[A-List] UK state: Iraq crisis

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

WMDs: Blair's war that will not go away
CATHERINE MacLEOD
The Herald, 5 June 2003

TONY Blair was last night fighting to contain the political furore over
Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction as senior ministers accused
"rogue elements" in the intelligence services of briefing against the
government.

The strongest allegation by John Reid, leader of the Commons, prompted
demands from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats for a full-scale
judicial inquiry into the whole affair.

Mr Blair last night survived a fresh back-bench rebellion over Iraq by 11
Labour MPs. Their support was not enough to endorse a LibDem-led attempt for
an independent inquiry into No 10's handling of intelligence in the run-up
to war.

However, the Tories will keep up the pressure next week in debates to be
held under the little-known tribunal of inquiry act, related to intelligence
matters. Expected to take place on Wednesday, the government is likely to
win both, but they will create more adverse publicity for Downing Street.

Among the most damaging barbs yesterday came from Iain Duncan Smith, the
Tory leader, who said nobody believed a word Mr Blair was saying, and from
the prime minister's main accusers on his own benches, Clare Short and Robin
Cook, the former ministers.

Although neither voted with the LibDems last night, Ms Short said that a
trail of "deceit" over the case for military action in Iraq had thrown the
reputation of the government into question, and claimed there was
"overwhelming" evidence that Mr Blair had agreed a date for war as early as
last summer.

Mr Cook, who quit the cabinet over the war, asked why the government could
not admit it was simply "wrong" over Iraq's alleged 45-minute readiness to
use WMDs.

The prime minister's appearance at the dispatch box followed an early
morning meeting with John Scarlett, head of the Joint Intelligence Committee
(JIC), which assesses material for ministers. That coincided with Mr Reid
turning the spotlight on the "rogue elements" in the intelligence services
in newspaper and radio interviews.

Mr Duncan Smith accused Mr Blair of ordering Dr Reid to make his
"disgraceful" attack, and Menzies Campbell, LibDem foreign affairs
spokes-man, said it would be a "grave constitutional outrage" if his
allegations were true.

During a stormy prime minister's questions, Mr Blair insisted all the
intelligence information issued by the government had come from the JIC and
that he confirmed with its chairman "there was no attempt at any time by any
official or minister or member of No 10 Downing Street staff to override the
intelligence judgments of the Joint Intelligence Committee".

He said the controversial claim that Iraq had been able to deploy some WMDs
at 45 minutes' notice "was a judgment made by the Joint Intelligence
Committee and by them alone". Mr Blair acknowledged "somebody from the
intelligence community" had briefed journalists, but he did not believe it
was a member of the JIC, which includes the heads of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ, the
electronic "listening" agency.

As The Herald predicted yesterday, he then confirmed that the parliamentary
Intelligence and Security Committee would be investigating the role played
by the intelligence agencies in the war.

His official spokesman later indicated that Mr Blair would be prepared to
give evidence to the committee, which conducts all its hearings behind
closed doors, and said its report would be published in full.

The BBC made clear that it would not be willing to make public the name of
the source for the Today report which sparked the current row, when it cited
unnamed intelligence sources claiming that the security services were
ordered to "sex up" evidence for a government dossier published last
September.

-----

'Loyalty to your government is important but loyalty to the truth is a
higher imperative'
Short and Cook use Commons debate to attack Blair over war

DEBORAH SUMMERS
The Herald, 5 June 2003

ROBIN Cook and Clare Short yesterday hijacked a Liberal Democrat debate on
Iraq to accuse the government of "deceit" and brand ministers "wrong".

The two ex-cabinet ministers used the opposition day motion to vent their
anger over Tony Blair's efforts to topple Saddam Hussein.

Ms Short, who quit as international development secretary in the wake of the
Iraq conflict, claimed she had been told by "three very, very senior figures
in Whitehall" that Mr Blair had agreed last summer to go to war on February
15.

"That was later extended to mid-March. At the time the prime minister was
telling us he was committed to a second resolution," she said.

"I preferred at that time to believe the prime minister but I now think . .
. that the evidence is overwhelming that there was a date and that this is
why the Blix process was not allowed to be completed."

