[A-List] UK state: Iraq crisis

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

Reading this stuff is truly a living dialectical experience: you marvel at
the stupidity of "Dr" John Reid, you splutter with rage at the complicity of
the writer in the establishment's denial of the Wilson plot, you realise
with satisfaction that this very conspiracy of denial has effectively
smashed Reid's own credibility. As I wrote yesterday, Reid is now being
compared with the paranoid "Walter Mitty" figure of Harold Wilson, although,
as plenty of others know, Harold Wilson had rather more to worry about than
"Dr" Reid. And this writer almost redeems himself by referring throughout to
"Mr Reid".


Reid wriggles, as No 10 fumes over allegations

JASON BEATTIE CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
The Scotsman, 5 June 2003

THE normal practice when a damaging story hits the government is to try to
kill it as quickly as possible. "We always look for ways of closure," said
one former Cabinet minister. Pity nobody told John Reid that.

The Leader of the House is normally regarded as a safe pair of hands by
Downing Street. He is one of a select group of Labour MPs - others are Ian
McCartney and George Foulkes - wheeled out by No10 as "firefighters" to damp
down a story before it blazes out of control.

Yesterday, Mr Reid had what could be politely described as an off day.
Rather than calm the row over whether Downing Street had doctored its
dossier on the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), Mr
Reid made an intervention which was about as welcome as lime juice on a
paper cut. There were, he told John Humphrys on BBC Radio 4's Today
programme, rogue elements in the intelligence services that had briefed
against the government.

It was not clear whether Mr Reid's words had Downing Street's imprimatur,
but they suggested that Tony Blair was developing a paranoia about the
security services similar to that of his Labour predecessor, Harold Wilson.

Mr Wilson infamously believed the spooks were so indoctrinated by
Conservative values that they were prepared to abuse their position to bring
 down a Labour prime minister.

By the time Mr Reid had finished his extraordinary intervention, No10 was
facing the news equivalent of a Hydra: the mythical monster which when one
head was cut off, two others grew in its place.

The government was buckling under accusations that not only had it
overridden its intelligence advisers to "sex up" evidence, but it had lost
the respect of the intelligence services to such an extent that disaffected
agents were prepared to brief against the Prime Minister.

The scenario could not have been worse for Downing Street. There was already
considerable fury that little effort had been made to quell the story when
Andrew Gilligan, Today's defence correspondent, had first made his
allegations about the dossier at 6:30am last Thursday.

In an crucial error, atypical of a government renowned for its supposed
media management, none of the "firefighters" had been called back from their
Whitsun holidays to rebut Gillgan's accusations, allowing the story to
gather momentum.

In particular, Gilligan's assertion that unnamed intelligence sources had
questioned the veracity of the dossier's claim that Saddam's WMDs could be
primed "within 45 minutes" had been left almost totally unchallenged.

Furthermore, the BBC had decided to close ranks round Gilligan, with every
subsequent report assuming that his original story was 100 per cent
accurate.

It was only when Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell returned from their week
of globetrotting on Tuesday morning that the government spin machine cranked
into action.

Barely had the prime minister's plane landed at Heathrow than a U-turn was
executed: despite insisting an inquiry was not necessary, Downing Street had
authorised the Intelligence and Security Committee to investigate the issue.

Mr Reid was then dispatched to the next morning's breakfast shows, BBC
television, GMTV and the Today programme, in an attempt to wrest control of
the agenda back from the Conservatives and the anti-war lobby.

Mr Blair also had a meeting scheduled in his diary with John Scarlett, the
head of the Joint Intelligence Committee - the original source for the
dossier. A life-saving agreement was struck. Mr Scarlett and Mr Blair were
at one that No10 had not twisted the intelligence for its own advantage.

At yesterday's 11am lobby briefing, Downing Street went on the offensive.

With at least eight representatives of the BBC in the room, the Prime
Minister's official spokesman kicked off the proceedings by repeating the
denial initially given to the Today programme at 7:15am last Thursday - 45
minutes after Gilligan first made his allegations.

