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Tuesday August 26 2003, 2.00 pm:
MR DINGEMANS: Mr Scarlett, we have looked at the memo of 10th
June 2003, CAB/18/49, which was Sir David
Omand's response to your minute of 9th June. Effectively, in
paragraph 2, he appears to conclude that he was
attracted by the idea that someone working in consultation with
other people would look at matters, effectively; is
that right?
A. Yes, that is right.
Q. Then we get a report from them on 9th July. Can I take you to
CAB/18/51? We can see this is a memo from
someone at Head of Security Policy Division, to you, copied to
Sir David Omand: "You asked me to do some initial
work on the reported leaks to the media about the Iraq WMD
dossier." Then: "... an analysis of the published
accounts of the '45 minutes' leaks to Gilligan." Then if one
continues over the page to paragraph 5, there is
reference to: "... full analysis of the press reports and FISC
transcripts at Annex A and references to Gilligan's source
at annex B." Can I take you on to annex B, which is page 55, and
ask you one question in relation to it. It is towards
the bottom of the page, at paragraph 4. You can see this is
someone who appears to have done an analysis of
knowledge of matters; for example, we can see, if we go up to
paragraph 3, the previous one is: "Gilligan's latest
meeting with source. "Gilligan initiated the latest meeting ..."
He tells us where he got that from, the FAC transcript,
The Mail on Sunday article. Then if you go down to paragraph 4:
"Source's knowledge of opposition to 45 minute
claim. "The source has first or second-hand knowledge of the
opposition to inclusion of the 45-minute claim. He
stated the 45 minutes claim was included in the dossier against
our wishes because it wasn't reliable." Then the
transcript is noted, and comment: "If source's claims concerning
the double sourcing of most of the JIC items is
correct, it confirms a close knowledge of the intelligence used
for the dossier." I am just wondering about the
heading "Source's knowledge of opposition to 45 minute claim."
It appears to be written on the basis that there was
opposition to the 45 minute claim. Do you agree with that
analysis of the document?
A. Well, no, I do not. I think it is an honest mistake. The
purpose of this document was not to analyse whether or not
there was opposition to the 45 minute claim. The purpose of the
document purely was to analyse the access of Mr
Gilligan's source.
Q. It is right, so far as Dr Kelly was concerned, that if he
said to Mr Gilligan that the material was single sourced and
it was added late, both matters were in fact accurate?
A. Yes, they were correct.
Q. We now know more about Dr Kelly's involvement in the latter
stages of the dossier.
A. Yes.
Q. Can I then take you to 15th June? We have looked at the 10th
June memo. On 15th June there is an article by
The Observer about mobile trailers. After that, did you have any
discussions with anyone about possible sources for
that story?
A. I had one brief discussion about that article with Martin
Howard. It may have been on -- the beginning of the week
after the article had appeared, because there was a reference to
a British official giving an opinion about the mobile
laboratories; and I asked Martin for his view. Martin Howard
told me that there were only -- this description of the
British official could only be or could only apply to up to four
people, probably four people; and one of those was Dr
Kelly. That was the first time that I had heard his name.
Q. I think we have heard from Mr Howard about the inquiries that
he made. Were you any party to these further
enquiries?
A. I was not an active party. Mr Howard told me he had wondered
whether Dr Kelly might not be the source for the
article; that Dr Kelly, as it happened, had rung him from abroad
to volunteer, as far as Mr Howard was concerned,
that he was not the source of the article. Mr Howard said to me
he wondered actually whether that was true, and we
took the conversation no further.
Q. 25th June, Mr Campbell gives evidence to the Foreign Affairs
Committee. I think it is right that you had spoken
with him on 24th June, helping him prepare for his evidence; is
that right?