'Very grave accusation'

Speaking as MPs demanded a public inquiry into the alleged misuse of
intelligence information to justify the war, she said: "We should have tried
to resolve this crisis without military action if we could. But the fact
that there was deceit on the way to military action is a very grave
accusation I am making. If we can be deceived about this then what can we
not be deceived about?

"We must get to the bottom of this. The government's record must be made
absolutely clear . . . Obviously loyalty to your government is an important
quality but loyalty to the truth is a higher imperative.

Ms Short added: "Because of the secrecy and the element of deceit in getting
to war by that date the preparations for the post-conflict situation were
inadequate . . . there is chaos in Iraq and something like 70 people a week
are dying."

She said people were also "misled" about the position of the French -
claiming Jacques Chirac, the French president, never ruled out military
action.

"The French have been vilified disgracefully," she added.

Mr Cook, former foreign secretary who quit as leader of the House of Commons
in protest over the war, asked why the government could not admit it was
simply "wrong" about claims that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could
be fired in 45 minutes.

It followed LibDem calls for an independent inquiry into the handling of
intelligence on Iraq. Menzies Campbell, LibDem foreign affairs spokesman,
argued that John Reid's intervention had "raised the stakes". The Commons
leader was reported to have blamed "rogue elements" in the security services
for briefing against the government.

Only a public inquiry, headed by a judicial figure, could provide the level
of scrutiny required to get to the bottom of what passed between 10 Downing
Street and the intelligence services, Mr Campbell said. An independent
inquiry should consider a number of significant questions including who was
responsible for the final contents of the so called "dodgy dossier" and the
false allegation that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium.

"The inquiry must also consider if there is any evidence of efforts by
anyone in the intelligence services to undermine the Government. That would
be a grave constitutional outrage if it were true."

However, Jack Straw, foreign secretary, rejected the demand, insisting that
the intelligence and security committee, which will investigate the affair,
was "capable of forensic examination . . . and independence of judgment".

Mr Campbell claimed Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction were at the
heart of the government's case for going to war as was ministers' contention
that they posed an "imminent danger" to the UK and its forces.

It should also consider to what extent the government was reliant on Iraqi
sources, whose objectivity might have been questionable.

Mr Straw insisted the government had never spoken about Iraqi weapons posing
an imminent danger to the UK and its forces but information in the dossier,
which said some of Saddam's weapons could be ready for use within 45
minutes, came from "an established and reliable source" who had been
reporting to the government for some years.

Observing from the back benches, Mr Cook could not resist a barbed
intervention. The 45-minute claim was simply "wrong" he said.

"If the US Marine Corps can now say we were wrong, why cannot we say it?" he
asked. Mr Straw was clearly prepared for the attack. He quoted a newspaper
article Mr Cook had written as foreign secretary, setting out why it was in
the interests of the Iraqi people to bomb Saddam.

The government believed Saddam was hiding the weapons and was taking
advantage of the absence of weapons inspectors to rebuild weapons of mass
destruction.

Unchecked, he could develop a crude nuclear device within five years, Mr
Cook wrote.

But two years on, Mr Cook retorted: "He was not allowed to go unchecked. We
pursued a vigorous policy of containment and everything we have discovered
going into Iraq is that that policy of containment worked." He added: "The
central issue is that we have not found any weapons ready for use within 45
minutes. That information was wrong wherever it came from." But Mr Straw
replied: "I do not accept that because we have not yet been able to find
physical evidence of the possession that therefore these weapons do not
exist. It flies in the face of all the other evidence."

Michael Ancram, shadow foreign secretary said the allegations against the
government over its handling of intelligence on Iraq had to be answered not
just "comprehensively and fully but also urgently".

Labour's Calum MacDonald (Western Isles) said that those MPs who were
convinced that Saddam was not harbouring weapons and believed the war was
based on a "fallacy", were "flying in the face" of over 10 years of evidence
gathered by the UN.

He said: "It is not just foolish but juvenile to leap from the failure to
discover weapons of mass destruction to the conclusion that the Iraqi
government closed down that programme after the inspectors left in 1998."

Winding up for LibDems, Michael Moore said his party had continued to argue
that containment should have been continued and that the UN route should
have been taken.

"It seems remarkable that until this point we have not been in a position
where we were able to ascertain where these weapons of mass destruction
might be," he said.

Denis MacShane, Foreign Office minister, accused Liberal Democrats of
ignoring the real issues over Iraq to concentrate on "petty political points
scoring".