The spokesman said the claims by Gilligan were untrue and that "the dossier
was entirely the work of the intelligence agencies and that suggestions that
any pressure was put on the intelligence services, by No 10 or anyone else,
to change the document were entirely false.

"The idea that the intelligence services would include something about which
they were unhappy was, quite frankly, laughable," he added.

There was then a tetchy spat between the spokesman and the BBC's political
editor, Andrew Marr, who loyally defended Gilligan's reputation. Was No10
accusing Gilligan of fabrication? Mr Marr asked.

"If you are asking me to make a moral equivalence, or an equivalence of any
kind between the source of the intelligence of 45 minutes and the source of
the claim on the BBC, I know which side of the fence I would rather be on,"
said the spokesman.

Mr Marr put it to him that the difference between the two was that one was
employed by the British state and the other not.

The spokesman responded: "I'm not quite sure what that is meant to say. It
sounds a bit smart-arsed to me."

Downing Street was also on the back foot over Mr Reid's remarks. Six times
the spokesman was asked "Does the Prime Minister agree with John Reid there
are rogue elements in the intelligence services?" and six times he refused
to offer a straight answer.

The nearest the spokesman would come to endorsing the Leader of the House
was: "We have no disagreement with what John Reid was saying and the clear
inference of what he was saying was ... why the BBC have run with a story
based on unnamed sources and which we have categorically denied."

With the story running away from No10's grasp, Mr Blair was under pressure
to produce a virtuoso performance at Prime Minister's Questions. He
succeeded, not least because Iain Duncan Smith was as feeble as Mr Blair was
bold.

Mr Blair had also been helped by his loyal deputy, John Prescott, who,
shortly before the start of question time, had launched a ten-minute tirade
during a private meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party.

In a typically rumbustious performance, a furious Mr Prescott read the riot
act, insisting "the Prime Minister does not lie".

Singling out rebels by name - in particular Graham Allen and Peter
Kilfoyle - Mr Prescott vented his fury at those seeking to undermine the
authority of Mr Blair.

"This is all about the integrity of the party - and the Prime Minister does
not lie," he ranted.

Although a hard core of Labour rebels, including Robin Cook and Clare Short,
sat tight- lipped as Mr Blair defended the government's record, the majority
went out of their way to cheer the Prime Minister as he duelled with Mr
Duncan Smith.

The Tory leader tried to skewer the Prime Minister on whether Downing Street
had doctored the dossier, but the questions were too rambling and clumsy.

Mr Blair's strategy was simple: to rebuild the government's reputation for
integrity by disproving as many of the allegations against it as possible.

Realising that Downing Street's word was not taken as gospel, the Prime
Minister stressed the probity of the Joint Intelligence Committee: "I have
spoken to the chairman of the JIC. 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 JIC.

"Their judgments, including the judgment about the so-called 45 minutes, was
a judgment made by the JIC and by them alone."

Only one question appeared to catch Mr Blair off guard. Robin Cook, the
former Cabinet minister who resigned over Iraq, asked whether Mr Blair would
apologise for including in the dossier the misleading information that Iraq
had tried to buy uranium from Africa.

It was a characteristically subtle intervention by Mr Cook, reminding MPs
that the 45-minute allegation was not the only part of the document which
appeared ropey.

As the session drew to a close Labour MPs gave a resounding cheer. But Mr
Blair was not out of the woods yet. Questions remained on why he refused to
allow an independent judicial inquiry into the allegations.

Using an obscure regulation in the parliamentary rule book, the
Conservatives stepped up the pressure by insisting there was a vote on
whether there should be an inquiry. The division, shortly after 5pm
yesterday, was the first sign the government was beginning to turn the
argument. The opposition motion was defeated by 301 to 202, a comfortable
majority.

The question dogging Mr Blair and his colleagues is whether Labour has been
permanently damaged by the allegation that it was prepared to massage
intelligence evidence.