Intelligence experts tried to stop Iraq dossier exaggeration

Documents reveal how defence intelligence staff fought against Labour government using Iraq dossier to make a case for war Newly released documents reveal the full extent to which defence intelligence experts fought – with limited success – to prevent the Labour government exaggerating the September 2002 dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The disclosure follows the revelation last week that a senior defence intelligence officer told the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq conflict that, contrary to the evidence of former government communications chief Alastair Campbell, the dossier was intended to make a case for war and intelligence had been exaggerated to make this case. The new documents support these claims and longstanding allegations that the dossier was hardened up against the wishes of the intelligence community. The disclosure consists of more than 150 pages of communications from the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) during the process of drafting the dossier. In addition, the Cabinet Office, which produced the dossier, has disclosed a further batch of documents from the DIS and others offering comments during the final stages of drafting. The documents include an email from John Williams, the Foreign Office press secretary at the time, describing a revised draft dossier as persuasive and convincing but suggesting that it should “carry the argument” more vigorously. The papers also reveal an ongoing battle over Iraq’s supposed nuclear programme, with analysts’ doubts and qualifications ignored during the drafting process. In one draft, an analyst added the qualification “probably” to a claim that the programme, on which there was little intelligence, was based on gas centrifuge uranium enrichment. But that qualification was not used in the published dossier. Early drafts of the dossier did not include any estimated timescale for Iraq’s development of a nuclear weapon if it obtained fissile material from abroad. Experts thought this scenario “unlikely” – an assessment that was not included in the published dossier. But the documents show that the DIS was asked to produce such an estimate at a Cabinet Office meeting attended by government communications officials. At first, the DIS produced an estimate of “at least two years”. In an email apparently responding to Cabinet Office dissatisfaction with that timescale, a DIS expert wrote: “We refuse to budge on timelines – two years min….” The documents show that the Cabinet Office continued to question this timescale. Subsequent redrafts reduced it, first to “within two years” and then “one to two years”. The final figure was closer to a claim President George Bush made in a speech to the UN that Iraq could obtain a nuclear weapon “within a year”. The Guardian disclosed last year that this change was made after pressure from Campbell to bring the dossier into line with claims made by the Bush administration. The documents show that claims that Iraq had used the biological agent aflatoxin in 1991 were removed from the dossier because of concerns that they might be used by sufferers of “Gulf war syndrome” to explain their illnesses. One document, which has been heavily redacted, refers to a statement in a draft dossier that “in 1991 Iraq used the biological warfare agent aflatoxin against the Shia population of Karbala”. The DIS analyst wrote: “The information is of great interest but we feel that you should be aware that many of the symptoms of aflatoxin poisoning in animals are similar to those claimed by some Gulf war veterans.” The DIS later clarified its concerns: “The purpose of us writing to the Cabinet Office regarding inclusion of aflatoxin in the dossier is simply to alert them to the possibility that if this information is in the public domain it could be used by Gulf war veterans to explain the illnesses that they are claiming. If Iraq [redacted] aflatoxin [redacted] that our troops were in theatre it is possible that they could well have been exposed.” The redacted sections appear to relate to the possibility that Iraq used aflatoxin during the Gulf war, thereby exposing British troops to its effects. Brian Jones, a former DIS manager who told the 2003 Hutton inquiry of concerns among his colleagues that the dossier had been “over-egged”, told the Guardian: “The documents clearly refute the defence devised in what appears to have been a conspiracy between the Cabinet Office and senior DIS managers: to suggest that most DIS analysts were happy with the dossier and that only myself and one other analyst thought there was a problem. Comparison of the issues raised by a number of analysts over several weeks shows that a large number of them had not been resolved and were allowed to go into the published document. I do hope this is a matter that the Chilcot inquiry will consider.” Iraq war inquiry Iraq Alastair Campbell Chris Ames guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 20, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.