Quote:In yet another blow to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's credibility, the Chilcot Inquiry into the war on Iraq has released several declassified documents which open the door to quite serious evidence about the build-up to the US-led invasion of the country.
The Iraq War Inquiry has found out that the private secretary at No 10 routinely deleted any mention of Blair's correspondence with the US President Bush from the government minutes at the time.
Meanwhile, it was reported that after talks with Blair, Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has refused to declassify the letters, written in the run-up to the 2003 invasion between Bush and Blair.
One of the declassified documents and the most important one, maybe, was the transcript of the minutes of a private hearing attended by former chairman of Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir John Scarlett, and former chief of the assessment staff, Julian Miller.
Scarlet has admitted his team were 'bulldozed' into drawing conclusions about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction 'by the military time-table' which created a rush to war.
This document was immediately deleted from the list of the released declassified documents, but to our readers' fortune we managed to download a copy of the transcript which is attached to this article. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161252.html
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Wednesday, 5 May 2010
SIR JOHN SCARLETT and MR JULIAN MILLER
THE CHAIRMAN: I'll open this private evidence session with a welcome and thanks to our two witnesses, Sir John Scarlett, who was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee from September 2001 until July 2004, and Mr Julian Miller who was chief of the assessment staff from September 2001 to November 2003.
I would like to remind our witnesses, and indeed the Committee, although this is a private evidence session, it is being transcribed. The transcript will be available for checking here in these offices pretty much at the end of the day. We would be grateful if the witnesses could, so far as is reasonably practicable, arrange to review the transcript and make any necessary corrections as soon as reasonably possible. We will also, of course, ask that you certify that the evidence you have given is truthful, fair and accurate.
You, I think, both are witnesses that are aware of the protocols applying to these private sessions. Can I just check that you are content with those as a basis?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: We are.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. In that event, can I move straight to Sir Lawrence Freedman to open the questions.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Thanks very much.
In Sir John's public session we've been through all the contextual materials. So if you don't mind, I think we would just like to go straight into the more detailed stuff.
Really what I would like to do is just to go through the March 2001 to September 2002 assessments on the WMD programmes of
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Iraq, and in each area just ask what sort of intelligence was being used: signals, human, documentary, imagery. Was it UK? If not UK, where was it from, and how reliable was it deemed at the time, and perhaps later?
So if we just perhaps start with the nuclear position in March 2001, but the assessment is dated -- there was heightened concern about possible nuclear related procurement and longer term plans to enrich uranium. Just go with us through these basic areas: category of intelligence; was it the UK; if not the UK, where from; reliability.
JULIAN MILLER: I think perhaps it's worth saying that the assessment in March built very much on the assessment from May the previous year. So in that --
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Sorry, I meant May 2001.
JULIAN MILLER: So if I'm looking at May 2001 for the view on the nuclear programme there, there was a limited intelligence base in terms of new intelligence. There was reporting that scientists had been recalled to the Iraqi programme in 1998, and there was evidence -- there were reports on procurement of tubes and magnets.
The reporting on the scientists having been recalled to the programme in 1998 was a [SIS] report. It was a UK human intelligence report, I think, ***************************** *************************************************************** **************
The reports on the procurement which were, I think, most significant at that point were on attempts to procure aluminium tubes ****************************************************** ******************************************************************************************************************************* ***************************. So in terms of the key inputs into
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the May paper, those were the ones which I think were particularly influential.
By the time of the March paper, there was some additional evidence on attempts to procure aluminium tubes, which I think was documentary in terms of indications of attempts to order and procure these tubes from different potential suppliers. ******** *************************************************************************************************************************.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Perhaps if we could move forward into September.
JULIAN MILLER: Into September -- by September we weren't really looking at the nuclear picture particularly because we were looking at scenarios, the use of WMD, and the judgment of course was that there was no usable nuclear weapon. So the focus in the September programme was on how he might use chemical and biological, and there was a considerable body of new intelligence in forming those judgments.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So there was no new nuclear material there?
JULIAN MILLER: It wasn't played into the assessment. My recollection -- and I'm sorry it's only a recollection -- is that in the interim there was some additional *************** intelligence on procurement attempts.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: On the aluminium tubes issue, this was clearly a very large issue in terms of their meaning. How was the British position on this different from the Americans? Did our debate follow the American debate? How did it interact? JULIAN MILLER: The initial reporting ************ was saying that attempts had been made to procure these tubes. They were a controlled material, controlled because of the potential use of
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aluminium in centrifuge production, and it looks as though the specification would be suitable for the production of centrifuges. *********************************************** ***************************.
In subsequent consideration there was recognition, I think by our own people ************************************ that the specification of the tubes or the materials suitable for centrifuges, the length and the machining finish wasn't ideal for centrifuges, but it could be used in production of multiple launch rocket systems. So there was a debate, an unresolved debate, as to what these controlled materials were being procured for.
The judgment was very much at a technical level. There was, I think, a view from IAEA, or URENCO on their behalf, which made some observations about the need for further work to be done if this material was to be given a centrifuge function, and that was clearly taken into account. *******************************************************************************************************************. By September 2002, my understanding would be that this was seen, certainly by us, and I think by other nations, as being indicative of a possible intent, but not conclusively suitable or procured for the purposes of centrifuge production. ************************************************************************************************************************** **************************************************************** ********************* but by the time we were preparing our views in September 2002, it was very much an in the balance judgment.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: You mentioned 2003 before.
JULIAN MILLER: Yes, just for completion, to say that later on --
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So even after the war had begun, they
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were still holding strongly that this was --
JULIAN MILLER: Am I right? Am I getting my years confused? SIR JOHN SCARLETT: **************************************** **********************************************************************************************************. By the time we went into 2003, the view that this was more likely to be for rocket manufacture, of course, grew stronger, but as of September 2002, and Julian was describing the state of the debate at that point, maybe different experts had different views.