A. Yes, that is right.
Q. FAC/2/287. If one goes down to question 1019, Mr Chidgey asks
Mr Campbell: "You appreciate how important
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this issue is. The accusation has been made that this document
was adjusted, altered, sexed up -- whatever -- for a
particular political purpose so one has to be somewhat pedantic
and get exactly to the bottom of how the process
worked. You said, and it is on the record elsewhere, that this
process took many months to evolve. I think it would
be very helpful if, perhaps not today but shortly afterwards,
you could let the Committee have information on the
suggestions that were made by you and your team as this document
evolved. For example, it must be the case
surely that in this process, as the drafts were continuing or
continuously upgraded or amended, copies of earlier
drafts would have been kept electronically within your
Department, within your team. It would be very helpful if it
was possible for us to have copies of those earlier drafts so
that we could satisfy ourselves that there were no
attempts to change the essence of the document in order to
pursue a particular political point. Is that possible?" Mr
Campbell said this: "Can I say again on that the JIC would have
to be content that they were willing to do that but
that is certainly something I can take back and ask them if they
are." Did Mr Campbell in fact ask you whether he
could release copies of the dossier to the Foreign Affairs
Committee?
A. It was mentioned, briefly, by him to me; and I replied that I
was quite sure that my colleagues on the JIC would
not be happy for the drafts to be released to the FAC.
Q. And why is that?
A. Well, there were two reasons. The first was that discussion
of the drafts and all the various questions which would
have arisen from the drafts, which would have quickly got into
matters of intelligence because the drafts were very
closely linked to underlying intelligence and whether or not it
could have been included in the changes that were
made and so on, was properly a matter for the ISC. And it is
with the Intelligence and Security Committee that the
Government deals, as a Committee of Parliamentarians set up by
statute on intelligence matters. That is the first
point. The second point was even leaving that matter aside, to
pass over drafts, work in progress, advice which is
being formulated but is only being formulated and is not
anything which has been sort of signed up to by the
officials working on it, is, as it were, revealing that process
of formulation of advice by officials, as I say, for
Ministers. It falls directly into that domain. It is an area
where certainly colleagues on the JIC I knew, but officials I
think more widely, feel strongly should remain confidential for
the good conduct of Government business.
Q. We have heard from Mr Campbell, and indeed almost everyone
else who has come from the Government to talk
about this claim, that this was the most serious of claims that
could ever be made against the Government, how
important it was to set the record straight. Would this not have
been a public way of setting the record straight?
A. It would have been. I have never been in any doubt myself
that presentation, if you like, of the full drafts would
reveal that the whole process was one of integrity, and honest
and rigorous and well founded. But that does not get
away from the fact that putting forward the drafts in the way
suggested here would not have had the support of my
colleagues; and I would not have wanted to put it to them. I
might add there that separately and later the drafts were
handed to the Intelligence and Security Committee, in response
to their requests, and they are -- have been with the
Intelligence and Security Committee since then; but amongst my
colleagues on the JIC, when that matter was being
discussed, the worries and concerns that I have just expressed
to you were forcefully expressed to me.
Q. Can I now take you to your next involvement with Dr Kelly?
You have had a discussion with Mr Howard in June,
after The Observer article. Do you have any other dealings in
relation to Dr Kelly in June at all?
A. No.
Q. When is the first time, in July, that you are made aware that
Dr Kelly is under discussion again?
A. It is on the evening of Friday 4th July. I can be precise; at
a meeting with Sir David Omand at 17.30 or
thereabouts.
Q. Right. You have a meeting with Sir David Omand. What is
discussed?
A. Well, I was due to meet him anyway, which is how I know,
because it was in my diary. David said to me,
straightaway, that he wanted to tell me and seek my advice about
a development which had been reported to him
by Sir Kevin Tebbit from the Ministry of Defence. As I
understood it, and that was the case, it had been reported to
him by telephone. Briefly, somebody had come forward to the MoD
to indicate that they might be the source for the
Gilligan story; and David gave me his name.
Q. So you, on the Friday evening, or early Friday evening know
the name of Dr Kelly?
A. Yes.
Q. And I think you are joined, we have heard from Jonathan
Powell and Sir David Manning, by them at about 6
o'clock, is that right?
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A. No, not quite right. David Omand and I went -- arranged to go
across to David Manning's office in No. 10, and at
our initiative, to brief him as a member of the Prime Minister's
Office on this development.
LORD HUTTON: What did you think was the significance of this
development? I mean, what went through your head
when you were told that someone had come forward and said he had
had a meeting with Mr Gilligan, Mr Scarlett?
