.Intelligence chief's bombshell: 'We were overruled on dossier'

By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor

04 February 2004

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=487557

The intelligence official whose revelations stunned the Hutton inquiry has suggested that not a single defence intelligence expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

As Mr Blair set up an inquiry yesterday into intelligence failures before the war, Brian Jones, the former leading expert on WMD in the Ministry of Defence, declared that Downing Street's dossier, a key plank in convincing the public of the case for war, was "misleading" on Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological capability. Writing in today's Independent, Dr Jones, who was head of the nuclear, chemical and biological branch of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) until he retired last year, reveals that the experts failed in their efforts to have their views reflected.

Dr Jones, who is expected to be a key witness at the new inquiry, says: "In my view, the expert intelligence analysts of the DIS were overruled in the preparation of the dossier in September 2002, resulting in a presentation that was misleading about Iraq's capabilities."

He calls on the Prime Minister to publish the intelligence behind the Government's claims that Iraq was actively producing chemical weapons and could launch an attack within 45 minutes of an order to do so. He is "extremely doubtful" that anyone with chemical and biological weapons expertise had seen the raw intelligence reports and that they would prove just how right he and his colleagues were to be concerned about the claims.

Downing Street was triumphant last week when Lord Hutton ruled that Andrew Gilligan's claims that the dossier was "sexed up" were unfounded, but Dr Jones's comments are bound to boost the case of the BBC and others that the dossier failed to take into account the worries of intelligence officials. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said yesterday that he might not have supported military action against Baghdad if he had known that Iraq lacked weapons of mass destruction.

Acutely aware of the American inquiry into the war, Mr Blair said that a committee of inquiry would investigate "intelligence-gathering, evaluation and use" in the UK before the conflict in Iraq. Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former cabinet secretary, will chair the five-strong committee, which will meet in private. The Liberal Democrats refused to support the inquiry because they said that its remit was not wide enough.

Dr Jones was the man whose decision to give evidence electrified the Hutton inquiry as he disclosed that he had formally complained about the dossier. The Government attempted to dismiss his complaints as part of the normal process of "debate" within the DIS and claimed that other sections of the intelligence community were better qualified to assess the 45-minute and chemical production claims.

But today Dr Jones makes clear that he was not alone and declares that the whole of the Defence Intelligence Staff, Britain's best qualified analysts on WMD, agreed that the claims should have been "carefully caveated". Furthermore, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which allowed the contentious claims to go into the dossier, lacked the expertise to make a competent judgement on them.

Dr Jones makes clear that it was John Scarlett, the chairman of the JIC, who was responsible for including the controversial claims in the executive summary of the dossier that was used to justify war. It was Mr Scarlett's strong assessment that allowed Alastair Campbell to "translate a probability into a certainty" in Mr Blair's foreword to the document, Dr Jones adds.

He says he foresaw at the time of the Government's dossier in September 2002 that no major WMD stockpiles would be found. He made a formal complaint about the dossier to avoid himself and his fellow experts being cast as "scapegoats" for any such failure.

In his article, Dr Jones warns that intelligence analysts should not be blamed for the lack of any significant finds in Iraq and points out that it was the "intelligence community leadership" the heads of MI6 and MI5 and Mr Scarlett who were responsible for the dossier. It would be a "travesty" if the DIS was criticised over the affair, he says.

Dr Jones complains that he and others were not allowed to see vital intelligence supporting the 45-minute and chemical production claims.

He reveals, however, that he has discovered from a colleague that the reports from the ground did not meet his and others' concerns about the wording of the JIC's assessments. Also, he says, the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, Tony Cragg, did not see the supposedly clinching intelligence and took on trust assurances from MI6 that it was credible.

The Government yesterday finally slipped out its response to the Intelligence and Security Committee's report last autumn on the intelligence case in the approach to war.

For the first time ministers conceded that they "understand the reasoning" for the committee's criticism that the presentation of the 45-minute claim in the dossier "allowed speculation as to its exact meaning", including the firing of WMD on long-range missiles. But the Government said it had not linked the claim to ballistic missiles.

It also rejected the MPs' call for complaints such as that of Dr Jones to be sent direct to the JIC chairman. "It is important to preserve the line management authority of JIC members," it said.

We act because we believe in this quote: “ You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time”
International News

SO, Who THE HELL Is Hutton?
By Re-Sista! 28/1/04
28.01.2004 22:50

Upon his resignation as BBC chairman Gavyn Davies commented on the irreconcilable contradictions between Hutton's "bald conclusions" and the balance of evidence presented to the actual Inquiry.

Even BBC political editor Andrew Marr comments on Huttons underlying assumptions and background, making him more likely to believe and trust certain social groups: "again and again, he comes down on the side of politicians and officials."

So who is Hutton, and what is in his background to come to these extraordinary conclusions? What has lead to the reports extraordinary absolution of Blair's war lies and attack on journalistic freedom?

The 72 year old Baron Hutton of Bresagh, County of Down, North Ireland, is a classic representative of the British ruling establishment. A member of the Anglo-Irish elite, he was educated at Shewsbury all boys boarding school, and then Balliol, Oxford, before entering the exclusive club of the British Judiciary. Whilst British Judges are overwhelmingly conservative, upper
class, white, male and biased, Hutton's background is even more compromised.

His name will be familiar to residents of the Six counties of Ulster. During the bloody thirty years war Hutton was an instrument of British state repression, starting in the late 1960's as junior counsel to the Northern Ireland attorney general, and by 1988 rising to the top job of Lord Chief
Justice of Northern Ireland.

Hutton spent his career as Judge and Jury in the notorious northern Ireland kangaroo 'Diplock Courts'. These were special non-Jury courts, condemned by human rights advocates for their miscarriages of justice. He was hated for this role by the families of the many innocent catholics wrongly convicted here.

Hutton distinguished himself after the Bloody Sunday massacre of civil rights protesters in 1972. He played a key role in the ensuing judicial cover-up called the Widgery Inquiry which absolved British troops of Murder. This miscarriage of justice is only now being investigated by the current Saville inquiry.

Then in 1978 he represented the British Government before the European Court of Human Rights, defending it against a ruling that it abused and maltreated detainees from the conflict.

However, he will be remembered in the rest of the UK for his role in the 1999 Pinochet affair. Another senior Judge, Lord Hoffman had contributed to the decision to arrest and extradite the notorious former dicator of Chile and mass murderer General Pinochet during his visit to Britain.

As a law lord, Hutton led the rightwing attack on Lord Hoffman, on the excuse that Hoffman's links to the human rights group amnesty international invalidated Pinochets arrest! Lord Hutton said "public confidence in the integrity of the administration of justice would be shaken" if Lord Hoffman's ruling was not overturned.

More recently, Hutton was also involved in the ruling that David Shayler, the former MI5 agent, could not argue he was acting in the public interest by revealing secrets.

This history of intimate links with, and knowledge of Britains secret military intelligence operations meant he could be a trusted pair of hands when it came to the Kelly affair.

photos: iRISH tIMES; SUNDAY bUSINESS pOST.

hUTTON "May well have delivered Blair a final pyrrhic victory. Come the autumn and with twelve months to the next election there may be enough Labour backbenchers ready to recognise what is now staring everyone in the face: that you can still have a historic third New Labour term under Gordon Brown. The messianic menace currently on the loose in Downing Street is now surplus to requirements." Tom McGurk Sunday Business Post.Feb.1st 2004