Intelligence

Big business will pacify the clash of cultures

Big business will pacify the clash of cultures - Times Online

The world will move together as it builds the bodies through which we can all trust each other more

Francis Fukuyama

Professor Samuel Huntington argued in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilisations that, after the cold war, world politics would be dominated not by conflicts between rival ideologies but by conflicts between civilisations and cultures. He wrote that the power of culture would trump the integrating forces of globalisation, and that people’s loyalties would ultimately be defined communally – based on ties of religion, ethnicity and shared history.

Huntington characterised the values of the western Enlightenment, democracy and individual rights prominent among them, as projections of the values of western Christianity, reasoning that other cultures with other values would create different types of institutions.

In the decade since it was published, many have argued that the clash of civilisations hypothesis has been proved right by events. There has been a broad rise in religious energies and identity, particularly notable in the Muslim world with the emergence of radical Islamism, but also evident in south Asia, Latin America, the United States and Russia.

The issues raised by the clash of civilisations thesis are clearly relevant because they raise a key question: Are natural political spaces of trust created by culture, or can we integrate on a more global, perhaps even universal, basis?

I both agree and disagree with the “clash of civilisations” thesis. I agree that cultural factors have become the prism through which many people see international affairs today. On the other hand, I believe that this point of view underestimates the integrating forces driving global development, and the way in which the modernisation process is forcing a convergence of institutions and approaches to governance on an increasingly world-wide scale.

Huntington is right that political identity based on shared culture is not going to disappear in the foreseeable future. It would be profoundly undemocratic if global economic forces stripped local communities of their ability to decide how to structure their common political life.

It is certainly true, too, that different countries must find their own routes to modernity. The specific paths that western Europe, the United States, Japan, Russia and other countries have taken are all different.

Modernisation and development arise from the efforts of the people who live in a given society, not from those of outsiders. Countries can learn from one another, but their ability to shape outcomes in foreign lands is usually very limited. This is something that the United States has painfully learnt over the past four years in Iraq.

The question we need to address, however, is whether we are taking different paths to the same endpoint – an endpoint of a single world civilisation – or whether different human cultures are heading to fundamentally different places.

My view, contrary to Professor Huntington’s, is that modernisation itself in the long run requires the convergence of many types of institutions, regardless of cultural starting points. And economic integration between states is most productive, and results in the most durable forms of trust, when it is based on transparent rule-bound institutions rather than the looser ties of cultural affinity.

The starting point of any country’s development is the state, which Max Weber, the German sociologist, defined as a monopoly of legitimate force over a defined territory. But while the state begins with coercion, the miracle of the modern state is its ability to solve the paradox of power – namely, that a state has to be strong enough to enforce laws and provide order, yet it must constrain its own exercise of power if there is to be long-term economic growth.

It is state weakness that explains anaemic economic growth in many parts of the developing world. All societies need order, rule of law, a government that provides basic public goods and a reasonably fair distribution of resources. If rulers cannot govern effectively, if they are highly corrupt and divert public resources to private ends, if they behave arbitrarily, then they will undercut the savings and investment needed for long-term growth. It is therefore no surprise that by the end of the 1990s, better governance and more competent states became the order of the day.

How does a modern state achieve good governance? Good governance is not a gift given by rulers to the ruled. It ultimately has to be based on accountability mechanisms which ensure that rulers truly serve the interests of the ruled, not just their own interests or those of their friends and families.

Governments can be held accountable in a number of ways. The most familiar are those vertical accountability mechanisms known as elections. But there are also mechanisms of horizontal accountability that work when different parts of a government monitor each other’s performance.

Parliaments and courts, independent of the executive, are of course crucial. Furthermore, there are mechanisms outside the formal political system. Accountability requires transparency regarding the behaviour of rulers, for bad governments seldom report on their own failures and transgressions. That is why good governance requires an independent media and the institutions of civil society to monitor the behaviour of the state.

Thus, effective modern states are as notable for the constraints they put on themselves as they are for their ability to concentrate power.

Whether within or among states, trust can arise from one of two sources. The first is cultural, where trust derives from shared values, traditions and history. In all societies, trust begins with family and kinship and then slowly radiates out to a broader range of social groups. The second form of trust is based on shared interests.

This kind of trust can exist between complete strangers with nothing in common culturally and who may operate in different parts of the world. This kind of trust is based on institutions.

