Richard Norton-Taylor and Vikram Dodd Thursday September 4, 2003 The Guardian
A senior government intelligence official who was deeply involved in the production of the dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction yesterday accused the government of "over-egging" the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and of ignoring concerns about central claims made in the document.
Brian Jones, a top analyst in the defence intelligence staff, described how the "shutters came down", preventing experts on chemical and biological weapons from expressing widespread disquiet about the language and assumptions in the dossier.
He told the Hutton inquiry that he and fellow intelligence officials regarded as "nebulous" the hotly disputed claim that Iraqi forces could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes - the assertion at the centre of the row between Downing Street and the BBC.
The claim, he said, came from a single but "secondary" source whose purpose might have been to "influence rather than inform" British intelligence agencies.
Dr Jones, who is now retired, was at the time the dossier was published the head of a scientific section in the defence intelligence analysis staff responsible for chemical and biological weapons.
Pressed by Lord Hutton to explain his worries, he told the inquiry: "My concerns were that Iraq's chemical weapons and biological weapons capabilities were not being accurately represented in all regards in relation to the available evidence. "In particular ... on the advice of my staff, I was told that there was no evidence that significant production had taken place either of chemical warfare agent or chemical weapons."
Some intelligence analysts complained that they were unhappy with "all the detail that was in the dossier", he said.
Dr Jones went as far as to suggest that Iraq possessed few, if any, weapons of mass destruction in the proper meaning of the term. He said he would struggle to place chemical weapons, and many biological weapons, in the category of "weapons of mass destruction", he added.
He described how his top chemical warfare expert had expressed concern about the tendency "to over-egg certain assessments in relation particularly to the production of CW [chemical warfare] agents and weapons since 1998". He "could not point to any solid evidence of such production".
Dr Jones chaired a meeting of senior defence intelligence officials on September 19, five days before the dossier was published. David Kelly, the government's expert on Iraq's banned weapons programme whose suicide led to the Hutton inquiry, was present.
The officials, including Dr Kelly, raised a number of specific concerns about the dossier. None was accepted by Whitehall's joint intelligence committee.
One of those present at the meeting, invited there by Dr Kelly, gave evidence yesterday. A government adviser on Iraq's weapons programme, known only as Mr A, he testified by audio link from the Ministry of Defence.
Though he said "as a whole" he and Dr Kelly had thought the dossier was a reasonable and accurate reflection of available intelligence, there were serious problems with it, including the 45 minute claim. "What does the 45 minutes refer to?" he said "Are you referring to a technical process? Are you referring to a commander control process?"
Prompted by an article in the Guardian, Mr A emailed Dr Kelly about their mutual scepticism over an Iraqi factory at al-Qa' Qa' producing phosgene - used for explosives but also a component suitable for chemical weapons - highlighted in the government's dossier.
"You will recall [name blanked out] admitted they were grasping at straws," Mr A told Dr Kelly. It was another example, he said, "supporting our view that you and I should have been more involved in this than the spin merchants of this administration".
Mr A told Lord Hutton: "The perception was that the dossier had been round the houses several times in order to try to find a form of words which would strengthen certain political objectives."
Asked about the references to "spin merchants" Dr Jones told the inquiry: "I think there was an impression that there was an influence from outside the intelligence community", taken to mean Downing Street.
Yesterday's evidence goes to the heart of the claims by the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, who alleged Downing Street "sexed up" the dossier against the wishes of the intelligence agencies, though he originally said the government also knew the 45 minute claim to be wrong.
Dr Jones's evidence raises questions about evidence given by the prime minister and the JIC chairman, John Scarlett.
The analyst told the inquiry he believed the full committee had not met to discuss the final version of the dossier - a suspicion confirmed to the Guardian last night by Whitehall sources.
Tony Blair said of the dossier in evidence: "We could hand on heart say: this is the assessment of the joint intelligence committee."
Dr Jones said yesterday: "The impression I had was ... the shutters were coming down on this particular paper, that the discussion and the argument had been concluded. And it was the impression that I had, at that time, that our reservations about the dossier were not going to be reflected in the final version."