As I said in my testimony back in December, my clear recollection at that time was that the possibility or more than possibility that this was for centrifuge production was a very serious one. It was. Of course, subsequently a different view was reached, but at the time, a very serious view was taken that this was likely to -- this was very possibly to be for centrifuge production because there were reasons why it wasn't the right specification for rocket manufacture as well. It wasn't a clear-cut situation. Is that fair enough?
JULIAN MILLER: Absolutely.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: In this particular case we had the evidence. So the question was the assessment of the evidence, rather than the evidence itself.
JULIAN MILLER: Yes. I think there was unequivocal evidence that they had been seeking to procure the aluminium tubes. It was an interpretation of their intent in that procurement which was in doubt.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: We need to spend more time on the chemical and biological. Can we just deal with the missiles then, where the intelligence seems generally to have been more reliable. Is that fair?
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JULIAN MILLER: I think the intelligence on missiles was fuller and, in retrospect, proved to be more reliable.
Going back to May 2001, there was reporting on missile production at one of the sites, ******************************* ***********************************************************************************************************. SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: ************? JULIAN MILLER: ****************************1 There was a separate reporting, which was characterised as regular and reliable, about the Al Hussein force, the view that there were some longer range rockets retained, and there was ************ *****************************************************.
THE CHAIRMAN: A couple of questions, if I may, apropos this. One is that it was the MOD who asked for this report in May 2001. I wonder what led them, in your understanding, to ask for it at that time.
JULIAN MILLER: I'm afraid, not having been engaged in that area, I don't know.
THE CHAIRMAN: The other was just a general question, which is some intelligence, and therefore reporting, on missiles is derived from imagery and so on because there is physical evidence. Does that, as it were, give a higher degree of reliability to the generality of intelligence coming in on the missile subject topic area?
JULIAN MILLER: It did in some cases. There was the particular issue of the test stand, where there was clear imagery evidence which indicated an object larger than necessary for the permitted range of missiles was being constructed. In other cases I think it was less influential. So the bulk of the reporting that we
1 The witness' answer indicated that the reporting was considered to be reliable.
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relied on on missiles was human intelligence.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: There was no particular evidence other than a report that the Al Hussein missiles had been retained?
JULIAN MILLER: There was a report from a year or two previously that they had been retained, and there was, I think, a rather longer standing view that their disposal hadn't been properly accounted for. So there was an underlying concern that missiles might have been retained or sufficient parts had been retained to reconstruct missiles.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Now if we go to chemical and biological areas.
Let's start with the chemical, again looking at questions, first, about the position from May 2001, about the extent to which they were working on chemical weapons still, and then the question of stocks as well.
JULIAN MILLER: Yes. The May 2001 report reached an overall view that there had been retention of chemical capacity. In terms of the underlying reporting, there was a new source at that time -- again, I think, a UK human source -- giving an account of weaponisation of the nerve agent VX in the mid to late 1990s.
There was another new source, with older reporting, about production in the earlier 1990s, but still, I think, after the First Gulf War, and then there was of course an aspect of the reporting which we received through liaison on mobile laboratories, which had been principally about biological, but also mentioned possible chemical production. The view at the time by the technical experts was that if there were mobile facilities of that sort, they were more likely to have a role in filling chemical munitions than the production of chemical
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agents.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Can we just look at the VX reports? How were these judged? Were they seen to be from people who might know, who would know? JULIAN MILLER: *********************************************** ****************************************************************************************************************************************************** **************.2 So they seemed to be reports to which we should pay serious attention, given the indications that they were from people who would have been in a position to know. But one of them, at least, was a new source. I think there was inevitably a question over whether that that was established sufficiently for us to be fully reliant on it.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: I think UNMOVIC did find some evidence on VX activity. Were these sources related to the evidence that UNMOVIC --
JULIAN MILLER: I'm afraid I don't know.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: No, they found traces of VX in warheads, as I recall, but I can't, I'm afraid, immediately date that. It would be late 1990s, I think.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So if we just move forward with chemical to March 2002 to September, there's more information coming through during the course of 2002.
JULIAN MILLER: There was a certain amount underlying the March paper, not very much new intelligence underlying the March paper, but one of the reports on ballistic missiles had carried at least the implication that the person reporting believed that there was filling of missile warheads with chemical agents.
2 The witness outlined briefly the information that had been available to the Assessments staff about the access of the sources.
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************************************************************************************************************************. Again, it wasn't particularly influential on the assessments, but it carried an implication that there was knowledge of these programmes proceeding. But for the March report, there wasn't a great deal of new concrete intelligence to build on the picture from the previous year.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: How much through all of this are you still essentially relying on the materials that had been gathered by the inspectors up to 1998 and unanswered questions left over from then?
JULIAN MILLER: I think that was still a very significant part of the overall assessment, that the view had been that there were significant unanswered questions about disposal of agents and precursors, which led people to be suspicious and concerned that there had been potential, and then there was the limited intelligence indications that added some weight to those concerns.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Could I just come in on that? The May 2001 paper had a slightly firmer judgment on continued retention of agents and weapons indeed, and that was further back. That was clearly -- it certainly was more reliant on previous discoveries and inspections and standing judgments, if you like, based on previous experience of their possession and use and interest in the capability.
But, of course, back in May quite a lot of attention had been paid to reconstruction of chemical production facilities, which had in the past been used for agent production. So that was quite an important feature which underpinned the judgment in May 2001, which was actually slightly stronger than the one that was in March 2002, on the particular issue of chemical
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agents.