Of the two forms of trust, the cultural version is clearly the most natural and widespread, but it is also more primitive. All human beings organise themselves into primary social groups or cultural communities and nearly all people fall back on such groups in times of trouble or crisis.

The second form of trust expands the potential radius of trust indefinitely. It is more durable because it is based on self-interest and it is the basis of modern economic interdependence. Trust becomes increasingly anchored in reciprocal self-inter-est rather than culture as countries modernise. Globalisation provides the opportunity to expand markets far beyond the limits of one’s own community, requiring development of an impersonal, structured institutional framework by which trust can emerge between complete strangers.

A case in point: businesses in China and in Chinese-speaking societies were traditionally structured around the family. It was difficult to trust strangers or enter into business relationships with someone to whom you were not related.

While this kinship-based form of social capital worked to a degree and for a while, it was limiting. It meant that family-owned businesses could not grow into large, professionally managed companies.

There are many political reasons for countries to decide to align with one another on grounds of cultural, ethnic or historical commonality. But economic rationality demands that trust be based on more impersonal criteria and here the degree to which a country’s institutions are law-governed and transparent takes pride of place.

Integration in the global economy will be more durable and productive of shared prosperity to the extent that it can be based on interests rather than passions, on institutions rather than culture. This is not a western perspective; it is a global one.

© American Interest/ Global Viewpoint 2007

August 12, 2007 at 11:14 AM in Cold War, Middle East, Muslim background, Political | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

From Roland Watson in Washington

Times Online - World

From Roland Watson in Washington

AS THE early-evening gathering of Bush family and friends grew nervous, one floor below them in the White House a 53-year-old man with a deceptively cherubic face was fighting a one-man battle against the polls

Karl Rove was busting his ample gut to tell the President, White House staff, Republicans, television channels � anyone who would listen � that Mr Bush was not losing, as the early exit polls suggested.

Ensconced in his self-styled �bat cave�, a temporary office set up for him in the old family dining room, Mr Rove was surrounded by television screens and linked by computer directly to the Bush-Cheney 2004 headquarters two miles to the west in Virginia and the Republican Party�s national offices a mile to the east.

Mr Rove, known as �turd-blossom� to his master and �Bush�s brain� to his detractors, was like a mad scientist, Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, said. �He was in his element.�

He was also right.

Mr Rove can claim more credit for Mr Bush�s re-election triumph than anyone other than the President. The strategist who masterminded Mr Bush�s three previous elections, two for the Texas governorship, was always going to emerge from this presidential election as either an electoral genius or a snake oil salesman.

The strategy and tactics were his alone. He shaped the battleground and crafted the message. He recruited and marshalled the troops and issued their orders. And he got it all just about right.

Mr Rove, whose job title as senior adviser to the President gives little clue to his vast influence, was nearly ruinously embarrassed four years ago. On the eve of election day 2000, he was publicly predicting a Bush win by three or four percentage points, and was left with egg on his face when Al Gore won the popular vote.

Mr Rove gambled his reputation � and a second Bush term � on his belief that the discrepancy between his prediction and the result was because four million evangelical Christians had stayed at home, possibly influenced by the eleventh-hour disclosure that Mr Bush had had a drink-driving charge against him as a young man.

Those missing voters became the Holy Grail of Mr Rove�s campaign strategy, which was based on the judgment that the election would not be won in the centre, as has been convention, but by whichever side did the best job of turning out its base.

His thinking was that there were more potential votes on the Right for Mr Bush than in the narrow centre of a sharply divided country. So he went after every last social conservative, gun owner, churchgoer, rural dweller and small business owner, making the choice as much about cultural values as Iraq, national security or the economy. Mr Bush threw red meat to his Christian base at regular intervals. He signed a Bill tightening abortion rules and this year came out publicly against gay marriage, favouring a constitutional amendment which spelt out that marriage is between a man and a woman.

He failed to push for a renewal of the ten-year-old ban on assault weapons. Early in his term, he banned any federal money going to groups, including Third World aid agencies, that counselled or endorsed abortion. Until the final days of the campaign, he made no overtures to disaffected Democrats.

But the politics would not have worked without the other pillars of Mr Rove�s strategy � massive funding and a get-out-the-vote operation like nothing that the Republican Party had ever seen.