A. It did depend, of course, on what I actually knew about what
this person said at this point, which was not very
much and was not paper based in any way, it was an oral
briefing; but I was told, and David knew, that there had
been a meeting in a London hotel, that the question of 45
minutes had been discussed, no details, and that Alastair
Campbell's name had been mentioned. It was -- but there were
other details which did not fit. I did not learn
immediately anything more about that. So what went through my
head was that there was a serious chance that this
was indeed the source who was being quoted by Mr Gilligan.
LORD HUTTON: What went through your head then that you thought
there was a serious chance this might be the
source? Did you have any further thoughts as to what that might
lead to or what its significance might be, or not at
that stage? Can you help me with that?
A. It is always unwise to claim that one has all sorts of
rational thoughts in retrospect which one does not have at the
time.
LORD HUTTON: Quite.
A. I was aware -- it was my view, as I have already stated, that
Mr Gilligan's story was wrong.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. And, therefore, either somebody had given him a wrong story
or he had added to a story that he had been given -
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LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. -- by somebody, as it were, speaking genuinely, whatever his
opinion or knowledge happened to be, partial
probably. So it was one or the other.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. And that being the case, and I thought it was quite likely to
be the second, when I heard that somebody had
come forward who did seem to have had some discussion with Mr
Gilligan about this, was saying that it was not at
all the account that Mr Gilligan had broadcast, I clearly
thought: well, this might be the answer to what has
happened. But I stress the word "might" because, of course, I
have learned over many years to be careful in these
situations.
LORD HUTTON: But the answer to what? To what would it be the
answer?
A. Well, my Lord, how this situation had arisen, what
information had been genuinely passed to Mr Gilligan at the
initial meeting and that he had had with his source, and then
whether or not he had added to it.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. That, to my mind, was a sort of critical issue at the centre
of the affair, to explain how these allegations had arisen
and on what they were or were not based.
MR DINGEMANS: So you have the meeting then in No. 10 in I think
Sir David Manning's office.
A. Indeed.
Q. You discussed the matters you have outlined to his Lordship,
is that right?
A. Well, not exactly. We passed -- David Omand and I explained
to David Manning what we had understood from
Kevin Tebbit. We gave him the name, mentioned the name; and I
told him what I had already said to David Omand,
that I had one recollection of this name in relation to The
Observer article.
Q. Yes. Was anything decided at that meeting?
A. Nothing was decided at that meeting. The meeting was joined
by Jonathan Powell. It was noted that this was
relevant, this issue, to two big events which were due to happen
very shortly: one was the publication of the FAC
report, due on the Monday morning -- since this was late Friday
evening, this was virtually immediately; and the
meeting of the BBC governors, which I think had very shortly
before been announced for the Sunday evening.
Q. Were there any conclusions reached at the meeting?
A. My only other memory of the meeting was this was something
that might need to be dealt with as a disciplinary
matter and certainly would need to be dealt with as a personnel
matter within the Ministry of Defence structures and
would have to be handled accordingly.
Q. Can I take you to CAB/19/2, which are some notes from minute
books we have now been provided. It says:
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"John Scarlett, 4/7/3." You can see from the top it is an
extract from Sebastian Madden's minute book. It says:
"David Kelly. "-- MoD PACS. "(FCO secondee) "-- Not Gilligan's
source but had met him in a hotel? "Next steps. "--
disciplinary offence. Not OS
A." I imagine that means "Official Secrets Act", does it?
A. That is right.
Q. Then Kevin Tebbit writing to, who is that?
A. Sir David Omand, Sir David Manning, John Scarlett, et
cetera.
Q. "Line to take. "Saying no action being taken to make [it
looks like] the name public."
A. "To make things public", yes.
Q. And: "SDO to warn Matthew/SDM." So Sir David Omand to
warn?
A. Matthew Rycroft; that would be the private secretary in No.
10.
Q. And SDM?
A. Sir David Manning.
Q. That is a note of the meeting you appear to have had before
you went over to No. 10.
A. Yes, it must have been because I do not recall Sebastian
Madden coming with us when we went to No. 10.
Q. Then CAB/11/3. This is a document you produced after the
event, but is described as an aide memoir, "Meetings
at which I was present". If we go to the bottom of CAB/11/4 you
can see it is your document, John Scarlett, dated
21st July 2003. Going back to 4th July, this is your note of the
meeting: "MoD official has come forward [name
given] sounds like Gilligan's source. Noted that normal MoD
procedures must be followed and appropriate legal
advice taken." Did you know or did anyone tell you what the
normal MoD personnel procedures were?
