Downing Street Says » Butler Report

Asked to explain what the Prime Minister had agreed to take responsibility for, as he had underlined in his Statement to the House today, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that Lord Butler had identified some mistakes which we acknowledged had been made and had come up with a series of recommendations. Equally, the Prime Minister continued to believe that the fundamental judgement relating to the reasons for going to war was correct. In his view, the Butler Report was a balanced report. It was important for people to recognise that, like Lord Hutton, the ISC and the FAC, Lord Butler had found no evidence to suggest that people had not acted in good faith. That was a very important point to take into account. Asked to spell out in detail the mistakes which had been made, the PMOS said that he had no intention of rehearsing the contents of the Report. Journalists could read it for themselves. That said, it was clear that mistakes had been made in relation to the intelligence process and the fact that caveats should have been attached to some of the information contained in the dossier. Asked to explain how the deletion of the caveats in the dossier could be considered acting in good faith, the PMOS pointed to Paragraph 21 of the Report’s conclusions (Chapter 8) which stated that there was “no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable negligence” in the dossier. This included the fact that the caveats had not been added. It was this point which underlined the whole Report. As Lord Butler had said in his press conference this morning, “In my view, [there was] no deliberate attempt on the part of Government to mislead…..We have no reason, we have found no evidence to question the Prime Minister’s good faith”. That was Lord Butler’s conclusion, as it had been Lord Hutton’s, the ISC’s and the FAC’s. Put to him that the Prime Minister should take personal responsibility for the decision not to include the caveats in the light of the fact that he, himself, had chosen not to include them in his foreword to the dossier or in his various Statements to Parliament, the PMOS said Lord Butler had concluded that the Prime Minister had made his Statements and the dossier had been produced in good faith. If he had thought that the caveats had been left out as part of a deliberate strategy to distort the intelligence, he would not have included Paragraph 21 of his Report, he would not have accepted Lord Hutton’s findings and would not have said specifically in his press conference that he had found no evidence of a deliberate attempt to mislead or anything to question the Prime Minister’s good faith. Consequently, it was clear the Prime Minister’s foreword and Statements to the House had been made in good faith. Asked why the Prime Minister had failed to apologise to the House for misleading MPs – however inadvertently, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had set up an inquiry “to investigate the accuracy of intelligence on Iraqi WMD up to March 2003, and to examine any discrepancies between the intelligence gathered, evaluated and used by the Government before the conflict, and between that intelligence and what has been discovered by the Iraq Survey Group since the end of the conflict” (Foreign Secretary, House of Commons, 3 February 2004). The results of that inquiry had been published today and the Prime Minister had come to the House this afternoon to respond to it, as was right and proper. He accepted the fact that it would have been better had the caveats been included and he also accepted responsibility for the mistakes which had been made. Put to him that, despite acting in good faith, the Prime Minister had still misled the country on the reasons for going to war, the PMOS said that in his Statement to the House today, the Prime Minister had underlined that the fundamental reasons for going to war were justified. Moreover, Paragraph 41 of the Report’s conclusions (Chapter 8) showed that, in the Butler Committee’s view, the intelligence which had been gathered and the evidence which had been found justified the conclusion that Saddam had had the “strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes”, that he had been “carrying out illicit research and development, and procurement, activities” and had been “developing ballistic missiles with a range longer than permitted under relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions”. This was proof that Saddam had been in breach of UN Resolution 1441, which was why the decision had been taken to go to war. The PMOS also took the opportunity to reiterate the point that the dossier had not been drawn up to argue the case for war. As Lord Butler had accepted, it had been drawn up to demonstrate why we had needed to take a stronger stand to enforce UN Resolutions on Iraq.

Put to him that the Prime Minister had misled the House on the issue of chemical and biological weapons, the PMOS advised journalists to read the Prime Minister’s Statement to the House before the start of the war. He had not mentioned the 45 minutes claim but had explained instead why he believed that containment was no longer working. Put to him that Lord Butler had concluded that Saddam had not possessed chemical and biological weapons and that the Prime Minister had therefore inadvertently misled Parliament when talking about Iraq’s chemical and biological capability, the PMOS referred journalists to Paragraph 41 of the Report’s conclusions which stated, “We believe that it would be a rash person who asserted at this stage that evidence of Iraqi possession of stocks of biological or chemical agents, or even of banned missiles, does not exist or will never be found”.