At the turn of the year, while Democrats were still caught up in the primary process to choose their nominee, Mr Rove was masterminding the construction of a pyramid of volunteers that would deliver Mr Bush victory. In every precinct of every county of every swing state, the Republican machine had a precinct captain who gave each volunteer the task of signing up 50 votes to deposit in the Republican bank.

When it looked rocky for Mr Bush on Tuesday night, Mr Rove did not predict victory as he shuttled up to the family quarters and back. He simply said that he felt good about how the President was faring. Almost certainly he knew history was about to prove him right.

ROVING AT LARGE
# Karl Rove is The Senior Adviser to the President. The most important part of this title is the definite article

# He enjoys a bantering relationship with his boss, which he confesses is �very childish�

# A Bill Clinton adviser says that �to Democrats, it�s definitely fear and respect when it comes to Karl Rove�

# Why respect? Rove created Compassionate Conservatism in 2000, claiming that the �old labels are dead�

# And fear? In 2004 the old labels were revived and Compassionate Conservatism hardly mentioned

# Rove claims to have no advice for Tories here in Britain because �he finds it difficult enough keeping track of politics in Travis County, Texas�

# His success proves that he does not find it difficult keeping track of politics in Travis County, Texas

November 3, 2004 at 09:45 PM in Political | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Howard wins control over Senate to tighten grip on power

Telegraph | News | Howard wins control over Senate to tighten grip on power

By Nick Squires in Sydney
(Filed: 29/10/2004)

Australia's prime minister, John Howard, won the strongest mandate of any leader in nearly 25 years yesterday when he took control of the upper house of parliament.

The result, which follows Mr Howard's fourth successive election win earlier this month, will allow him to forge ahead with contentious plans to weaken the power of the unions and privatise Australia's largest telecommunications group, Telstra.

Mr Howard's conservative coalition now holds a majority in the Senate and the lower House of Representatives, making him the first prime minister to control both chambers since 1981.

Mr Howard called the result an opportunity for change, but opposition parties and unions expressed concern over the government's unbridled power.

Although the election was nearly three weeks ago, the balance of power in the Senate only became clear after the complex preferential voting system was counted.

The government now holds 39 of the 76 seats in the Senate and will be able to force through a range of previously blocked reforms without the support of minor parties.

Mr Howard said: "We don't intend to allow this unexpected but welcome majority in the Senate to go to our heads.

"We certainly won't be abusing our new-found position. We'll continue to listen to the people and we'll stay in touch with the public that has invested great trust and confidence in us."

The treasurer, Peter Costello, said the government would be able to introduce legislation which would give Australia "great opportunities" for the future.

High on the agenda will be the sale of its 51 per cent stake in Telstra, a move which will be unpopular in rural areas and the Outback, where mobile phone coverage is already patchy.

The government also hopes to ease controls on foreign media ownership. That would allow Kerry Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to own television stations and newspapers in the same state capital.

There are also plans to reform labour laws to enforce secret ballots before workers can strike, and to make it harder for employees to claim unfair dismissal.

The reforms are in keeping with Mr Howard's emphasis on private enterprise and individual responsibility, an agenda that owes much to Margaret Thatcher.

Labour's leader in the Senate, Chris Evans, said: "Clearly the government has an unfettered power now. I am fearful the government will abuse their power."

The leader of the Australian Democrats, Andrew Bartlett, said opposition parties would be unable to prevent the passage of "bad" legislation or even ensure it was properly scrutinised.

"The Australian people gave the Howard government the keys to the Senate but they didn't give them permission to trash the place," Mr Bartlett said.

"It will be more important than ever that the Democrats and others inform the public of what laws the government is proposing and harness public opinion to try to force the government to listen."

In December, Mr Howard, 65, will become Australia's second-longest serving prime minister after his political idol of the fifties and sixties, Sir Robert Menzies.

There is speculation that Mr Howard will step down half-way through his three-year term of office, handing power to Mr Costello.