A. No.
Q. Do you know whether or not any legal advice was taken at this
stage?
A. No. That is a reference to David Manning, it was, at the
meeting, who said that it might be necessary or we would
need to consider the question of legal advice, but there was no
further discussion at that point.
Q. Then you can see the reference to BBC governors and the FAC,
which you have told us about.
A. Yes.
Q. That is on 4th July. Do you actually see Sir Kevin Tebbit's
letter?
A. Yes, I do, shortly before I go home.
Q. Which is at MoD/1/35. I am not sure we need to see that again
unless there is anything you want to identify in
that.
A. No.
Q. On 5th July I think you are told about a second letter Sir
Kevin Tebbit is going to write?
A. Yes.
Q. That is because he has read an article in The Times that
morning and he has told us he came into work?
A. Yes.
Q. What were your discussions that weekend?
A. They were very brief. I was told by the Cabinet Office duty
officer that we had a copy sent to me of Kevin Tebbit's
letter very briefly what with that was. I did not go into the
office to look at it. I discussed it over the phone or I heard
about it over the phone. I then spent some time at home looking
through the transcripts from the Foreign Affairs
Committee and the meeting with Andrew Gilligan, because I knew,
although I could not remember all the details,
there had been discussion there about the precise nature and
number of Andrew Gilligan's sources.
Q. You dictated, on Monday morning, a document. Can I take you
to CAB/1/46?
A. Yes.
Q. Is this the document you put together, thinking about it over
the weekend, as it were, and dictate up -- if you go
down to the bottom of the page you can see John Muir, 7th
July.
A. Yes, that is my private secretary.
Q. You dictate the following that you: " ... agree with Kevin
Tebbit's letter of Saturday that the finger points strongly
at David Kelly as Gilligan's source." That was your analysis,
was it?
A. Yes, based on my reading of the transcripts and my knowledge
of the affair generally, that was what I was
thinking very first thing on Monday morning.
Q. Then you attached two copies of the FAC transcript which you
thought made that proposition good, as it were.
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Then you say this: "If he could have referred to any
corroborating information he would have done so. If this is
true,
Kelly is not telling the whole story. "Gilligan must have got
the 45 minute single intelligence report item from
somewhere, presumably Kelly."
A. Yes.
Q. That is because you worked out that Mr Gilligan had said two
things that were not known to the public, is that
right?
A. Yes.
Q. One, that the 45 minutes was late.
A. Yes.
Q. And two, that it was single source.
A. Yes. Yes.
Q. So those two things Mr Gilligan must have found out from
someone?
A. Yes.
Q. If Dr Kelly is the single source, then it must have been
through Dr Kelly?
A. Yes, if there was only one source -- and that was the meaning
of the FAC transcripts, that there was only one
source. If there had been a conversation as described by Dr
Kelly between himself and Mr Gilligan at that time, then
either it -- the chances of it also containing references or
being the point at which Mr Gilligan learned these two
items of information or there being some other conversation with
another source and that Mr Gilligan was not
regarding Dr Kelly as a source at all, those were the two
possibilities. But if he was not regarding Dr Kelly as a
source at all, it sort of seemed to me extremely unlikely he
would not have made some reference to him, the
existence of such a conversation, in his conversation with the
FAC as corroboration on a point where he was under
some pressure to explain why he was placing so much reliance on
one particular source.
Q. So you have worked out over the weekend that Dr Kelly has not
given the full story to the Ministry of Defence or
probably not given the full story to the Ministry of
Defence?
A. Well, as I understood it, on the basis of very partial
knowledge of what had actually happened between Dr Kelly
and the MoD, because I had seen the letter giving a fairly brief
summary of the interview between Dr Kelly and Mr
Hatfield and the MoD and conclusions, but it gave very few
details actually about that interview. And also I heard a
brief oral account and I had seen or heard of Kevin Tebbit's
letter of Saturday -- so I did not have a full
understanding of that. But on the basis of what I had been told,
these important points about: where did Mr Gilligan
get the knowledge about the report arriving late and it being
based on one intelligence report, where did he learn
that from?