Asked if Downing Street would accept the criticism that the JIC and John Scarlett had not been objective enough in putting together the dossier, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had told the House this afternoon, we accepted Lord Butler’s recommendation for a “clear delineation” in the future between the Government and JIC. We also noted with satisfaction that the Report had stated specifically that John Scarlett should take up his post as the next Chief of the SIS. Asked if the Prime Minister would accept that Mr Scarlett had been unable to resist political influences, the PMOS said that there had been no suggestion of any political influence in either Lord Butler’s Report, Lord Hutton’s Report, the FAC Report or the ISC Report. In addition, Lord Butler had explicitly rejected the notion when it had been put to him by the BBC during his press conference today. Asked to explain why, in that case, Lord Butler had recommended that the next JIC chairman should be “held by someone with experience of dealing with Ministers in a very senior role, and who is demonstrably beyond influence”, the PMOS said that Lord Butler had addressed this question directly in his press conference. His words spoke for themselves. Put to him that Lord Butler had suggested that Mr Scarlett might have been influenced sub-consciously, the PMOS pointed out that Lord Butler had raised the possibility and had then rejected it. Asked if Alastair Campbell had come up with the ‘idea’ of JIC ownership of the dossier which had ‘led to the fusing of politics and intelligence’ which had been ‘condemned’ by Lord Butler, the PMOS said that he had nothing to add to what Lord Hutton had said on this matter. The matter had been fully investigated at the time and the conclusions had not changed.

Asked if the Prime Minister was intending to speak to Mr Scarlett later today about the Report, the PMOS said that it wasn’t our policy to give a running commentary on private conversations between the Prime Minister and those who served the Government. Asked to explain the justification in promoting Mr Scarlett as the next head of MI6 in advance of the publication of the Butler Report, the PMOS pointed out that the decision had been made by an independent selection panel, chaired by Sir David Omand, who had decided that he was the best person for the job. That view was supported by the Butler Committee who had gone out of its way to state that they hoped Mr Scarlett would not withdraw from his new appointment.

Questioned about Lord Butler’s conclusion regarding the machinery of Government and the “circumscribed character of the Government’s procedures…. in the context of policy-making” (Chapter 8, Paragraph 67), the PMOS said that measures had already been taken to address these concerns. For example, the issue of Iraq had been discussed in Cabinet on twenty-four occasions in the run-up to war. Since then, the DOP Committee had also met on a regular basis. Questioned about Lord Butler’s specific criticism regarding “informality”, the PMOS repeated that action had already been taken. That said, we would study Lord Butler’s recommendations and take further measures if it was considered necessary to do so.

Asked what other measures and procedures the Government might put in place as a result of the Butler Report, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had made clear in his Statement today, the SIS had taken on board Lord Butler’s recommendations, and these would be reflected in its future processes. Asked if Downing Street was intending to change its processes – such as the reliance we would place on any future intelligence we received, the PMOS said that the decision to go to war against Iraq had been based on a judgement about the changed nature of the world post-September 11 when it had become clear that a policy of containment was no longer sufficient and that we needed to take a stronger stand on WMD. The Prime Minister stood by that decision and had underlined that even if he had known then what he knew today, he would still have made the judgement in the way he had. Asked if the Government would ever produce another dossier, the PMOS said that it wasn’t our policy to answer hypothetical questions. That said, as Lord Butler had pointed out, the actual publication of the dossier in question had initially drawn little attention. It had only some under scrutiny several months after the event.

Asked if it was fair to conclude that Lord Butler’s Report essentially agreed with Andrew Gilligan’s infamous claim that the Government had sexed up the dossier, albeit in good faith, the PMOS drew journalists’ attention to Paragraph 333 of the Report which stated that “the dossier reflected fairly the judgements of past JIC assessments”. Put to him by the Guardian that it would seem that the Prime Minister had simply done what most journalists had done at some point in their careers, namely to sex up information that had been provided, the PMOS referred journalists back to Paragraph 21 of the Report’s conclusions which stated that there was “no evidence of deliberate distortion”. Put to him that the point being made was that the Prime Minister had sexed up the dossier ‘in good faith’, the PMOS again referred journalists to Paragraph 21 of the Report which stated, “We should record in particular that we have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable negligence”. Lord Butler had also underlined in his press conference this morning that “In my view, [there was] no deliberate attempt on the part of Government to mislead…..We have no reason, we have found no evidence to question the Prime Minister’s good faith”.

