"Truth emerges (slowly)" (25 August 2003), published in Labour Left Briefing (September 2003)

Glen Rangwala considers the extent to which assessments from the intelligence services were changed to justify the case for war.

Since May, when an unnamed source – now known to be David Kelly – spoke to at least three BBC journalists, attention has focused on the question of if, and to what extent, assessments from the intelligence services were twisted to justify claims made in the Prime Minister's dossier on Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" of 24th September 2002.

The September dossier was only a small part of the justification for the invasion, and the manipulation of intelligence reports was only one among many with that document. However, the material disclosed so far by the Hutton inquiry does give an insight into the way that Downing Street was dealing with the issue. It shows the extent to which the original assessment provided by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) painted a portrait of Iraq which was at odds with the claims made by Tony Blair.

The Hutton inquiry has shown that John Scarlett, chair of the JIC, produced a draft dossier on 10th September. At the same time, Alastair Campbell had set up an ad hoc committee of press and communications officers to deal with what he told the inquiry were "presentational" issues in the dossier. The version that came out of that process, on 16th September, was more or the less the final version, but was substantially different from the text that John Scarlett had produced, both in its style and in the claims it made about Iraq's weapons.

The two crucial issues that the final text of the dossier attempted to convey were that Iraq's prohibited weapons were a "current and serious threat" (in the words of Tony Blair's foreword) and that Iraq was continuing to produce them. On both matters, Scarlett’s draft was far from clear. The document of 10th September focuses on the potential Iraq had to produce those weapons. Its key judgment stated: "Iraq continues to have the capability to produce chemical and biological weapons, and has probably already done so."

The qualification – that it had "probably" produced those weapons – can hardly have been accidental. However, that word was absent from the later draft and was replaced by expressions of certainty. Tony Blair's foreword asserts confidently that "the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt… that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons". That wasn't in the assessment of the JIC two weeks earlier.

On the existence of weapons, the 10th September draft stated, "we judge that Iraq has retained production equipment and at least small amounts of chemical agent and precursors." The reference to "small amounts" didn't make it into the published version – and certainly didn't fit with the portrait of Iraq painted by Ministers in their justifications for an invasion. On the eve of war, Jack Straw told the House of Commons that "we know" that Iraq has 10,000 litres of anthrax – again, scarcely compatible with the original assessment provided by Mr Scarlett.

It is possible that startling new evidence came to light in the six days after Mr Scarlett produced his draft which allowed the original judgements to be transformed. It seems more likely that what Alastair Campbell justified as "presentational" changes were substantive alterations to the whole tenor of the document. The emails passed between members of Campbell's team over those days show a group attempting to make the document more "convincing", a word that crops up frequently in their correspondence. Campbell had already announced the purpose of the dossier in a widely circulated note written by him the previous week: to explain why they "judge Iraq/WMD to represent a real threat". In other words, they had decided in advance what conclusion the dossier would draw and had to find and present material that would appear to support this conclusion.

From the correspondence released, it does appear that John Scarlett did not object to the alterations to the dossier. He did, however, ask for its claims not to be directly associated with the JIC. The original draft of the dossier's foreword began with the statement that "the document published today is the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee". Scarlett asked for this to be changed to the claim that the dossier "is based, in large part, on the work of" the JIC, and this is the text that was published. As long as the claims were not directly attributed to him, he appears to have not minded that the Government was putting out stronger claims than he could have justified.

The claims made in the dossier seem further than ever from the actual findings in Iraq. As well as the highly unlikely claims about attempts to import uranium from Niger, 20 retained ballistic missiles, chemical and biological weapons ready to use within 45 minutes and facilities that were producing prohibited weapons, the dossier also claimed that Iraq had unmanned drones that could spray chemical and biological weapons over a large area. US officials in Iraq now admit that the drones in question were really for reconnaissance, and were too small to carry anything larger than a camera.

Author: Glen Rangwala

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