Q. Because if we go back to MoD/1/34, which is the letter of 4th
July that I think you said you saw on the Friday
night --
A. Yes.
Q. -- and go to the bottom of the page, second bullet as it
were, you can see that: "On the issue of 45 minutes [this
is after Dr Kelly's interview on 4th July], raised by Gilligan,
he said he did not know to what it refers (not having
access to the intelligence report)." That is the comment you
considered at the least doubtful after what your analysis
had shown over the weekend?
A. Well, it seemed possible, maybe more than possible that it
did not tell the full story.
Q. Going then back to CAB/1/46, that is why you recommend a
"security style" interview. Do you want to explain
what you mean by that?
A. I made this comment very quickly on the Monday morning,
before I went off to another meeting. I had tried to ring
David Omand just to make these points to him by telephone but he
was engaged elsewhere. This note here I
therefore dictated to my private secretary. It was for David
Omand only, it was not copied more widely, and it was
my advice to him. It was not an action document in any way. What
I meant was that the interview that had taken
place so far seemed to me to leave important questions
uncovered, these needed to be pursued, and so a further
interview was necessary. That interview would need to be
thorough and forensic, and designed to reach as
satisfactory an answer as possible, one way or the other, to
these outstanding questions. I thought and meant no
more than that.
Q. Right. Then I think on 7th July in the morning you go to
--
LORD HUTTON: I think the suggestion has been that those words
rather convey someone is to be quite seriously
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grilled.
A. I thought, my Lord, no more than I have just said.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. That I thought there were some outstanding facts/points here
which needed to be got clear, and that a further
interview was going to be necessary and it would need to be more
thorough than was the impression I had of the
interview which had taken place on the Friday. I did not give it
any more thought than that.
MR DINGEMANS: You then attend a meeting with the Prime Minister;
is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And I think there are two meetings, one at 9 o'clock and one
at 9.30?
A. There is one shortly after 9 o'clock and then one at
9.30.
Q. They are mainly discussions about the Foreign Affairs
Committee report.
A. Indeed.
Q. There is a brief discussion about Dr Kelly. What is said at
that stage, at the first meeting?
A. At the first meeting, very briefly, the Prime Minister had
asked to see me, so I had left a separate meeting I was
attending in Alastair Campbell's office about the Foreign
Affairs Committee report. I went to see him. I was with him
for a very short while. Jonathan Powell was the only other
person there. He wanted to know what the arrangements
were for discussing the Foreign Affairs Committee report. I told
him what was planned, we would be coming along
at 9.30. Then there was a brief reference to the fact that
somebody had come forward from the MoD and that we -- I
mean, I knew that he knew about it and he probably wanted to
know whether I knew about it. I cannot quite
remember. And I recall that I mentioned Dr Kelly's name
certainly at that meeting, but I am afraid I do not know
whether the Prime Minister already knew the name, and the Prime
Minister commented that it was going to be
necessary to know more and to learn more; and that was it. I
then rejoined the meeting in Alastair Campbell's office.
Q. Then, do you have a further meeting with the Prime Minister
at about 9.30?
A. Well, I along with others who had been in Alastair Campbell's
office went, as agreed, to the Prime Minister's
Office where a meeting was already in progress.
Q. And was anything said about Dr Kelly at that meeting?
A. Most of that meeting was on the FAC report and how to react
to it.
Q. Yes.
A. There was a discussion, at the end, about Dr Kelly. Kevin
Tebbit was at the meeting. There was, as I recall,
discussion as to whether he might or might not be Mr Gilligan's
source. It was noted, I do remember Kevin Tebbit
saying that there were a number of points where his story
importantly diverged from Mr Gilligan's. He also did say
that he had been explicit in saying he had not said anything
about Alastair Campbell. It was sort of -- it was agreed,
at the end, that he could be the source. It was impossible to
know, without knowing more. And there was consensus
around the meeting that he should be interviewed again.
Q. Can I take you to your note? We have looked at your note for
4th July. It is CAB/11/3. For 7th July this is a note
you make, scrolling down the page. First meeting: "Brief
discussion of whether Dr Kelly should be the source. Prime
Minister states that it must be handled according to proper MoD
and Civil Service procedures." Was there at that
stage any discussion about what those proper procedures
were?
