The Iraq Inquiry - Chilcott's Circus Clowns Come to Town

[Magda Hassan]

Iraq intelligence not 'very substantial' says Prescott

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Lord Prescott: "I felt a little bit nervous about the conclusions...of pretty limited intelligence"

The intelligence on Iraqis weapons threat was not "very substantial", former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott has said.
He told the Iraq inquiry he was "nervous" about the intelligence being presented in 2002 - some of which he said was based on "tittle-tattle".
However, he said he did not have the knowledge to challenge the assessments.
Lord Prescott said the US regarded UK attempts to get a UN solution to the crisis as a "diversion".
Lord Prescott, deputy prime minister between 1997 and 2007, is the last senior former Labour minister to be giving evidence to the Chico inquiry into the war.
'Sympathies' The inquiry is looking at the UK's role in the build-up to the war and the handling of its aftermath, and is expected to publish its report around the end of the year.
In an interview in December, Lord Prescott expressed some doubts about the war.
Continue reading the main story “Start Quote

I got the feeling that it was not very substantial”

End Quote Lord Prescott Former Deputy Prime Minister
However, he told the inquiry that MPs had backed the action and that "democratic accountability had been satisfied".
While former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had a "difficult decision" to make before deciding the war was legal, he said he accepted the judgement that military action was justified on basis of existing UN disarmament resolutions.
In his opening statement, he expressed his "deepest sympathies" to the relatives of the 179 British service personnel killed in Iraq.
Lord Prescott, the final witness in the current round of public hearings, said he attended 23 out of 28 Cabinet meetings which discussed UK policy towards Iraq as well as holding a number of private meetings with Mr Blair.
Intelligence doubts Asked about the intelligence shown to ministers about Iraq in 2002, Mr Prescott said he had no reason to believe that it was not "robust".
While he had "no evidence" to suggest Joint Intelligence Committee assessments were wrong, he said he was a "little bit nervous about the conclusions based on what was pretty limited intelligence".
"When I kept reading them, I kept thinking to myself, 'is this intelligence?", he said.
Describing this intelligence as "basically what you have heard somewhere and what somebody else has told somebody", he suggested the conclusions drawn on the back of it "were a little ahead" of the evidence.
"So I got the feeling it wasn't very substantial," he said.
"I think, in 2004, by JIC to look at the recommendations they made to us were frankly wrong and built too much on a little information.
"That was my impression at the time but, you know, I just thought 'well this is the intelligence document, this is what you have'.
"It seems robust but not enough to justify to that. Certainly what they do in intelligence is a bit of tittle tattle here and a bit more information there."
However, he said he was certain that Saddam Hussein presented a real threat to regional security as he had attacked both Kuwait and Iran in recent years.
UN discussions He said the UK's "priority" was to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis and suggested it was a "real achievement" for Tony Blair to persuade the US to try and get UN support for action against Iraq.
But he said US policy towards Iraq had been one of regime change since the Clinton presidency and that the Bush administration did not want to be "diverted" from this course by diplomatic negotiations.
From conversations with former US Vice President Dick Cheney - who he described as a "hard-liner" - he said he got the impression that Iraq was "unfinished business" for the US.
He described UK-led efforts to get a second UN resolution in early 2003 specifically authorising military action as "absolutely critical".
"We did really need it," he said.
He said he had learnt an "awful lot" from the inquiry to date about government decision-making in respect to Iraq and acknowledged criticism that Mr Blair made decisions via a close-knit circle of aides as part of a "sofa government".
He also said that he was asked by Mr Blair to try and persuade former foreign secretary Robin Cook not to resign from the Cabinet over the issue.
There may be extra hearings in the autumn, when previous witnesses - including Mr Blair and his successor Gordon Brown - could be recalled to give further evidence.
Mr Brown commissioned the inquiry in June 2009.