Examination of Witness (Questions 1040-1059)
MR ALASTAIR
CAMPBELL
25 JUNE 2003
Q1040 Mr Chidgey: You are aware that
in evidence yesterday the Foreign Secretary—I think his
phrase was that the document did make "the best case"?
Mr Campbell: It made the best
case, our best assessment of the state of Saddam Hussein's weapons
of mass destruction—
Q1041 Mr Chidgey: Not the best case
for going to war?
Mr Campbell: It is not that sort
of document.
Mr Chidgey: Thank you.
Q1042 Ms Stuart: Mr Campbell, may
I refer you to your own statement in submission to the Committee?
You say in opening that the overall strategy for Iraq was laid
down by the Prime Minister?
Mr Campbell: And other Cabinet
members.
Q1043 Ms Stuart: And others, yes,
"from where I sat". Can I go just a little bit further,
and precisely where you did sit? Did you sit in on those meetings
only wearing the hat of Director of Communication, or would you
in that process have an input into policy and strategy?
Mr Campbell: No. In relation to
policy, as I say in the note, policy decisions are taken by the
Cabinet headed, as you know, by the Prime Minister. Now I was
involved in a lot of the discussions about policy and strategy
on Iraq and I am there as an adviser to the Prime Minister.
Q1044 Ms Stuart: In that context,
if I follow up a submission made by Mr Pope and drawing reference
to Clare Short's evidence, she drew the conclusion from the information
she had been given and discussions within the Cabinet that it
was quite clear that the decision was made by the international
community or others that we would go to war in February and March,
and that from about September onwards the rest of it was simply
preparing the country for that fact. How would you assess that
statement?
Mr Campbell: I reject it. I was
with the Prime Minister, for example—I cannot remember exactly
which weekend it was—when he seemed to spend literally into
double figures of hours on the telephone to I think at the time
the leaders of Mexico and Chile and others seeking to keep the
whole issue of the United Nations' route as a way of avoiding
conflict, and that was the strategy at that time. Equally, however,
the Prime Minister made clear before that in his phrase the United
Nations had to be the place where this was resolved, not avoided
as an issue. I just do not recognise this characterisation of
the Prime Minister as somebody who had taken a prior decision
and that then we were all just—not just me but the intelligence
agencies and everyone else—pawns in his game to take the
country into a war with George Bush. I do not recognise that.
On the contrary, I saw somebody who was working round the clock,
flat out, trying to keep this thing on the United Nations' route
as a means of avoiding conflict. Clare Short has to speak for
herself in relation to what her impression was of what the Prime
Minister was doing at the time but, as she said, I spent a lot
of time with the Prime Minister and that is the Prime Minister
I saw. Again, I just think that sometimes people make assumptions
about not just this Prime Minister but any senior politician that
they are acting out of some terrible motive, and it is nonsense.
I have seen the Prime Minister now in relation to several conflict
situations where he is very, very conscious of the responsibility
of saying, "We are going to send British forces into military
action and some of them may die". Now, the idea that you
just do that glibly or that you try and "sex up" a dossier
as a way of trying to persuade the public that you should do it
actually—I know scepticism is fine but are we really so
cynical that we think a Prime Minister, any Prime Minister—forget
the fact it is Tony Blair, any Prime Minister—is going to
make prior decisions to send British forces into conflict and
would not rather avoid doing that?
Q1045 Ms Stuart: I think it would
be useful to have your interpretation of this but can I come back
to the second dossier and again your own evidence on this where
you make reference to how you commissioned that dossier back in
January, which was then subsequently used as a briefing for six
journalists on the way to the United States? What were the instructions
as to the purpose of this second dossier back in January? What
did you tell them to prepare? For what?
Mr Campbell: As you say, I deliberately,
both in giving evidence to you and in my paper—as far as
I am concerned the dossier was the WMD dossier of 2002. The purpose
of the briefing paper that we commissioned in January was to get
our media to cover this issue of the extent to which Saddam Hussein
was developing his programme of concealment and intimidation of
the United Nations' inspectors because, if you remember, at the
time there was a lot of discussion "Why is it so hard for
the inspectors to get in and find these weapons?", and in
a sense this was a part of that answer. It actually was not the
full answer. As I have said in my paper to you, I never envisaged
this as being a significant thing, and I can send to you the coverage
at the time. It was minuscule. It got a few paragraphs in the
Sunday papers, it got no broadcast coverage, it was only when
this Mr al-Marashi issue came to light on my train journey from
Gateshead that it started to get any coverage at all, so it was
intended—it was a tactical decision, if you like, in relation
to giving it to those journalists as opposed to any other group
of journalists or putting it out on the website or whatever we
might have done. This was just a decision taken at that time just
as the Prime Minister was going to see George Bush, but it was
never meant to be a huge deal. I always felt that the information
within it that they would find interesting, which, indeed, was
the case, related to the fact that there was this ratio of 200:1—200
Iraqi agents to every UN inspector—and also some of the
things they were doing in relation to bugging and following and
organising car crashes and all the rest of it was interesting
but it was not making the case for war, and I think in relation
to both of these documents all of these facts were well known
when it came to the most important debate in Parliament about
committing British forces; all these issues were well known by
then. People knew by then that something had gone badly wrong
in relation to the second document and as I recall it, in relation
to the first, nobody in that debate raised the issue of the 45
minutes point. So this idea that we had pumped this out as the
most significant piece, if we had we had done it pretty badly
because it did not appear to resonate with members of Parliament
at all.