A. No, but the Prime Minister did state it.
Q. At the 9.30 meeting, again with the Prime Minister and others
that you list, then you say this: "Brief discussion of
MoD source. If he appeared before a Committee, would he be
likely to support or otherwise the Government
position? JSC"... That is you I imagine, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. "... to seek advice from MoD. Was he/was he not the source?
No further decision possible without knowing more
about his contact with Gilligan." Why was it important or does
it appear to have been important to find out whether
he supported or otherwise the Government position?
A. Whether or not it was important, it was not quite put like
that. It was -- there was a discussion, a brief discussion,
as to whether -- if, at some point, Dr Kelly was questioned in
public before a Committee, as mentioned here, if that
happened, what were his views on the question of Iraq and Iraqi
WMD? Were these consistent with what the
Government itself had been saying and was saying or were they
not? It was a recognition that this was a point on
which the Government, you know, could usefully be informed,
should know what the situation was. It was no more
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than that.
Q. No firm decisions were taken then because everything was
awaiting the further interviews?
A. Yes.
Q. We know he was interviewed later on that day by Richard
Hatfield, Martin Howard and Dr Wells was there.
A. Yes.
Q. And we have seen notes of that. Was any report made back to
you after the meeting, after the interview?
A. Martin Howard telephoned me at the end of the day to give a
brief verbal account of how the interview had gone.
It was very brief; and the points that I recall from that
telephone conversation were, first, that Dr Kelly had repeated
the same points that he had made on Friday, and, in particular,
had repeated his conviction that he could not be the
source for Mr Gilligan.
Q. Right.
A. But that he had seemed less sure, on this occasion, than he
had before; and that in particular I quite clearly
remember Martin saying that he had begun to comment: well, he
was not quite sure of what had been said on
particular points and that maybe it could be that Andrew
Gilligan had led him on, but that was not defined further.
LORD HUTTON: Just going back to your note on the 9.30 meeting on
7th July and the passage Mr Dingemans has
referred you to: "Brief discussion of MoD source. If he appeared
before a Committee, would he be likely to support
or otherwise the Government position?" That might be read as
meaning that whether or not he would be produced
before a Committee might depend on whether he would be likely to
support or otherwise the Government position.
A. It might be read like that, my Lord, but it is not my memory
of the discussion. My memory was that if he appeared
before a Committee, whether or not the Government wanted it,
what would he say? And there was interest in
knowing that in advance.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
MR DINGEMANS: So Mr Howard has reported to you now the second
meeting. In relation to that, Mr Howard says: I
think he must be the single source.
A. Yes. I should add --
Q. For the reasons you have given.
A. He did say that as well.
Q. If he was the single source, then Dr Kelly must have said:
the 45 minutes was single sourced and it was added
late. Did you say to Mr Howard: well, what did he say about
these two points?
A. I do not think I did.
Q. Looking through the notes of interview, it does not look as
if Dr Kelly was asked about that. Do you know
anything about that?
A. I am afraid I do not remember enough detail of the notes of
the interview to answer that.
Q. Right. Was there any sort of understanding that: we would
leave aside those difficult areas about what you have
actually said to Mr Gilligan if you are a person not able, as it
were, to support the central thrust of Mr Gilligan's
report?
A. Not at all; no.
Q. You have had this discussion, then, with Mr Howard?
A. Hmm, hmm.
Q. Was there anything else that happened on the 7th July, the
Monday, so far as you recall?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. Did you have any input into any draft press statements, at
that stage, or discussions about draft press
statements?
A. No, I did not.
Q. Or defensive Q and A material?
A. No, I did not.
Q. On 8th July we know the Prime Minister is going off to a
Liaison Committee meeting. I think you attend meetings
at Downing Street; is that right?
A. It is right.
Q. The first meeting is at what time?
A. About 8.15.
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Q. What is discussed then in relation to Dr Kelly?
A. Only one point. The Prime Minister was concerned that he
might be asked, at the Liaison Committee, whether, for
example, any leak inquiry was under way, whether there was a
serious effort to identify the source, whether he had
any idea or the Government had any idea as to who the source
might be.
Q. And we have heard that a form of holding answer was
agreed.
A. Yes.
Q. That enquiries were under way; but as I understand it, he was
not asked about that?
A. That is right.
Q. He comes back from that at about 11.30 or 11.45 on the
Tuesday.
