Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Iraq.
Iraq
Asked to which Written Answer the Prime Minister had been referring when he had told the Liaison Committee this morning that he had apologised for the February document, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) reminded journalists that the Prime Minister had answered a PQ on 12 February in which he had acknowledged that a mistake had been made. Put to him that that was not the same as expressing regret or apologising, the PMOS pointed out that an apology had already been made. Put to him that the nearest the Prime Minister had come to making an apology was in saying that the Government should have sourced Dr al-Marashi’s work, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had given a clear response this morning to questions regarding the accuracy of the information contained in the document. His words spoke for themselves.
Asked where the information about 300,000 Iraqis buried in mass graves had come from, the PMOS said that as he understood it, it was a figure which had been circulating as a result of discussions with the UN Special Representative.
Asked for a reaction to a Washington Post report which suggested, according to ‘authoritative sources’, that President Bush regreted using the reference to uranium from Niger in his State of the Union Address, the PMOS said that he hadn’t heard what the ‘authoritative sources’ had to say about the matter. However, the position remained as the Prime Minister had set out this morning. We had always made it clear that our intelligence assessment had not been based on the forged documents. Put to him that it appeared the White House did not accept the Prime Minister’s view, the PMOS repeated that he hadn’t seen the story. That said, the Prime Minister had commented this morning about the Niger issue and the intelligence that had been used to make the claim. Put to him that the Washington Post report was pretty well sourced and did not look as though it had been fabricated, the PMOS said that given all the recent excitement about sourcing and the like, he did not think it would be helpful to comment until he had seen what the White House had said about the matter. Asked if Downing Street had been in contact with the White House about the issue, the PMOS said not as far as he was aware. As the Prime Minister had told the Liaison Committee today, the forged documents had not been the basis of the intelligence assessment we had put forward last September regarding uranium and Niger. Asked what intelligence we had used and why the US authorities were not using the same argument to defend themselves, the PMOS said that we stood by the contents of the dossier. As the Prime Minister himself had said, nothing in it thus far had been proven to be false. The Iraq Survey Group was carrying out its work. What was of fundamental importance was access to the scientists who had been working on the WMD programmes. Everyone recognised that until the security situation had improved and the individuals concerned were less fearful about providing information, the situation was going to be difficult. It went without saying that this process was going to take time. We were not going to get the answers overnight. It was important to give the Iraq Survey Group the time and space to do its work, which was precisely what we were doing.
Asked at what point the Prime Minister had decided that the intelligence in the September dossier was no longer current in the light of the impression he had given this morning that the intelligence had been valid only at the time, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had been making the point that the intelligence assessment that had been published was the assessment we had been given. Subsequent to that, as everyone knew, there had been a very significant programme of concealment by Saddam Hussein. That, however, did not call into question the validity of the intelligence which had been put forward in September which had been accurate at that time. Questioned further, the PMOS said that we stood by the intelligence contained in the dossier. It was still early days. Thus far, nothing had been proven to be wrong. Put to him that the intelligence had indeed been proven to be wrong insofar as no one had found any evidence to prove it was right, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had been making the point that it was important to give the Iraq Survey Group the time to carry out their work and not rush to judgement. The central point, as the Prime Minister had articulated powerfully this morning, was the fact that some people appeared to believe that the issue of WMD had been chanced upon in September last year when we had published the dossier. To suggest such a thing was to airbrush out of Iraq’s history the gassing of the Kurds at Halabja, the twelve years of defiance of UN Resolutions and Resolution 1441. There was no reputable intelligence service in the world that did not believe that Saddam had had WMD programmes.
Asked if there was anything in the September dossier which had been proven to be right, the PMOS pointed to the information relating to the existence of the al-Samoud missiles, for example. Put to him that just because we had got one thing right did not mean that the rest of it was, the PMOS said that the Iraq Survey Group had been set up to carry out work in this field. It was important to give the whole process time. As the Prime Minister had underlined again today, he remained confident that the evidence would be brought forward. No doubt we would return to this issue at some point in the future. At the moment, however, he was unable to take it any further forward. He indicated that journalists should use the Prime Minister’s words.