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October 28, 2004 at 11:54 PM in Political | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Times Online - Leading article: Democracy v terror

Times Online - Newspaper Edition

Leading article: Democracy v terror

Many people in Britain and many more in Turkey are grieving this weekend over those murdered in Al-Qaeda-inspired attacks in Istanbul. Sadly, they will not be the last. Terrorism has become the grim spectre of our times. Britain is on high alert for suicide bombers — two Al-Qaeda cells are said to be planning an outrage here and the police have already foiled a gas attack on the London Underground. Washington has warned of a new threat, this time using cargo jets. In Iraq yesterday, 18 people were killed when suicide bombers blasted their cars into police stations, and disaster was only narrowly avoided when a plane landed in Baghdad after being hit by a surface-to-air missile. These are no longer distant acts of terror; people in the West fear where all this is leading and where the next bombs will strike.
There are two interpretations for this renewed surge of terrorism. Clare Short, the former international development secretary, claims that Britain and America are reaping what they sowed in Iraq. The war acted as a “recruiting sergeant” for Al-Qaeda because of the mishandling of the conflict by George Bush and Tony Blair, who she castigates for “bad leadership” and “terrible errors”. Many who marched in London last week to protest at the president ’s visit to London no doubt agree with her.

There is also a second interpretation: that the military action taken by Britain and America to overthrow Saddam Hussein is part of the wider war on terror and its state sponsors and is a solution to the problem, not its cause. The West responded to an attack on its soil, an attack that was a declaration of war. To have done nothing would have been interpreted as weakness and would have provoked yet more attacks. September 11 was planned under the presidency of Bill Clinton, who had shown little appetite to take on Saddam or even Al-Qaeda. The Taliban gave succour to Al-Qaeda and had to be overthrown. Saddam, too, was a regional threat and that in turn helped to create the instability on which terrorism thrives. Certainly we were misled about his weapons of mass destruction, but it was still right to overthow a tyrant who killed far more of his own people than any western alliance. Now the difficult process of installing a stable, democratic government has begun.

What hope can we find in this grim time? First, however much Al-Qaeda would like to strike at Britain, it is finding it tough. Why else attack soft targets in Muslim countries. There have been bombings in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia. Tragically, many more Muslims have died than westerners, although Al-Qaeda cares not a jot. We also know that as long as there are young fanatics prepared to strap explosives to their bodies or drive car bombs into buildings, the threat will remain.

We have to get used to a higher level of security and disruption in our daily lives than is desirable in a civilised society. A committee of MPs will this week criticise Britain’s readiness for a big terrorist attack and, in truth, you can never be prepared enough.

All this security must be underpinned by a political vision. That strategy was in part set out by Mr Bush on his visit to Britain. As he put it: “Democratic governments do not shelter terrorist camps or attack their peaceful neighbours; they honour the aspirations and dignity of their own people.” Too often in the past, and America and Britain have both been guilty of this, western governments have been prepared to support tyrants and despots while ignoring democratic rights.

Winning the war on terror, as the president argued, has to mean fostering the spread of democracy: “If the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export.” That means following the reformist road of countries like Morocco, Jordan and Qatar, not preserving autocracies such as Syria and Saudi Arabia, the region’s pivotal state. It means that anything less than a settled democracy in Iraq would be a failure. That is a strategy worth pursuing. The war on terror will not be won under this president or this prime minister. But it must be won.

November 23, 2003 at 09:59 AM in Political | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

BBC NEWS | UK | Eliza Manningham-Buller: Life in the shadows

BBC NEWS | UK | Eliza Manningham-Buller: Life in the shadows

The new director general of the UK's security intelligence service, MI5, is a former Fairy Godmother who once taught Nigella Lawson. BBC News Online pieces together the secret life and times of Eliza Manningham-Buller.

Andrew Walker
BBC News profiles unit

During the early 1980s, only five people knew that Oleg Gordievsky, the deputy head of the KGB at the Soviet embassy in London, was actually a double agent. One of this exclusive group was MI5's senior officer dealing with Soviet affairs, Eliza Manningham-Buller.

As Gordievsky recently acknowledged, Manningham-Buller's ability to keep a secret saved his life.

Despite the fact that two of her assistants shared an office with Michael Bettany, a traitor working for the KGB, Gordievsky's crucial role was never mentioned.

One word in front of Bettany, who recently completed an 18 year sentence for spying for the Soviets, and Gordievsky would have been on the first plane to Moscow and an inevitable date with an executioner's bullet.

Manningham-Buller saved Gordievsky

Gordievsky says that her appointment is "the best news for the service in a decade."

Born in 1948, the Honourable Elizabeth Lydia Manningham-Buller's refined background is clear for all to see.

