alastair Campbell, decided on 5 September that a version
prepared over preceding months needed a "substantial rewrite". The most dramatic changes occurred between 10 and 16 September. The second of these is close to the final published version in its structure and overall tone, though in the eight days before publication there is a crucial change concerning Iraq's readiness to use chemical and biological weapons. The 16 September version states that the Iraqi military "may be able to deploy chemical or biological weapons" within 45 minutes of an order to do so, whilst the published version states that they "are able to deploy" these weapons within that timeframe. The two versions produced before 11 September last year are quite different. The 10/11 September draft begins with a long historical review of Saddam Hussein's rule, some of which is relegated to the end of the published version but is mostly omitted. That draft contains significantly more cautious language. On the critical issue of Iraq's continued production of chemical and biological weapons, it states that "Iraq continues to have the capability to produce chemical and biological weapons, and has probably already done so." That crucial word, "probably", finds no expression in the published dossier, which portrays the ongoing production of chemical and biological weapons as a certainty. In the published version the Prime Minister's foreword states confidently that "the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt … that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons". On the second major issue, about weapons that Iraq may have retained from before 1991, the earlier dossier states: "we judge that Iraq has retained production equipment and at least small amounts of chemical agent and precursors." The reference to "small amounts" was at odds with the implication of later claims in both the published dossier itself, and in comments of government ministers in the run up to the conflict. For example, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on the eve of the invasion that "we know" that Iraq has 10,000 litres of anthrax. A number of passages contained in the earlier versions of the dossier which discount or play down the possibility of Iraq having certain stocks of weapons are omitted from the published version. For example, the 10/11 September draft dismisses reports about smallpox production as "uncorroborated" and states that Iraq "never progressed beyond the research stage" and later abandoned work on a radiological bomb. An earlier draft of the Prime Minister's foreword also seeks to reassure: "The case I make is not that Saddam could launch a nuclear attack on London or another part of the UK (He could not)." None of these assessments were kept for the published version of the dossier. There is no firm indication from the material released by Lord Hutton of who ensured that these changes were made. The transition between the drafts of 5 September and 10/11 September was under the guidance of John Scarlett and Julian Miller, both senior officials within the intelligence community. However, in the days after 11 September, it is unclear from the material available who was shepherding the re-drafting of the dossier. There are a number of factors that point to a substantial role for the Downing Street press office. A note from Alastair Campbell from 9 September speaks of creating a "team", to be chaired by him, that would "go through the document from a presentational point of view". It seems quite possible that under the guise of making "presentational" changes, substantive alterations were made to the tenor of the draft. In fact, a flurry of emails from staff of the Downing Street press office was released to the inquiry that suggested changes of the sort that were in fact made. These messages dated largely from the period between 11 and 16 September. When presented by this material at the inquiry, Mr Campbell referred derisively to people making comments above their "pay grade". However, this would not explain why draft copies of a confidential document were circulated to individuals if comments were not expected from those people. A further indication of non-intelligence involvement is the objection of John Scarlett, chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), to the document being referred to in the Prime Minister's foreword as "the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee". In a least two emails to Campbell, he objected to this language, and suggested instead that the dossier begin with the more distant attribution that it "is based, in large part, on the work of the" JIC. Mr Scarlett's insistence on this modification would indicate that material was included in the dossier that had not been through the JIC assessment process. Despite this point, there is no indication in the material released by Lord Hutton that Mr Scarlett was himself dissatisfied with the content of the dossier. In fact, in the draft of the dossier drawn up by him, dated 10/11 September, there are a number of simple factual mistakes that are corrected in the later version. That earlier version of the dossier has the date on which UN inspectors were withdrawn on President Clinton's orders in December 1998 wrong by three days; it misspells Halabja; it has the name of the main Kurdish party wrong (calling it the Kurdish, not the Kurdistan, Democratic Party); and it claims that the resolution establishing the UN inspectors in 1991 was passed unanimously (whereas Cuba voted against, and two other states abstained). If it was Campbell in charge of taking the draft forward after 11 September, he can take credit for correcting at least some of the spooks' more straightforward errors. |
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Author: Glen Rangwala Back to the Index of Writings |
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