JULIAN MILLER: As an example, the reconstruction of facilities is an example of where image intelligence did play a significant role because it was possible to see from that that plants which had been destroyed may have now been recreated, and in some cases recreated with apparently surprising levels of security attached to them.
THE CHAIRMAN: Albeit with a view of dual use.
JULIAN MILLER: Absolutely, and that caused a problem, of course.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Just so I understand that, basically you have got the material left over from UNSCOM. You then have new imagery of production facilities, which may or may not be for chemical weapons. This is reflected in May, but as you move on into 2002, you are a bit less sure that this is what they are likely to be for, or may be being used for at that time.
JULIAN MILLER: Certainly the assessment was less firm in March 2002 than it had been in May 2001. The reasons for that are no longer completely clear, but my view is that it reflected the judgment of the particular group of experts who had been convened on each occasion to look at the evidence. They reached slightly different conclusions on the weight to attach to it.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So, in addition to that, there wasn't much else that was new. There were just bits and pieces of reports from individuals.
JULIAN MILLER: By and large, yes.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So it was largely working on inference from what wasn't known after 1998, [inaudible] after 1998, then anything desperately new as being --
JULIAN MILLER: And the one or two reports we have touched on,
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which appear to add some substance.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Then on the biological weapons --
JULIAN MILLER: Would it be just worth carrying forward a little on chemical?
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Yes, sure.
JULIAN MILLER: Because after March, then there was some additional reporting which was influential.
There was an assessment in August which picked up a report from an established and reliable source which referred to the intention to use weapons. I think it didn't distinguish between chemical and biological. It implied both were intended to be used. *********************************************************** ****************************************************************************************************************************************************************.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: I was going to come on to that in a moment, but as we're there --
JULIAN MILLER: Sorry.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: That's fine. Let's just talk about that.
JULIAN MILLER: The fuller reporting then came in to influence the September report. That was from one established and reliable source, which was quoting senior Iraqi officers, ************* ********************************************, about the use of CBW, and there was a report from another source, another one of the very well-established sources, ******** about the determination of the Iraqi regime to have CBW capable missiles, and the reliance on these weapons as being a contributor or an important part of the ability to project power in the region, to
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establish Iraq as a regional power.
There was another report about the use of CBW against the Shia population internally. Again it was from a reliable source.
So there was a body of reporting by September that was talking not about technical details of production, but about an understanding that these weapons were available, and that there was a clear place for them in Iraq's thinking about how to conduct itself and how to maintain its regional influence.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Can you tell us a bit more about the source and how reliable the source was supposed to be? Was this somebody who had given intelligence in the past and was reliable in that sense? Did that include would definitely know about these issues, or were they providing with hearsay that was taken seriously because of the person that was providing it?
JULIAN MILLER: There were different sources. In the assessment staff we didn't seek to have expertise in the sourcing of the intelligence. So we relied on rather summary accounts of the sourcing given in the reports, which tended to characterise it as new or established, reliable or not yet proven, and we give some indication of whether the reporting was direct or indirect.
The reporting that we saw from ******** we did understand was reliable and established, and reflecting direct knowledge of what senior people in the regime were saying.
The other streams were reporting, I think, slightly further removed. The stream which reported ********3 (John, correct me) was coming through an intermediary.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Was this the intelligence upon which the Prime Minister's claim in the foreword that the threat was growing and current, is that the basis for that assertion?
3 Reporting from this source was withdrawn by SIS in autumn 2004
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SIR JOHN SCARLETT: If I can just, before I answer that directly, as Julian said, at the time the separation of the different streams of reporting wasn't always clear to assessment staff. But all the reports that he was referring to were established and reliable. SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: *******************? SIR JOHN SCARLETT: *******************. I think, with slight benefit of hindsight, I can now say that essentially we are talking about three different streams of reporting at that time which were coming through in a two-week period at the time the 9 September assessment was being prepared and discussed. In the case of ********4 and of course that was the one which was the 45-minute report as well, and was an established and reliable reporting, but reporting from a line of subsources, but of course they were named subsources. That was that point.
On the question of the reporting that Julian referred to as coming from the codename source ******** this was established and reliable with direct access.
It said in the report that he was quoting what he knew from his colleagues, but this was a very well placed source and he was speaking with confidence, when one reads the report. So that was taken as an influential and authoritative view of what was being thought and said inside the regime, and indeed, looking back on it afterwards, and bearing in mind what the ISG found and all that stuff, it probably was what he was hearing, and this is not a source who has subsequently come into question in terms of his reliability.
So what we are getting, of course, is one of the best examples of the problem of picking up what was thought or misthought inside the senior levels of the regime. Then there
4 Reporting from this source was withdrawn by SIS in autumn 2004
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was the third source we were talking about.
But of course, in addition, there was additional, the compartmented report which came on 11 September, which was not reflected in the 9 September assessment because the dates were slightly wrong. That was a new source with direct access.
THE CHAIRMAN: Sorry to interrupt, Sir John. It was not the date was wrong; it simply arrived after the closing date --
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes. What I mean is that the dates didn't fit. It couldn't have been because we didn't know about it until 11 September. But of course I'm mentioning it because Sir Lawrence talked about what the Prime Minister said, and that report -- and then there was a subsequent report a little later in the month, but after he'd spoken in the House of Commons. But that report, he was aware of it. I think he said in his own testimony that he was aware of it, and he had received a briefing on it and, as he said, I think in his own testimony, Mr Blair, that was influential with him. I can't remember the exact words that he used in his testimony.
So in terms of what was in his mind when it comes to the word "growing", I think it's important to state that that was the reporting that he was seeing, and he was receiving a judgment from the JIC which said that production of agent is continuing and it's happening now.