He father, Sir Reginald (later Lord Dilhorne), served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor in the Conservative administrations of Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

Pantomime

In 1961, as attorney general, he played a crucial role in exposing the traitor George Blake, by allowing MI6 officers to interrogate Blake.

"Just make sure you bring him back alive," he quipped at the time. They did, but only after Blake had confessed.

A contemporary of Princess Anne at the exclusive girls' public school, Benenden, Eliza Manningham-Buller's forthright character brought her the nickname "Bullying Manner".

Eliza is a highly intelligent, very experienced and very kind person

Dame Stella Rimington
She read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where it is believed MI5 first attempted to recruit her, much to her father's distress.

While at Oxford, she starred as the Fairy Godmother in a production of Cinderella directed by Giles Brandreth.

After graduating, she worked as a teacher at the swanky Queen's Gate school in London. Among her pupils there was the future journalist and cookery writer, Nigella Lawson.

Former pupil, Nigella Lawson

But, after three years, she finally joined MI5. It was 1974, the Cold War was at its frostiest and Eliza Manningham-Buller soon progressed form typing up transcripts of tapped telephone conversations between Warsaw Pact diplomats to becoming a fully-fledged spycatcher.

Unlike her predecessor as director general, Dame Stella Rimington, Eliza Manningham-Buller has vast experience as an operational intelligence officer.

An expert on counter-terrorism, she was heavily involved in the Lockerbie investigation, served as MI5's liaison officer in Washington and became director of the agency's Irish counter-terrorism branch, spearheading the fight against the Provisional IRA.

The best news for the service in a decade

Oleg Gordievsky on MI5's new head
Since 1997, when she was appointed MI5's deputy director general, Eliza Manningham-Buller has had responsibility for the organisation's day-to-day work and its relations with other agencies, both at home and abroad.

Dame Stella has welcomed her successor's appointment. "Eliza is a highly intelligent, very experienced and very kind person", she says.

But she has this warning, "the media will focus on what she looks like and what clothes she wears because she's a woman."

But critics say that her accession to the top job simply reveals the deeply conservative nature of the agency and its unwillingness to countenance modernisation.

MI5: defending the realm

On the domestic front, Eliza Manningham-Buller lives in Bath with her husband, David, whom she married in 1991, and his five children from an earlier marriage. Despite the pressures of her job, she is still said to cook a roast Sunday dinner for her family every week.

Today, her professional life is dominated by the fight against al-Qaeda. She flew to Washington on 12 September 2001 to liase with her counterparts in the CIA and FBI and is recently said to have told Tony Blair that he is on an al-Qaeda hit-list.

But, for every fact we do know of Eliza Manningham-Buller's life, there are probably a thousand other secrets, revealed only to the clandestine warriors at MI5's headquarters at Thames House in London.

November 15, 2003 at 01:30 AM in Political | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

'Snoopers charter backs council spies

Times Online - Britain
By Stewart Tendler, Crime Correspondent

COUNCILS will have powers to run undercover agents and secret surveillance to halt fraud or crime under government proposals.
Undercover operations could also be mounted by fire authorities, Jobcentres, the Postal Services Commission, the Gaming Board, the Charity Commissioners and many other statutory bodies.

As the powers were laid before Parliament for debate yesterday the Home Office said that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act regularised current practices.

The plans were attacked as a “snoopers’ charter” last year, particularly the proposals to give state and local agencies access to telephone, internet and e-mail records.

Safeguards brought in by the Home Office after the earlier uproar include restricting the type of information that authorities can access and the reasons why they can seek it. Only designated senior officials will be able to order the data and regular checks will be made by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Swinton Thomas.

Caroline Flint, a Home Office Minister, said: “We have consulted widely. We have dramatically cut down the numbers of organisations who will be allowed access to all communications data and signally tightened up the procedures for access.”

She said that the 12-month period for companies to hold internet material would be voluntary. It could be made compulsory if not followed.

Liberty challenged the need for the surveillance powers by public bodies. Shami Chakrabati, its director, said: “This underlines the uncomfortable fact that the British public are the most spied-upon people in the Western world.”

Simon Davies, a member of Privacy International, said that very little had changed in the proposals. The only bodies removed from original plans were parish councils, and the oversight was not satisfactory.