The LibDem motion was rejected by 301 to 203, a government majority of 98.
The government's amendment was carried without a vote.

The Rebels
Eleven Labour MPs voted for the Liberal Democrat motion:

Harry Barnes (Derbyshire North East)
Harry Cohen (Leyton & Wanstead)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North)
Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North)
Ms Glenda Jackson (Hampstead & Highgate)
Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway)
Brian Sedgemore (Hackney South & Shoreditch)
Alan Simpson (Nottingham South)
Llew Smith (Blaenau Gwent)
Robert Wareing (Liverpool West Derby).

-----

Spies, lies and conspiracy theories make for a page-turner
Analysis

MICHAEL SETTLE
The Herald, 5 June 2003

FIRST, there were rogue states, now there are rogue spies, the intriguing
tale of Downing Street, the security services, and weapons of mass
destruction is turning into something worthy of John Le Carre at his finest.

After yesterday's extraordinary outburst from John Reid, the Commons leader,
that "rogue elements" within MI5 and MI6 were working to destabilise Tony
Blair and his ministers over WMD, one could be forgiven for thinking - what
next in the Whitehall thriller?

Certainly, there are, as Dr Reid said "rogue isolated individuals" who have
been briefing reporters that Number 10 asked them to "sex up" the WMD
dossier to give the prime minister a stronger argument for waging war
against Saddam Hussein.

While ministerial sources last night insisted there was "no paranoia" about
rogue spies who have got it in for the Labour government, and security
sources made clear there was "no bad blood" with Downing Street, Dr Reid's
outburst seemed to have backfired. It gave more legs to a seemingly
inexhaustive story, energised the Tories to call for a full judicial
inquiry, and provided more ammunition for the war sceptics.

The key questions, of course, are who are these "rogue elements" and how
high up the security foodchain are they? Are they disgruntled senior
officers who feel their integrity has been compromised by political
expediency or are they low-level operatives with an axe to grind against a
prime minister and government they simply dislike?

During prime minister's questions, Mr Blair again repeated the charges of
exaggeration were "completely and totally untrue", adding: "There was no
attempt at any time by any official, or minister, or member of 10 Downing
Street staff, to override the intelligence judgments of the joint
intelligence committee (JIC).

"Their judgments, including the judgment about the so-called 45 minutes, was
a judgment made by the JIC and by them alone." This was a reference to the
time in which it was alleged that Iraq could mount an attack using WMD.

Mr Blair added: "Instead of one anonymous source or many anonymous sources,
if these people have any evidence they should produce it."

However, there is historical form about Labour prime ministers being
targeted by the so-called "enemy within".

The fall of the first Labour government in the 1920s was sealed by the leak
of the infamous Zinoviev letter, since blamed on MI6.

The letter - almost certainly a forgery - was purportedly written by Grigori
Zinoviev, the president of the Soviet Union's international organisation.

It urged British communists to mobilise "sympathetic forces" within Labour
to support a new Anglo-Soviet treaty and to foment "agitation-propaganda" in
the armed forces.

Just four days before the 1924 general election, the Daily Mail front page
headline read: "Civil War Plot by Socialists' Masters: Moscow Orders To Our
Reds. Great Plot Disclosed." Ramsay MacDonald's Labour party lost by a
landslide.

More recently, Peter Wright, an ex-MI5 officer, said he was one of 30
like-minded spies who plotted to oust Harold Wilson in the 1970s, convinced
he was a Soviet agent.

The MI5 file on Mr Wilson, codenamed "Henry Worthington", listed concerns,
which related to the ex-PM's frequent visits to the eastern bloc and to the
astonishing claim by a Soviet defector that the KGB assassinated the
previous Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskell, to make way for Mr Wilson.

His surprise resignation prompted widespread speculation the intelligence
services had been involved but a later MI5 inquiry concluded the so-called
"Wilson Plot" never existed.

Although this weekend is likely to be dominated by matters European ahead of
Monday and Gordon Brown's long-awaited assessment of the five euro tests,
the Tories are expected to hold a debate on WMD and "rogue elements" next
week.

With a Commons inquiry under way and a second government WMD dossier due,
the Whitehall thriller about spies, ministers, weapons and terror states has
a few more chapters to run.