So it is possible -- I'm just saying it's possible to conclude that if you are being told that the production is continuing, it's possible to conclude that therefore the issue is growing, if I can put it like that.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: It was accumulating?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So this last source was again a British
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source, a UK source?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: And how did that look in retrospect, that particular source?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, that source was not substantiated and it was the first of the reporting to be withdrawn. It was withdrawn in late July 2003.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Where did that source come from?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, it was a source -- well, I think you have to ask SIS that question. It was presented to us in the terms that I have just described.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Thank you very much for that. So the reports about taxi drivers and so on picking this stuff up has no credibility?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, we can only speak for what we knew at the time. What we knew at the time was that that, for example, 45-minute point was ascribed to a named official ************ *****************************************************. So it was a named -- it was a subsource, but it was a named individual, and we had every reason to believe that he knew what he was talking about.
JULIAN MILLER: In terms of the assessment we wrote in September, there were six of these new reports from apparently solid sources which contributed to the judgment set out in that assessment.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: How many of those were subsequently withdrawn?
THE CHAIRMAN: We are going to come on to that, I think.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Just finally on this, on the biological weapons.
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JULIAN MILLER: Yes.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: The mobile production laboratories. They were first introduced, I think, in May 2001. Again, can you tell us a bit more about the sourcing of this information and how it was viewed?
JULIAN MILLER: The initial view in May was that, as I understood it, not having arrived myself until afterwards, was that the material had probably come to us through liaison channels, I think slightly indirectly. This was clearly reporting from liaison channels. It wasn't reporting which we had direct control, but it appeared to tie in with some understandings that the British experts had of previous interest in use of mobile facilities. So it wasn't seen as being inherently implausible.
By March there was some further view taken on this by the experts who were looking at the indications of the reporting, but I don't think that by March there was any very substantial change in the view that this was an interesting and plausible indication.
But there was also other reporting from a new source on a possible laboratory, and there had been previous reporting in May, also from a [SIS] source, of anthrax production in the early 1990s. So there was a slight accumulation of evidence, and that, taken together with the more thorough review of the reporting on the mobile laboratories, which I believe had continued to come in from the liaison source over that period, led to a slight strengthening in March of the judgment that BW production was likely to be continuing. SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: *****************? SIR JOHN SCARLETT: ***************. SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: ***************************************.
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JULIAN MILLER: By August, as I have said, there was other reporting, if you like contextual reporting, on the intention to use and the importance attached to possession of biological as well as chemical. That also played a role in the assessments of August and September. But the view on the mobile reporting continued to be that this was quite a detailed stream of reporting by this stage, from a liaison source, judged to be plausible by the UK experts, and so indicative but not conclusive.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Was there a debate amongst the experts, or was it generally accepted?
JULIAN MILLER: There was discussion amongst the experts, I think, as to what the technical details of the reporting showed and whether there was any other interpretation to be put on it, but at this stage it was judged to be plausible and likely to be used for production of biological agent.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: If I can just come in on that, as I understand it, although this goes back before our time, the first reporting on the mobile laboratories had come through from liaison in early 2000. So the first assessment which reflected it, if only briefly, was, I think, April 2000. Then, if you like, its sort of influence on assessments built up, and between May 2001 and March 2002 there was a change, as Julian said. There was more reporting coming in from this debriefing.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Was this the same source all the way through?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: The same source, but more reporting coming in, more detail, more debriefing and so on, and then also having expert review and consideration. What was said, I think, in the assessment itself in March 2002, but I haven't got it in front of
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me, was that although there was no corroboration at that stage for the reporting, it was judged by the experts to be technically credible and indicated significant production in 1998 and 1999, and of course that was also at the same time set against separate reporting, not from the same source, on procurement of large amounts of growth media, which at that stage was influential in the assessment. JULIAN MILLER: Yes, I think that's right, ********************* **********************.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: And that growth really was far in excess, according to expert judgment, of what was needed for any other legitimate purpose. There was another indication of activity.
As a result of that, in March 2002 there was a change in the judgment of the production capacity of Iraq for biological agent, which up until that stage had been stated as they could begin production, more production, within weeks, and then that changed to within days, and the reason for that was what I have just said.
In early September 2002 there was a separate report from an established and reliable source which referred to a system that was called a fermentation system, which wasn't stated in the report as being the same as the mobiles, and there was no reason why it should have been, but was judged to be very likely to be a reference to the same general capability and the same focus on mobile production capabilities, and that was referred to in assessments after that as corroboration for the mobile reporting. So a lot of weight was placed upon the reporting ********* ************************************************************************************************************** from that source.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So just to conclude before I hand over to Sir John, you had a view about the way that the Iraqis would go
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about their biological weapons production, and that was reinforced by this other evidence coming through, first about the purchase of materials, both materials, and then this particular source that kept on producing more information.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, that was definitely their main basis for the judgment. I know we will get on to withdrawal later, but once that was withdrawn, as the Butler Report said, really the judgment about mobiles had no basis, and one has to say, was substantially not correct.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Okay.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Just before we get on to withdrawal and all of that, Roderic, do you want to ask a question?
SIR RODERIC LYNE: No, I'll wait.
THE CHAIRMAN: We are going to come on to the dossier and how all this impacted on it.
So may we turn to the post-conflict re-assessment and the withdrawal of intelligence which had been embodied in JIC's assessment up until March 2003. Can we just run through it fairly categorically?
First of all, intelligence withdrawn after the conflict was intelligence to support current possession, it was thought. This was the accelerated production. Did that continue to stand after March 2003?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: March 2003? Well, the judgment on current possession was based on a number of things. Of course there was a standing judgment which was that very probably they possessed stocks and, depending on whether we are talking about May 2001 or March 2002, weapons. But it was not a firm judgment, and that was the change between March and September, because what September did was make a firm judgment about possession.
