Intelligence

Spymaster blamed for Iraq muddle

David Leppard
September 07, 2003

THE government’s handling of vital intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction was muddled and confused, a committee of senior parliamentarians is preparing to tell Tony Blair.

In a report to the prime minister on how intelligence was gathered in the run-up to the Iraq war, the intelligence and security committee (ISC) has concluded that Whitehall officials made what sources describe as a “muddled series of judgments” when including the infamous 45-minute claim.

The findings, expected to be published this week, are likely to be seen as a criticism of John Scarlett, Britain’s most senior spymaster. As chairman of the joint intelligence committee (JIC), Scarlett had overall responsibility for drawing up the Iraq dossier.

In secret hearings over the past three months, MI6 and defence officials have given the committee conflicting evidence about what they thought the 45-minute warning referred to.

Some believed it meant a local artillery commander would take 45 minutes to fire chemical or biological shells once he had received orders. Others told the committee they believed it referred to the time it would take from Saddam giving the command to fire the shells. Some in the media presented it as the time it would take Saddam to strike Britain.

The committee is understood to have concluded that “muddled” thinking — as opposed to a deliberate attempt by Downing Street to mislead — led to this confusion. It is believed to say that the 45-minute warning should have been fully explained, a move which would have avoided the subsequent claims that No 10 was deliberately trying to overstate the dangers posed by Saddam.

Scarlett has been a key figure in the inquiry by Lord Hutton into the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly, the government weapons expert, which is preparing to enter its second phase.

When Scarlett appeared before the inquiry, he broke with protocol to comment on the raw intelligence that the 45-minute claim was based on. It was made clear for the first time that the claim narrowly focused on battlefield munitions rather than long-range missiles.

Such weapons could be sent from “forward deployed storage sites” to military units and prepared for firing in 45 minutes. The “average” was 20 minutes, the raw intelligence said.

New witnesses to be called when the inquiry reopens a week tomorrow could include Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, Greg Dyke, director-general of the BBC, and even Richard Dearlove, head of MI6.

Mai Pederson, a mysterious US military linguist who introduced Kelly to the Baha’i faith and is said to have been an “influential” figure in his life, could also be called.

Pederson, 43, became friendly with the scientist when they were working with a United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq.

Her second husband, Jim Pederson, claimed his Kuwaiti-born former wife worked for US military intelligence and would have targeted Kelly as a potential source.

“Part of her military training was to cultivate anyone who might be able to help her in her intelligence work,” he said. “It may well have been why she zeroed in on Dr Kelly.”

Kelly’s widow Janice told the inquiry that Mai Pederson had been “quite influential” with her husband’s faith and had become a family friend.

In addition Hutton will recall for further examination several of the 67 witnesses who have already given evidence. Andrew Gilligan, the BBC journalist whose report on the 45-minute claim sparked the row which led to Kelly’s death, and Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, are likely to face the toughest grilling.

In a newspaper interview yesterday, Hoon complained about the building pressure, including the presence of photographers outside his home. He appeared to accept that his fate lay in Hutton’s hands, saying he would wait to see the inquiry’s findings before considering his position.

Last week was one of the worst for the government since Hutton opened his inquiry three weeks ago into the circumstances of Kelly’s death. In compelling testimony last Monday, Janice Kelly described how her husband felt “totally let down and betrayed” by his Ministry of Defence bosses.

The week ended with damning evidence from Richard Taylor, an adviser and spin doctor to Hoon. The minister had told Hutton that he “played no part” in the strategy that led to Kelly’s name as Gilligan’s source being made public.

Taylor’s evidence appeared to torpedo this claim. He testified that a meeting chaired by Hoon had “explicitly talked through” the strategy.

The issue at the heart of Hutton’s inquiry is relatively simple. Did Kelly’s treatment by the BBC and government contribute to his suicide and, if so, whose actions were to blame? The BBC and Gilligan have been badly tarnished by the evidence to date, as has the Downing Street spin machine headed by Alastair Campbell, the defence ministry and Hoon.

It now seems clear that Gilligan’s initial report was seriously flawed and the BBC should have have issued a retraction. Evidence has been produced to show that Campbell did not demand the insertion of the 45-minute warning in the dossier against the wishes of the intelligence services.

However, the government may still be found wanting on the broader charge that it “spun” the dossier to strengthen the case for war. Hutton has heard how the presentation — as opposed to the substance — of the dossier was hardened by a blizzard of recommendations from Campbell and his team.

Gilligan’s “flawed reporting” (as one BBC e-mail described it) has also ensnared Gavyn Davies, the corporation’s chairman. Davies was embarrassed by the disclosure of an e-mail written by Gilligan to the foreign affairs select committee which appeared to name Kelly as the source when the BBC was publicly saying it would not disclose his identity.

This week’s ISC report will fuel the controversy. Its conclusions on the 45-minute warning are unlikely to please the government as it suggests the entire row and perhaps even Kelly’s death could have been avoided had clearer language been used.

The ISC report is understood to clear Campbell of any wrongdoing and will therefore highlight the flaws in the BBC’s reporting. The committee’s findings will also refocus debate on the role of Scarlett, the JIC chairman, who told Hutton that he had insisted on having “ownership” of the document.

Scarlett told the inquiry last month that Kelly, who was sceptical of the 45-minute claim, probably thought it referred to missiles with ranges of hundreds of miles. In fact it related to short-range “munitions (and) mortar shells”. Scarlett also said he had not been aware of any dissenting voices in the intelligence community.

Last week, however, Brian Jones, a recently retired senior weapons expert with the defence intelligence staff, said he and fellow officials had had concerns about the intelligence and the way it was presented.

The information, Jones said, had been passed to MI6 from an informant who got it from an unidentified Iraqi army officer. “It didn’t really give us any real feel that the primary source knew very much about the subject,” said Jones. “There was a lack of detail.”

In its report, the ISC has concluded that the 45-minute tip came to MI6 from someone who had proved reliable in the past. But when it came to be presented in the dossier “nobody actually knew what they were saying”, a source said.

The committee’s conclusions will be cold comfort for Scarlett. He told the inquiry the JIC had approved the dossier but Jones challenged whether intelligence officials did actually sign off on it. If Hutton rules that standard procedures for producing such reports were by-passed, it will prove damaging for Scarlett and the government.

As the potential witnesses — such as Hoon, Scarlett, Campbell, Gilligan and Davies — wait to hear who Hutton is going to recall, none will be having a comfortable weekend.

September 9, 2003 at 11:19 PM in MI6 | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home