A. Yes.
Q. Are you present at a meeting then?
A. I was not present at the very beginning of a meeting but I
joined it very quickly.
Q. What was discussed there?
A. Well, the basis of that meeting was the outcome of the second
interview, which was reported to the meeting by
David Omand.
Q. Which you have already heard of briefly the night before.
A. Yes. I think David Omand gave some more detail; and he had it
anyway officially from Kevin Tebbit, as I
understand. Kevin Tebbit was not present at that particular
meeting, at that time, and so David Omand reported the
results. The conclusion of the second interview was that the
chances of Dr Kelly being the single source for Mr
Gilligan were significantly higher than they had been
before.
Q. And that was what prompted you to take -- everyone at the
meeting to take a course of action?
A. Well, the subsequent discussion at that meeting was based on
that assessment.
Q. That he was the single source?
A. Not that he was definitely, but that there was a much higher
chance or that there was a very serious chance that
he was.
Q. I think it has been stressed that there should be Ministry of
Defence personnel procedures followed?
A. Yes.
Q. What does the meeting conclude? What is the conclusion of
that meeting at 11.30/11.45?
A. That meeting concluded that the ISC, Intelligence and
Security Committee, should be informed, in a letter, that
someone had come forward who might be the source for the Andrew
Gilligan report; that they should also be told
that there were important differences between this person's
account of the conversation and Mr Gilligan's reported
account; and that that person would be available for interview
by the ISC if the ISC so wanted; that that would be a
letter sent to the Chairman of the ISC; that it would be copied
to the Foreign Affairs Committee, but it would be sent,
as it were, for action to the ISC; that it should not name the
person concerned.
Q. All that is decided at the meeting; is that right?
A. That was the provisional decision, if you like, at that
meeting; but it was dependent on further discussion, detailed
discussion, with the Ministry of Defence.
Q. Because I think you have stressed that everyone was keen that
Ministry of Defence personnel procedures be
followed.
A. Yes.
Q. A provisional decision is reached at that meeting; and there
is no-one from the Ministry of Defence there, is
there?
A. Yes, because we were waiting for Kevin Tebbit to arrive for
the meeting.
Q. I think he has told us he was handing out medals for HMS
Nottingham down in Portsmouth.
A. Yes.
LORD HUTTON: May I ask you, Mr Scarlett, at that stage if the
ISC was to be informed that a source had come
forward but the person was not to be named and the letter to the
ISC was to be copied to the FAC, did it occur to
you that it was then probable that in some way or another the
name would come out into the public domain?
A. The discussion, my Lord, that we had at that meeting was
based on a sort of number of assessments or
assumptions. One of those was that the fact that somebody had
come forward would, whatever the Government
did, become public knowledge quickly, possibly very quickly.
-
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. Secondly, that Dr Kelly had been told that a public statement
would probably be made and that he had accepted
that, and that he had also been told that it was very likely
that at some point, it was not defined, to my knowledge,
his name would become known as the person who had come forward
and that he knew that.
LORD HUTTON: Yes. Why was it decided that his name should be
sent to the ISC? What, they were at the present
time, investigating, what, the reasons for the war or ...
A. No, the ISC, my Lord, were in the early stages of an inquiry
into the role of intelligence in Iraq.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. That they had been collecting documentation in support of
this inquiry and that they were to begin having oral
sessions with witnesses the following morning. Indeed, I was due
to be the first witness before them. So their inquiry
was, as it were, getting underway.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. That was the inquiry with which the Government were
cooperating with all matters relating to intelligence. Indeed,
the inquiry was about the role of intelligence in Iraq.
LORD HUTTON: Why inform the ISC that this source had come
forward? The reason may be obvious but I would
just like you to say.
A. No, it was our view and the view of the meeting, and this was
a recommendation made to the meeting initially by
David Omand, that the ISC were the proper body to be
investigating all aspects of the role of intelligence in Iraq,
including those aspects relating to the September public
assessment and including the controversy which by then
existed around that assessment. So they were the right Committee
to be dealing with it.
LORD HUTTON: We have heard that the ISC conduct their
proceedings in private.
A. Yes, my Lord.
LORD HUTTON: They report to the Prime Minister.
A. Yes, my Lord.
LORD HUTTON: Do their reports ever become public or are they
kept private?