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THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: And that change was based on the reporting from the established and reliable source from the subsources, including the intention of the use, and that was also where the 45-minute one was. It was based on -- and it was based on the established and reliable source who was quoting his knowledge, but was speaking in very definite terms about their continued possession.
THE CHAIRMAN: So it's the interpretation or assessment that changes, rather than the underlying reliability of the source and the reporting from that source. Does that make sense?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: No, not really.
THE CHAIRMAN: That source was not, as it were, discredited after the event in terms of the reporting that came in before?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, I should add, of course, because the timing is slightly complicated here, they are referring to the 9 September assessment. But of course the compartmented intelligence, which was influential, which came in on 11 September, did famously influence what was said in the dossier. Then a further report came in in late September, and then actually a composite version of that reporting was issued in early April 2003. So that was still considered to be sound reporting as of that date.
THE CHAIRMAN: Right.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: That was withdrawn, the compartmented reporting, in July.
THE CHAIRMAN: July 2003?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: 2003. Yes, 29 July. That was the first line of reporting to be withdrawn.
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The one quoting the subsources on the intention to use was not actually withdrawn until 28 September 2004, but it had been known several months beforehand that that had a big question mark over it, and was referred to in those terms in the Butler Report.
I think the first I heard about that question mark was in about May 2004. Am I missing something out there?
THE CHAIRMAN: Let's go on --
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Sorry. The mobiles also was relevant to a judgment about possession, and that was withdrawn on 29 September 2004.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Can you say something about the underlying reasoning which led to withdrawal? Was it discrediting of an agent? Was it simply the unreliability of the reporting in itself? Was it knowledge deriving from ISG findings or failure to find?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, it is, of course, directly a question for SIS, which I can't speak to from my subsequent capacity. But based on, for example, what was said in the Butler Review already, as was stated there, post-conflict debriefing of the ******** source on mobiles had revealed that there had been some misreporting, and if it had been clear that he was talking about the production of slurry and not the production of a dried agent, then there were obvious implications as regards storage and long-term use from that, and that's spelled out in the Butler Report. So already by that stage, on the public record, the line of reporting had been very seriously weakened, as Lord Butler said.
THE CHAIRMAN: There was also, although this is perhaps not for either of you, ********************************************* ***************** so that he couldn't be tested.
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SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes. We were not aware of that.
THE CHAIRMAN: No.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Of course here we are dealing with a period of time a year after the conflict. A lot of effort had been put into finding these sources and finding their subsources. If that exercise didn't produce a result, then obviously it called into question the sourcing. There had been an invasion. The ground was occupied. It was an unusual situation when it came to source verification.
THE CHAIRMAN: Just a couple of other specific issues before we come on to the processes involved. The 45 minutes that we all know about.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: From the standpoint of JIC and the assessment staff, you were getting reports in plain speaking language, rather than technically assessed reporting; is that fair? The meaning of 45 minutes; was it a matter for strategic, was it 45 minutes from established forward position depots made available to front line troops or what?
JULIAN MILLER: The reporting on that wasn't expressed, as I recall, in particularly technical language. It talked about an average of 20 minutes, and a range to 45 minutes for weapons to be deployed.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
JULIAN MILLER: I'm sorry I don't have the precise wording in front of me, but it's familiar. So it was then considered by the technical experts in London, and of course was judged to be credible and consistent with the sort of approach that would be taken to the bringing forward of weapons for that use.
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THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. I suppose a reasonable question with a lot of hindsight is that the Saddam regime had used in battlefield conditions CW weapons, and so there was probably quite a lot of knowledge about how long it took to get from A to B to C, the original place of manufacture to the holding place or a depot, into somewhere closer to a front line, and then to the actual delivery. Did any of this come out of the 45-minute reporting?
JULIAN MILLER: My recollection is that the DIS looked at the reporting and judged that it was the sort of timeframe that they would expect to see being planned by the Iraqi military for bringing weapons from a forward storage area to the point of use.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
JULIAN MILLER: But, of course, that wasn't spelled out in the reporting.
THE CHAIRMAN: Precisely so.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: But that was recorded as the expert judgment at the time.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: And of course, as has been discussed subsequently, it wasn't included either in the assessment or in the dossier because it hadn't actually been in the report.
JULIAN MILLER: And there was an exchange with the DIS which led to that conclusion.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. One is not talking, is one, about withdrawal in the 45-minute report? As it stood in its narrow context, it stood.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Except the --
THE CHAIRMAN: The difficulty all arises out of the reporting of
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it and the description.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: No, the reporting was withdrawn.
THE CHAIRMAN: It was?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Because they weren't able to substantiate the subsourcing.
THE CHAIRMAN: Right. Not because it was discredited, but it simply couldn't be substantiated?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes. Well, yes, because if they had had this weaponry, and of course they had extensively had it and used it in the past, which underpinned the standing judgment, expert judgment about CW capability from the Iraqis, then the report was entirely consistent with that judgment, which was why it was accepted, why it was given weight, and of course famously why it was included in a judgment in the dossier. It wasn't just the single report. It was the standing assessment of the Iraqi capability.
So in that sense the judgment was valid. It was just that (a) the reporting was withdrawn because the sourcing couldn't be substantiated, and of course if we had known that, then obviously it wouldn't have been referred to either in the assessment or the dossier; and secondly, we haven't found any. So --
THE CHAIRMAN: We may come yet again to the use of the dossier description, but let's stay with withdrawal for the moment.
The last one I want to raise as a specific case is the Niger uranium reporting. We have got two separate streams of reporting ***************** on Niger, ********************************** *************************************. But there is then a separate stream coming into us; am I right? One is accepted as discredited.
