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| Britain |
| Hutton Inquiry Conclusion: Dossier NOT "sexed up" |
| 2003-09-11 |
| From SkyNews. The BBC’s choice of headline: Blair ’overrode terror warnings’. To summarise, Blair’s in the clear, the BBC were caught anti-war, anti-Government propagandising, but the Defence Minister’s looking shaky (as usual)... A committee of MPs has cleared the Government of ’sexing up’ its dossier on Iraq’s weapons, but criticises the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon for withholding evidence. The Intelligence and Security Committee said it was "disturbing" that Mr Hoon did not disclose full details of concerns about the dossier among defence intelligence staff. Mr Hoon defended himself in the Commons, saying his intention had been to be open with the committee. He regretted any misunderstanding and accepted that the MoD could have been more helpful. Earlier, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Mr Hoon had the full backing of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues. In its report, the ISC concluded unanimously that the dossier had not been "sexed up" by former No 10 communications chief Alastair Campbell "or anybody else". Committee chair Ann Taylor said members had seen all drafts of the weapons dossier and were happy that any changes to them had not been made because of any political pressure. "There was not political interference - the dossier was not sexed up," she said. "In fact, the dossier was based on the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments that we have seen." But there were difficulties in putting intelligence into the public domain, she said, which would need to be examined if such a dossier was needed again. The context of the information was clear to its authors but not to all of its readers. "It was not always clear to Joe Public, or even to ordinary MPs who were reading the dossier," Mrs Taylor said. The report criticises the way the controversial claim that some Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be deployed within 45 minutes was presented, as "unhelpful to an understanding of this issue". It said the dossier also failed to make clear that Saddam Hussein was not considered a "current or imminent threat to mainland UK". And it said that it should have highlighted the uncertainty within the intelligence community over Iraq’s capacity to produce chemical or biological weapons. The ISC said that the initial failure of the Ministry of Defence to reveal details of the intelligence staff concerns had been "unhelpful and potentially misleading". But committee chair Ann Taylor told journalists: "At no point in our document do we call for the resignation of Geoff Hoon." The criticism of Mr Hoon and the Ministry of Defence centred on the withholding of information about two members of DIS who had written formally to their line managers to express concern about the way their intelligence was used in the dossier. |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #2 Yes Bulldog . Everyone seems to drift from the point . Would be nice to have a global hug for a change . Perhaps year 3000 ( by our calendar ) . Sorry for spelling - am new to this |
| Posted by: new visitor 2003-9-11 7:34:22 PM |
| #1 Title's wrong! I'm getting my inquiries mixed up - this is NOT the Hutton Inquiry, it's the ISC committee, of course. Hutton Inq concerns the Death of Dr. Kelly. We've got inquiries coming out of our ears. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-9-11 6:36:02 PM |