Asked if the Prime Minister regretted, in retrospect, the inclusion of the 45-minute claim in the dossier, the PMOS said that both the Prime Minister and Lord Butler had set out the reasons why the claim had been included. It went without saying that we accepted Lord Butler’s comments. The PMOS said he would simply point out that the claim had received a lot more publicity in retrospect than it had at the time of the dossier’s publication. Pressed as to whether the Prime Minister would have preferred, in retrospect, not to have included the 45 minute claim in the dossier because it had undermined the rest of it, the PMOS said that it was all very well to talk about things in retrospect. The point was that we had not known then what we knew now. The reasons for the decision to include the claim had already been set out. Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with the Butler Committee’s point that the fact that the 45-minute claim had been repeated in the dossier had given rise to suspicions later on that it had been included because it had been ‘eye-catching’, the PMOS said he thought that that was simply a statement of fact in the light of media coverage over the last year or so.

Asked why the UK had gone to war against Iraq when there had been no new intelligence suggesting that the country was any more of a threat than others about which the UK had concerns, and whether it was because Britain was influenced by the US, as the Butler Report would appear to suggest, the PMOS advised journalists not to take different phrases of the Report out of the context in which they had been set. Post-September 11, there had been a clear change of policy – from a reactive response to WMD to a proactive response to WMD. The Prime Minister accepted that this was the core of the argument. The question had been whether the policy of containment was working, or if it was ever going to result in what the UN had stated the outcome should be, i.e. that Saddam should end all WMD production or any intent to produce WMD. We believed that he wouldn’t. As the Prime Minister had said today, post-September 11, the calculus of the threat had changed, hence the subsequent judgements which had been made.

Asked why the Prime Minister felt unable to apologise for getting some of the information on Iraq wrong, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had accepted responsibility for the mistakes which had been made. Equally, however, he believed that the fundamental case for the war was as right today as it had been at the time. He continued to believe that Saddam had been a threat and that what he had been doing was counter to a number of UN Resolutions. Post September 11, the calculus of the threat had changed. Consequently, it had been decided to take a stand against WMD and rogue states, not just against the commercial exploitation of WMD, such as the activities of A Q Khan, or terrorism. Asked if he was indicating that the Prime Minister was refusing to apologise because he believed that he was right on the bigger picture, the PMOS repeated that the Prime Minister had accepted responsibility for the mistakes which had been made.

Questioned as to whether the Prime Minister believed that Colonel Gaddafi would not have been so willing to ‘come back in from the cold’ had it not been for the war against Iraq, the PMOS said that in the Prime Minister’s view, if we hadn’t taken the action we had taken against Saddam but had simply pursued the policy of containment with no ultimatum, that would have emboldened terrorists, rogue states or commercial exploiters of WMD not only to continue with what they were doing but to step it up in the knowledge that no action would be taken against them. Equally, the Prime Minister believed that it was more than a co-incidence that Libya had taken action when it had after the Iraq war. Asked if he was implying that Libya’s willingness to co-operate on WMD was a direct result of the Iraq conflict, the PMOS repeated that it was no coincidence that Libya had taken the action it had at the time it had.

Asked if the Prime Minister would agree with the suggestion that conflicts such as Iraq, and any resulting inquires, could jeopardise his ability to convince people in the future that we might need to take military action against other rogue states, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister would ask people to take a step back and look closely at what we had discovered since the war in Iraq, not just in Iraq itself in terms of a strategic intent to produce WMD but also in terms of A Q Khan and his work and what Libya had confessed it had been up to. JIC assessments had shown the extent of bin Laden’s desire to get hold of WMD. It was clear that A Q Kahn’s network was not fiction. Libya’s intentions to develop WMD was not fiction. What had been found by the ISG in Iraq was not fiction. Once the controversy surrounding the Iraq war had subsided, the Prime Minister hoped that people would take a cool look at the reality of the world in which we lived. Terrorists, rogue states and commercial exploiters of WMD had all been trying to develop WMD. It was important to deal with the implications of that reality.

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» Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Butler Report

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