Asked if the Prime Minister endorsed the MoD’s acknowledgement in its report yesterday that the intelligence base upon which they had been relying when compiling the dossier was ‘probably slender’ and did not ‘have much out there in the field’, the PMOS said that the MoD had simply been making the point that, given the nature of society in Iraq, intelligence was not as easy to come by as it might be in other countries. However, no one should be in any doubt that we continued to stand absolutely by the intelligence contained in the report. Saddam Hussein had posed a threat to the world, as evidenced by the numerous UN Resolutions and his subsequent defiance of them. The issue of WMD was not something that had been invented or ‘got up’. It had been troubling the international community for around fifteen years. Asked how the Prime Minister could continue to stand by the 45-minute claim when the MoD report had seemed to contradict his position, the PMOS said he had just given an explanation. These judgements had been made by the JIC. Put to him that that was not what the MoD believed, the PMOS said that if he was being asked whether there had been a programme of concealment in Iraq prior to the arrival of the weapons inspectors, the answer was yes. He drew journalists’ attention to the briefing paper issued in February. Pressed as to why the Prime Minister continued to believe in the 45-minute claim, the PMOS said that as we had emphasised throughout, we stood by the intelligence in the dossier. The line of questioning indicated that journalists did not think that the JIC was significant in his whole issue. On the contrary. It was highly significant, particularly in view of the fact that the JIC comprised the heads of the intelligence services. It was their assessment which the Prime Minister had put before the country. As Mr Campbell had said to the FAC, if it was good enough for the JIC, it was good enough for us. Put to him that it did not appear to be good enough for the MoD, the PMOS said that he disputed the journalist’s interpretation of what the MoD were saying. They had simply been pointing out some of the difficulties in respect of intelligence gathering in Iraq. Challenged that the MoD had stated that they had no idea as to whether Iraq had had the capability to launch its WMD in 45 minutes, the PMOS said the fact that the armed forces had been issued with protection suits was an indication that we had taken the threat very seriously - although, as it happened, the protection suits had not, in the end, been necessary. He repeated the point about a programme of concealment.
Asked if Geoff Hoon had set a deadline of seven months in his Today Programme interview this morning to find Iraq’s WMD, the PMOS said that as we had acknowledged from the outset, finding the WMD was clearly going to take some time. Our first priority had to be to stabilise the security situation Iraq in order to address the humanitarian issues there. The Iraq Survey Group had only been operating at full strength for just a few weeks and obviously had a very detailed programme of work. The Prime Minister had underlined many times that we were confident the evidence was there and that we would bring it forward. That was a commitment which had been given and we expected to be held to it.
Asked repeatedly why the Prime Minister had suddenly started talking today about finding evidence of WMD programmes as opposed to finding evidence of WMD and whether that was an indication that he was not expecting to find any weapons, the PMOS pointed out that the Prime Minister had, in fact, spoken about WMD programmes in the past. His words to the Liaison Committee this morning spoke for themselves. Pressed as to whether there had been a change of emphasis, the PMOS repeated that the Prime Minister had spoken about WMD programmes in the past. For example, he had told the Commons in a Statement on 14 April that "Until we are able to interrogate the scientists and experts who worked on the programmes - and the UN has a list of some 5,000 names - progress is bound to be slow". Time would tell. No one could be in any doubt following the Prime Minister’s words at the Liaison Committee this morning that he was confident the evidence would be brought forward.
Asked what percentage of the so-called ‘dodgy dossier’ the Prime Minister believed was actually dodgy in the light of the 90% figure quoted by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FAC) yesterday, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had explained to the Liaison Committee today, there were three sections. It was the second section where we had acknowledged that Dr al-Marashi’s work should have been sourced. Sections one and three had contained new intelligence. Asked if each section represented a third, the PMOS said that as we had underlined throughout, it was the new intelligence contained in the report which had made it interesting. When the document had been published, we had never pretended that it was comparable in status to the one issued in September. Once we had discovered that part of the document had been taken from an article by Dr al-Marashi, we had admitted our mistake immediately. Questioned further, the PMOS said that this was something we had discovered subsequent to the Prime Minister presenting the document to Parliament and it being published. As Alastair Campbell had explained to the FAC, we had only known about it when Channel 4 News had broken the story.
Asked what percentage of the document contained new intelligence, the PMOS said that when Mr Campbell had been asked this question by the FAC, he had said he would go away and enquire of the JIC to what extent he could highlight what was new intelligence. However, as his Memorandum - attached to the FAC’s report yesterday - had made clear, he was unable to go any further than he had gone after discussing the matter with the Chairman of the JIC. Put to him that if Mr Campbell had been unable to give a percentage then it appeared that the Prime Minister could not know for sure that less than 90% of the document had been based on new intelligence, the PMOS said that we had not provided the detail of what the new intelligence was for the reason given. He pointed out that it would be pretty simple to compare the second section of the document with Dr al-Marashi’s actual article. He thought this was a fairly sterile discussion.
Asked when the third dossier of evidence would be published, the PMOS said that he was unable to put forward a timeframe. Moreover, we had never talked about a third dossier. The Prime Minister had said that we would bring forward the evidence.
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