September 13, 2003 at 10:42 AM in Political | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Hoon has backing of Prime Minster and Cabinet

Times Online - HomeBY RICHARD COLWILL AND PA NEWS

Hoon 'has backing of Prime Minster and Cabinet'

Geoof Hoon, the Defence Secretary

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, today defended his evidence to the Commons intelligence committee after it accused him of withholding information from their inquiry on Iraq.

Mr Hoon told the Commons that he had "no intention whatsoever other than to be open and straightforward" with the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) over the Iraqi dossier.

He added: "I regret any misunderstanding that might have arisen."

The ISC said earlier today it was "disturbing" that Mr Hoon did not disclose full details of the concerns expressed by Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) about the Government's Iraq weapons dossier.

The ISC said in its report on the Iraq affair, which was published today, that the initial failure of the Ministry of Defence to reveal details of the concerns had been "unhelpful and potentially misleading".

The comments prompted Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader, to call for Mr Hoon to quit or be sacked. He said: "Either he should resign or the Prime Minister should dismiss him at once.

"I think this report is a damning report of the Secretary of State. The committee has accused him of misleading and withholding information. His career is hanging in the wind and it is an untenable position. Geoff Hoon has got to go, I'm afraid."

However, Tony Blair and his Cabinet jumped to Mr Hoon's defence. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary speaking after this morning's Cabinet meeting and the publication of the report, insisted:

"I am in no doubt that the Defence Secretary should and will continue in his post.

"He has every confidence of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues."

The ISC report concluded that the dossier had not been "sexed up" by Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's Director of Communications, or anyone else in Government.

The report also said that there was no evidence of a conspiracy to deceive the general public about the treat that Iraq posed.

"We are content that the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee) has not been subjected to political pressures, and that its independence and impartiality had not been compromised in any way," the report said.

But the dossier failed to make clear that Saddam Hussein was not considered a "current or imminent threat to mainland UK", the MPs concluded.

The MPs also said that the way that the 45-minute claim was presented was "unhelpful to an understanding of the issue".

The claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order being given appeared five times in the dossier, although it later transpired that it had come from only one source. Intelligence material is usually double sourced.

MPs also concluded that the dossier should have highlighted the uncertainty within the intelligence community over Iraq's capacity to produce chemical or biological weapons.

The report said: "It (the JIC) had assessed, based on intelligence, that production had taken place. We believe that this uncertainty should have been highlighted to give a balanced view of Saddam's chemical and biological capacity."

But the committee said that it accepted the controversial claim by MI6 that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium for its nuclear programme from the west African state of Niger. "We have questioned them about the basis of their judgment and conclude it is reasonable," the ISC said.

Ann Taylor, the chairwoman of the ISC, said "There was not political interference - the dossier was not sexed up. In fact, the dossier was based on the JIC assessments that we have seen."

However, she said Mr Hoon had been "potentially misleading" in his evidence in July but that he did not lie to the committee. "He did not tell us lies," she said. "It was potentially misleading, events overtook it."

The criticism of Mr Hoon and the Ministry of Defence revolved around the withholding of information about two members of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) - the MoD's intelligence arm - who had written formally to their line managers to express concern about the way their intelligence was used in the dossier.

A memorandum submitted to the Hutton inquiry showed that Mr Hoon was briefed about their concerns by the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, Martin Howard, in preparation for his appearance before the ISC.

Mr Howard advised that Mr Hoon should tell the committee "these concerns were fully aired as part of the process of reaching consensus within the DIS and within the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee)".

Asked what the Defence Secretary's had said when the committee told him they thought he had not been frank with them about these concerns, Mrs Taylor said Mr Hoon had felt they were part of a normal debate.

But when the committee learnt that the concerns had been expressed in writing, she said: "He should have volunteered this. That's why we made that very point in the report".

The ISC report said today: "We regard the initial failure by the MoD to disclose that some staff had put their concerns in writing to their line managers as unhelpful and potentially misleading.

"This is not excused by the genuine belief within the DIS that the concerns had been expressed as part of the normal lively debate that often surrounds draft JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee) assessments within the DIS.

"We are disturbed that after the first evidence session, which did not cover all concerns raised by the DIS staff, the Defence Secretary decided against giving instructions for a letter to us outlining the concerns."

September 11, 2003 at 04:11 PM in Political | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home