Q1046 Ms Stuart: But what I am still
not clear about is you must have given some indication of what
you wanted this document prepared for. It then ends up being in
the House of Commons and it is being referred to by Secretary
of State Colin Powell. Are you suggesting that any MP would have
been able to know the difference between the significant one—
Mr Campbell: No.
Q1047 Ms Stuart: Yet he quoted it
so it was taken seriously?
Mr Campbell: Okay. To answer your
question directly, what was it intended for, it was intended to
generate some media discussion and debate about this issue. Why
was it so hard for the UN weapons inspectors to do their job?
That is what it was for, and I think I probably have to take some
responsibility for Colin Powell raising it because when we were
out in Washington I gave a copy to my opposite number, and I suspect
that is possibly how it got into, as it were, the American system.
I do not think there has been quite the fuss there that there
has been here, I have to say.
Q1048 Ms Stuart: On the bottom of
page 6 of your submission you say, again in relation to the second
dossier: "The changes were made because the officials making
them believed they rendered the account more accurate". Now
my understanding of a process which would render something more
accurate would indicate you go back to source. How else do you
know the changes you are making would make it more accurate?
Mr Campbell: No. The point I am
making on page 6 of my note is that those commenting upon it were
not aware of who the source was and in any event, within that
document, there was government-sourced material so, for example,
in relation to some of the changes that were made, as I say, in
some cases as has been pointed out there have been changes that
you could argue make the situation more dramatic, for want of
a better word. In others, Mr al-Marashi's paper has suggested
there are more Iraqi agents involved in certain operations than
our experts believed to be the case, so again this was, as it
were, "sexed down" rather than up.
Q1049 Ms Stuart: But I think I still
have a slight difference with your definition of how you render
something more accurate because if I render it more accurate then
I go back to check my sources and change my wording rather than—
Mr Campbell: No. The point I am
making is that the CIC asks for these various pieces of work,
all sorts, whether it is an article or a briefing paper or whatever,
they go in and somebody puts together a draft; it absorbs part
of this material without attribution and, as I said before, that
was the mistake. The attribution was not put on to it as it should
have been. Now, had those then looking at this known that was
where part of this source material came from, you are quite right,
you could have got on the phone and said to Mr al-Marashi, "Look,
you say in your paper this. Would you mind if we use this?",
and judging from his evidence he might well have said "No",
in which case that would have been the end of the matter. Had
he said "Yes", you might have said, "Well, it says
this, we have information based on—whatever it might be,
intelligence or whatever—that, in fact, it is this. Is that
something you would think is right or wrong?" Or what you
might do, and this I do not think would have detracted anything
from the paper at all because, as I say, nobody seriously challenged
most of the content, is say to him, "Could we use it simply
with your name attached to it?"
Q1050 Mr Illsley: Just following
on from that I am going to challenge some of the serious content
of it. The one thing that we have received evidence on in this
Committee which is worrying me from start to finish is the quality
of the intelligence material which you have obviously worked with
and which has gone into the document.
Mr Campbell: On the second dossier?
Q1051 Mr Illsley: Yes. I am just
going to follow on from what my colleague, Gisela, was speaking
about. There is a section at the beginning of the document, page
3, which relates to Hans Blix and the UNMOVIC team and the document
says that, "Journeys are monitored by security officers stationed
on the route if they have prior intelligence. Any changes of destination
are notified ahead by telephone or radio so that arrival is anticipated.
The welcoming party is a giveaway". That was in the second
document published on 30 January. On 14 February, two weeks later,
Hans Blix told the United Nations, "Since we arrived in Iraq
we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than
300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice and access
was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing
evidence that the Iraqi site knew in advance that the inspectors
were coming". Now, granted that was two weeks after your
document was published but it tends to suggest that some of the
intelligence you were working with or which had been provided
to you was either out of date or wrong.
Mr Campbell: Well, in relation
to that, again, all I can say is that this, from my perspective
doing the job I do, came to light through one of the chief intelligence
agencies. It was their intelligence.
Q1052 Mr Illsley: I am not disputing
that.
Mr Campbell: I know there was
some co-operation between Hans Blix and the intelligence agency
but I am not aware of what Hans Blix would or would not know about—what
he said is not inconsistent with the idea that there was a significant
campaign of intimidation and deception. That was the point the
document was meant to make. In other words, when they get these
welcoming parties, is that because they know where they are going
and they have managed to clean up the place they are going to?
I think that is partly the point that is being made. Now that
has come, as I say, as intelligence, and the issuing agency was
the SIS.