JULIAN MILLER: In terms of --
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THE CHAIRMAN: Ours is distinguished. I'm thinking back to the Butler Report.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, this is -- a slight caveat on this. I might be getting some of the details wrong here, but the lines of reporting were ****************************. THE CHAIRMAN: ********************? SIR JOHN SCARLETT: ****************************************** ******? THE CHAIRMAN: ************************************************ *************************************************************************************** SIR JOHN SCARLETT: **************************************** ********************************************************************************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *******************************.5
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: And there was a substantial amount of documentation which subsequently became subject to much discussion, and very complicated discussion, as to what was established to be forgeries and what was not established to be forgeries, which has not been progressed beyond more or less what I have just said. Some is and some wasn't. *****************************************************************************************************************************
5 In the section that has been redacted, the witness set out his understanding of the different sources: Signals intelligence concerning a visit made by an Iraqi official to Niger, and further intelligence in 2002 that came from two independent sources that suggested Iraq had expressed an interest in buying uranium from Niger. One of the sources was based on documentary evidence about contract negotiations. The witness explained that some of this material, including the signals intelligence, stood. The witness then went on to refer to the separate documentary material that others states had received from a journalistic source which had been discussed in the Butler report.
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*************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************. THE CHAIRMAN: ****************************************** ***************************************************************************************************************************. SIR JOHN SCARLETT: ************** - THE CHAIRMAN: ************** - JULIAN MILLER: ***********. SIR JOHN SCARLETT: **************************.
THE CHAIRMAN: That's fine. Thank you. I can't resist a reference to the fact that somebody described Niger as having only two exports.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, I think 75 per cent of their exports were, at that point, uranium.
THE CHAIRMAN: And the rest were chickens. SIR JOHN SCARLETT: It's not got many exports. ***************.
THE CHAIRMAN: Let's come on to the validation process. Again, this has been in the purview of the Butler Committee, but it's worth just revisiting, I think.
First of all, the body of intelligence about Iraq's WMDs before the invasion. Were there well-founded doubts expressed about this body of intelligence pre-conflict by anyone?
JULIAN MILLER: No, I don't recall any doubts being expressed about the body of the intelligence reporting. Clearly some streams were very well-established and reliable. Others were less established. But the overall body of material was accepted, certainly in the JIC community, as being a sound basis for the
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conclusions that we reached.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. To put it plainly, there was no reason to report concerns to the Prime Minister about this whole body of intelligence pre-conflict because concerns were not, as it were, coming forward. He was entitled to accept what he was being given, what he was reading, what assessments --
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Nobody was telling him, to my knowledge, that there was a contrary flow of reporting, there were contrary indications, there was contrary advice coming through. There was no contrary advice coming through, and there was no challenge of that kind taking place.
When I say "challenge", I mean authoritative people from within the system coming forward and saying no, this is fundamentally wrong. That was not happening within the intelligence community, to our knowledge.
SIR MARTIN GILBERT: Was that something that could happen on quite other issues, that there would be this questioning of intelligence?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, it certainly -- I mean, as far as I was aware, there was a culture of free speech. I don't remember trying to suppress anything on any issue during my time there. So if people had -- if anybody in a position to make a judgment or give a view had wanted to challenge this, or indeed anything else that was happening at that time, then I'm sure they would have done so.
JULIAN MILLER: Perhaps I could give an example, just from the assessment staff perspective. I can think of, I think, two cases where there were significant streams of reporting, not to do with Iraq in either case, but where the team on the assessment staff felt that the intelligence picture coming from these reports
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raised questions of consistency with other information, or even internal consistency, and where that reporting was challenged as a result of this, and in one case at least was withdrawn.
So there was certainly -- as John says, there was an atmosphere of free speech, but also, I hope, an atmosphere of intelligent reading of the material, and we didn't see it as our job to sort of second-guess the agencies on the reliability of their sources, but we did see it as our job to act intelligently, if the material coming through to us raised other questions.
SIR MARTIN GILBERT: So it's significant that there was no challenge?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: I think, given what happened, yes, it is significant. Of course, I know that clearly a great deal of subsequent debate about expert opinion on particular points, for example -- well, most particularly within DIS. They were on important but all the same points of detail. In terms of the overall thrust of the judgment about possession there was no challenge at the JIC level at that time at all, and indeed, nor subsequently in the months following, nor subsequently in the immediate few weeks after the conflict began.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Just following this through though, because one of the issues that has been raised is the regular references to patchy intelligence and so on. Part of it is an awareness that though the community may have come to a shared view, possibly strongly held, it was still based on quite limited amounts of actual material, much of it still left over from the 1990s from the UNSCOM period.
JULIAN MILLER: As the assessment said, the intelligence was patchy. It was sporadic. It didn't flow through in great volumes routinely, particularly prior to the summer of 2002. But I think the sense of the community was that yes, we are not
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getting a full picture, but we are getting here a pretty consistent picture, even if it is a rather patchy one, sufficient to inform these judgments, but certainly as additional intelligence came through in the course of 2002, the sense was that that did then begin to provide a weightier basis for reaching the conclusions which were set out in September.
THE CHAIRMAN: I would like to try some counter factuals in a bit, in the light of hindsight from 2004 and 2003.
Just before we get to that though, looking at withdrawal of intelligence reporting, how is that done as a process, as a system? Is it the collection agency that is responsible?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes. Yes, it was wholly the collection agency. They would take their decision. I'm trying to recall how it happened. Of course, it did happen formally rather late in the day here, and it had been flagged up publicly in Lord Butler's review that it was likely to happen. So there was an awareness within the assessment and customer community that it was likely to happen, and obviously by that stage, mid-2004, in all the circumstances, there was a great deal of questioning of the reliability of the reporting. But the responsibility for the withdrawal was absolutely, and it could only be, with the collection agency.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. I think it's important to establish the doctrine that prevails here, and has prevailed, which is that it's not for the assessment staff or the JIC to try to reassess or rather revalidate intelligence that's being supplied. Is that --
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Except, of course, clearly, if we had good reason to conclude there was something wrong with it, or it wasn't fitting in with other intelligence coming through, or indeed it wasn't being substantiated on the ground, then clearly
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an awful lot of other people would be asking questions, and that did eventually happen, although I don't think assessment staff especially led on the questioning.
JULIAN MILLER: The way you described the doctrine certainly accords with my understanding that we were recipients of the intelligence on the basis described and we gave weight to those descriptions, but we didn't try to get underneath the surface of what had led to a conclusion particularly about the reliability of any particular stream.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: Just while we are on this point, to be absolutely clear, how much in the JIC, therefore, did you know about the sources of the intelligence that were coming to you?
JULIAN MILLER: Generally, not a great deal. From time to time, when there were particular sources that the agencies attached great weight to, there was some briefing given on why they were attaching particular weight to a source. But it was all at a fairly high level of generality, and there was, for the bulk of the reporting, nothing more than the descriptors on the individual reports.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: So the three or four sentences that one gets on a [SIS] report describing the source, saying whether it's deemed not reliable or established, is essentially what you knew?
JULIAN MILLER: And sometimes whether it is direct or indirect.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Obviously I have thought about this a lot subsequently, and in any case the key Butler recommendation which subsequently has had a lot of work done on it, but there was no -- at that time none of us in assessment staff, including me, knew the details of this sourcing. Nor were we clear how many lines of reporting there were, and I know that because just
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before the conflict I was asking those questions: how many lines of reporting are we actually talking about? So I know that --
SIR RODERIC LYNE: You referred earlier to three streams of reporting.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, three streams of reporting which were influential on the question of possession in early September 2002. But taken overall, I think as of mid-March 2003, looking at the sort of overall contribution from Humint reporting which was coming from SIS, I think we said five lines by that stage. But, I mean, that was a general statement which we were given by the agency. It wasn't something that reflected research and real knowledge on our part.
Now, in terms of the compartmented intelligence which came through in mid-September, 11 September and subsequently, 2002, we were told that this was important, potentially important reporting, but a new source, with a little bit more about the nature of the access and the access of the subsource, but a very limited amount, not really possible to make -- much of it.
Now, of course, one of the conclusions, correct conclusions of the Butler Review was that this was not an adequate system, and the assessors and the analysts needed to be in a better position to understand the nature of reporting flows, and therefore to question them when really important issues and assessment judgments were coming up. There has been a major change in that area subsequently.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: But at that time, as consumers of Humint from SIS, you basically had to rely on the assumption that the traditional rigorous process of internal validation of a report within SIS, before it is even put out as a [SIS report], was still robust and operative, and any further questions about that are ones we should direct to the person who would see it at the
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time, rather than to you. But from where you sat, you were confident that anything coming to you from SIS had already been through a robust process of internal validation.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes, exactly. At the end of the day, it had to be, and has to be now.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: It wasn't for you to question that.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well, we didn't question it, and as far as we were concerned, just to be blunt about it, we were seeing a lot of established and reliable intelligence reporting coming through on this subject in this period of time.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: And was any of this coming from emigre sources?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Not to my knowledge. JULIAN MILLER: No, I don't think so. ********************* ****************************************************.
THE CHAIRMAN: C gave evidence to the Butler Committee that they were extremely sceptical of --
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes, that's right, and we were aware of that risk. Anything we had which came near it, we definitely didn't take any notice of. So that idea that we were reliant on emigre reporting is not true. Not that I think that anybody authoritatively ever said it, but it's out there.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: It's out there, so it's important to establish this clearly. Even if not reliant upon it, could these streams of emigre reporting ****************************** have had some influence on us, or do you think they were pretty well shut out by -- SIR JOHN SCARLETT: ******************************************** *******************************.
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SIR RODERIC LYNE: But they weren't creeping into the margins of your assessments?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: No. I don't know, you may have a good -- I'd like to go back on it, but this question of sporadic and patchy was raised. Do you want me to come back to it?
THE CHAIRMAN: I think I would rather leave that to the dossier in a few minutes. What I'm going to try and do is finish this round of questioning in five or so minutes, and then have a bit of a break and then come back to it.
What I would like to do is to try a couple of counter factuals. We are in a position now where the intelligence withdrawn after the conflict has been withdrawn. Then go back to September 2002. What would it have been possible to say by way of judgments about Saddam having active programmes, based on such intelligence as has not been subsequently withdrawn? I know it's counter factual, but it's --
JULIAN MILLER: It's a point which, of course, we have thought a little about. The position in May 2001 didn't, I think, draw on the withdrawn intelligence. So the view then, based on the historical context and some limited additional intelligence, would, I think, have rolled forward into 2002. There would have been some supplementary intelligence which had not been withdrawn, including from ********, which would have added to a view on continuing production and a view on existence of these weapons and intent to use them and reliance.
So by September I think we would have been in a position which was less firm than in the published assessment, the existing assessment, but which was somewhat firmer on possession and production than the position we had reached in 2001.
THE CHAIRMAN: Right. So it's a reasonable inference to say that
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there is relevant and still valid post UNSCOM, post 1998 reporting, which contributed to assessments in 2001?
JULIAN MILLER: Well, there's intelligence which hasn't been withdrawn, which if we --
THE CHAIRMAN: And which had come in after UNSCOM leaves in 1998?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Here I think we are talking about 2002.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
JULIAN MILLER: Yes.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: I'm not completely sure Julian will agree with me on this, but disagree of course because it's free speech.