Q1053 Mr Illsley: As I say, I am
challenging the content of the document because, in my opinion,
I do not think it is a document that adds anything to the argument
basically and I think the whole thing is a complete mess—but
anyway. Coming back to the point about intelligence, did you see
raw intelligence material that security services had or were you
provided with assessments from the senior intelligence community?
Mr Campbell: In relation to this?
Q1054 Mr Illsley: In relation to
the first dossier now. In general, the intelligence you were able
to see up to September before and after, did you see raw intelligence
or was this material provided to you as assessments from the intelligence
services?
Mr Campbell: Again, I am not sure
how much or how little of this I am supposed to divulge but I
certainly saw the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments on
which the September report was based.
Q1055 Mr Illsley: Did you ever have
any discussions with the intelligence services as to the quality
of the material that was coming your way? Were you happy with
it? Did you ever pass any comment on it? I think you said to one
of my colleagues earlier that if the head of intelligence service
said this was a kosher piece of information, that was fine by
you. Did you ever argue with them? Challenge them?
Mr Campbell: It was not a question
of arguing. On that Iraq Communications Group that I chair, as
I said in my note, there is a senior representative of the SIS—in
fact, two—so you have discussions with them the whole time,
and often if at a particular time as a communications strategy
might be evolving there is a particular theme that you were seeking
to pursue, there are people within the intelligence services who
will just—and I am not saying these are full-time presentation
people—think "Well, I know that No 10 has got an interest
in this particular theme at the moment, might this be something
they might be interested in? Should I discuss it?" They might
come and see me and say "Look, this has come from this or
that", but I think I probably have to leave it there in relation
to what they showed me and how we discuss it.
Q1056 Mr Illsley: Does nothing occur
that would have led anybody within the intelligence services to
resent your involvement or your presence on these committees,
and I am thinking now in terms of the Gilligan argument and the
leaks from intelligence sources pointing the finger at you for
everything?
Mr Campbell: The BBC's defence
correspondent came here and talked about his weird and wonderful
meetings with his source, and that may be the person he knows
within the intelligence community. I do not know who that is,
I do not know how serious a person it is or how senior. All I
know is that the people that I deal with and have dealt with now
over some years in several very difficult sets of circumstances
like Kosovo, like Afghanistan, like Iraq, I find of the highest
professionalism and, in many instances, the highest bravery. Now
it is not a question of me just saying, "Well, if it is good
enough for him it is good enough for me". You form judgments
about people over time and, as I say, the people that I have dealt
with on this are the people in the leadership of the intelligence
community who, I think, are people of very high standard.
Q1057 Mr Illsley: But you are adamant
that you never throughout the whole of this went to the intelligence
services and rejected a piece of evidence that they put forward,
enhanced it, exaggerated it, doctored it?
Mr Campbell: Absolutely not and
there are many reasons why I wanted to come to the Committee and
I agree with some of the comments that have been made in recent
weeks and I think it would have been very odd to have done this
inquiry had I not—that is something we can discuss but I
felt that from the start—but one of the reasons from my
own perspective, because the truth is, if you are in my position
or even more if you are in the Prime Minister's position, lots
and lots of things get written about which are completely untrue,
and to be perfectly honest 95% of them do not matter a damn and
are forgotten the next day, but I think to say, not just in the
Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph but on the BBC,
that I was involved conniving with the intelligence agencies to
do this—I just cannot think of a more serious allegation
than that, and to have a culture that says, "Well, it is
just another story. Who cares? What are you bothered about?"—and,
as I think I explained to you in my note, I have been trying to
get an acknowledgement from the BBC that this story is wrong for
weeks. I have a sheaf of correspondence with them about it. Now,
what are you supposed to do?
Q1058 Mr Illsley: That is the point
I am going to come on to in a second. I think we could place on
record here as well that perhaps your presence would not have
been required had this Committee's request for scientific intelligence
material been agreed to by the Prime Minister and the Foreign
Secretary. We could have satisfied ourselves had we seen that
information.
Mr Campbell: Can I just say on
that, in relation to the scrutiny of the intelligence services
for which the Prime Minister has ministerial responsibility, there
have been a lot of changes and developments on that but it is
fair to say that that particular one, to go back to your point,
is a bit above my pay grade.
Q1059 Mr Illsley: Just on the question
of the evidence, we did hear in relation to journalists and intelligence
sources, were we to believe what we were told the other day, that
every major newspaper has two or three, perhaps even four, contacts
within the intelligence agencies; that they have got each other's
telephone numbers, and they have easy access to information. Do
you believe that, given your background as a journalist and given
your position over the last few years working with the intelligence
agencies, or do you accept that there is that amount of leakage
of material to journalists?
Mr Campbell: No. There are systems,
and again it is probably not for me to explain them in detail
but there are systems, that allow the press to make inquiries
of the intelligence community but this picture that was painted
by one of the witnesses last week of intelligence agencies wandering
all round London meeting BBC correspondents—
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