If all that reporting hadn't been in play, if there had been no mobile reporting taken seriously, if there had been nothing from, if I can call it that, the 45-minute source on intent to use, and of course that reporting continued to come through during the autumn -- there was further reporting in November, for example -- and if there hadn't been the compartmented source, there might have been a slight firming up of the March 2002 judgment on possession. But already the March 2002 judgment on certainly Iraq's pursuit of its nuclear programme -- of its WMD programme was already pretty strong actually. That would have only slightly firmed up, but it would definitely not have been as firm on either possession, and we wouldn't have talked about production in the way that we did.
JULIAN MILLER: Yes. I pretty much agree with that. I think that some of the ********6 reporting would have been influential still on both points, but -- SIR JOHN SCARLETT: ***************************************** *****************************************************************
6 A well established source.
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********************************************************************************************************************************* ***************************************************************** *************************************************************************.7
SIR RODERIC LYNE: So it's a question of access, not of the honesty of the source?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: It's more than access, because it's the nature of the regime and the kinds of things that people thought at the very top of the regime. In a normal regime it would have been regarded as well placed and authoritative.
THE CHAIRMAN: The real question for those doing the validation is: is this more than a report of a prevailing perception? Is it actually a report of a factual situation? It was actually the former. SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes, ************************************ *****************************. So weight was placed on his reporting.
SIR MARTIN GILBERT: If you withdraw the withdrawn material, you could still create a dossier.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes. Well, we would have done, because the decision on the dossier wasn't related to that report.
SIR MARTIN GILBERT: It would still have been a dossier of substance.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes, but it would not have said some important things which it did say.
THE CHAIRMAN: I have just got one last thing on this, which is
7 In the redacted section, the witness explained why the material in question had not been withdrawn and went on to explain that it was reflecting something that he viewed as actually quite important: what was believed in the source's circle of high level contacts.
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really a cross-check. This is very much for you, Sir John, as JIC chairman at the time.
Sir David Omand told us in evidence that intelligence was extremely hard to find in 2001, 2002, 2003:
"SIS overpromised and underdelivered because when it became clear that intelligence was hard to find, they really had to bust a gut to generate it."
That's what David said --
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Well --
THE CHAIRMAN: -- from the standpoint of JIC.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: Yes. Well, I have been clear about the weight that we placed on the lines of reporting that were coming through and how they appeared to us at the time.
I think what David was referring to there was the situation in January and February 2003, when UNMOVIC were not finding things, and so the reaction might have been: well, why is that? But the reaction was: well it's there. This just goes to show that UNMOVIC aren't much use and we will find it. I think that's what he was referring to.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: And I understand why he says that.
THE CHAIRMAN: I would just like to ask one small set of questions about the declarations of the weapons programme, the inspection process between the return of the inspectors, and then we will break for tea.
So in the light of what by July 2004 we know, is it possible to reassess Saddam's December 2002 declaration? It was assessed at the time -- this might be 9,000 pages long, 11,000. This is really quite important because it's about the degree of completeness, accuracy, therefore compliance with the provisions
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of SCR1441. The assessment at the time is one thing, but if we had reassessed the intelligence, say a year or a year and a half later, would we have made a different assessment of that declaration?
JULIAN MILLER: It's not an issue that I have thought about or looked into. I think my immediate reaction is that we would have to have reached a somewhat different conclusion because some of our concerns about Saddam's declaration were rooted in the intelligence view about the extent of his possession and continuing programme.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, because the material balance, or rather imbalance, was not being explained in the declaration.
JULIAN MILLER: Yes, and the declaration, I think, was deficient in other respects, in that it didn't address some of the particular concerns that had been raised about past declarations by the Iraqi authorities. So -- I'm sorry, this is a rather unstructured response, but I think there would still have been some serious reservations about it, but that they would have been less pronounced than they were at the time.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: I think this needs careful answering, this question, because of the nature of the requirements which were placed on the Iraqi side in this particular declaration. Even allowing for what we now know, or don't know, there was a lot -- a detailed study of the declaration, which I'm afraid I'm not offering, I suspect would show that there were a whole series of deficiencies and ways in which one -- for example, it was subsequently established by the ISG that they had unilaterally destroyed their agent stockpile in 1991, they hadn't told anybody, and of course they didn't say anything about that in the declaration. Ditto they didn't say anything about the destruction of Al Hussein in 1992, which of course they should
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have done in the declaration.
There was a lot of concealment which was going on. They said nothing about the further design work on missiles and so on. So there would have been a whole series of points where the declaration would still have been found to be, as it were, not conforming with 1441. Now, of course how much weight would have then been placed on those conclusions would have been a political judgment, but in technical terms, I think you would find a lot of those boxes would have been ticked now, I suspect.
THE CHAIRMAN: We have got the inspectors in between November 2002 until they were withdrawn in mid-March, and they are both getting -- their work is the subject of intelligence reporting over that period.
Are there any doubts, deficiencies, or indeed achievements and successes, that one ought to draw attention to in that period? There have been, on the one hand, from UNMOVIC complaints from Blix that they were not getting enough intelligence reporting to help with the finds, et cetera, et cetera. On the other hand there doesn't seem to be an outstanding gap or failing.
I just wonder whether you would like to comment from the standpoint of JIC and the assessment staff. This was a major objective, wasn't it?
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: At the time -- of course there's been a lot of discussion now, and not least with the Committee, as to, as it were, what impact was being made on policy makers, and also on intelligence assessment, by the failure to find things.
I can only say that at that time -- this is a very short period of time. Progress and events are measured in days and in a small number of weeks. Events move very fast. At the time the stated view was that they had found things, and that there were
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items in the intelligence --
THE CHAIRMAN: Agent cases.
SIR JOHN SCARLETT: -- and documents(?) and so on, which were bearing out the intelligence, and I definitely said that a...
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
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