A. No, all their reports become public, but they are subject to
redaction by agreement between the Government and
the Committee; if that redaction is justified on national
security grounds only.
LORD HUTTON: They are published by whom, by the Prime Minister's
Office or by the ISC?
A. I think by the Government.
LORD HUTTON: They are made public in any event?
A. Yes.
LORD HUTTON: Thank you.
MR DINGEMANS: Was anything said about Dr Kelly's continued
cooperation at this stage, with the interviewing
process?
A. At that stage only what I have already said.
Q. Can I just take you to CAB/11/6? This is a note that I know
you did not make but is dated 21st July and it is made
by Sir David Omand. If one goes to the top of the page, and this
is in relation to the 7th July meeting, Kevin: "Kevin
Tebbit said the MoD were considering calling him back to talk to
him again. He reiterated that Dr Kelly had come
forward of his own volition. As far as the MoD was concerned, no
question of an offence under the Official Secrets
Act. Dr Kelly's continued cooperation was therefore
essential."
A. Yes.
Q. Had anyone asked Dr Kelly whether he wanted to be sent off to
the ISC?
A. My understanding was that he had been told that he would be
likely -- he might very well be called before a
Committee if his name became public, and that he accepted that
would happen.
Q. After the meeting you would go away to draft a letter?
A. Yes.
Q. Which I think we see at CAB/18/68 to 69.
A. Yes.
Q. This is a document that is not sent; is that right?
A. Yes, that is right. I should say that I was doing this
because it had been agreed at the meeting that David Omand
would -- it was his suggestion that the ISC should be informed
and that he should write to the Chairman of the
-
Committee. But David Omand was about to go on an official trip
to Canada and literally had no choice but to leave
straightaway. So it was agreed I would take over from him and
represent him and that I would draft a letter. This is
the draft which I put together after the end of that meeting and
it was -- certainly it was never sent, but it was
produced as the basis for initial discussion at a meeting at
1330. And it reflected the provisional agreement and
discussion which I have just described. As you can see, it is
entitled "Letter from Sir Kevin Tebbit..." Well, that is
what it says because that is what, you know, was recorded as the
draft. My memory of the meeting certainly is that
it was agreed that David Omand should write, but there was some
discussion as to whether the ISC should be
properly informed by the security intelligence coordinator or
the Ministry of Defence, and probably what I drafted
reflected that discussion. I simply do not remember.
Q. Can I take you down to the third paragraph of that letter:
"This individual is an expert on WMD but was not 'one
of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier'. He
is not a member of the Intelligence Services. Nor is he
a member of the Senior Civil Service. He did not have access to
the intelligence report on 45 minutes and was not
involved in discussions about whether or how this information
should be used in the September dossier. He says
that he made no allegations or accusations about the issue
related to the dossier, in particular that the 45 minute
intelligence had been inserted by Mr Campbell or Downing Street
against the wishes of the intelligence community.
"He made no other comment about Alastair Campbell. When asked by
Mr Gilligan why the 45 minute report was in
the dossier, he commented that 'it was probably for impact'."
That letter appears to be written on the basis that Dr
Kelly knows nothing about all these things. Did you know, at
this stage, that Dr Kelly was probably the source for Mr
Gilligan's accurate claims that the 45 minutes was added late
and single sourced?
A. I did not know that, at that time.
Q. But you suspected it?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And yet, I mean, it is only a draft.
A. Yes.
Q. But it is fair to say this, is it not: there is not much hint
of that suspicion in the draft letter?
A. Can you just go back to the earlier -- beginning?
Q. Yes.
A. What is written there answers the point as to whether he
would have had the kind of access which would have
been necessary to have stood up the Andrew Gilligan report.
Q. But you are just looking at one part of the Andrew Gilligan
report; and I have asked Mr Gilligan about all his
report, part of it in relation to claims that the Government
knew it was false. And we asked whether or not there was
anything to support that. But part of the report was the 45
minutes was late; and part of the report was that the 45
minutes was single sourced. If that came from Dr Kelly, it
rather suggests that Dr Kelly's access to intelligence was
slightly higher than you are putting it in this draft
letter.
A. Well, I am not sure I would agree with that. Whoever it was
who was Mr Gilligan's source was making his
statements many months after the fact of the compilation of the
dossier; and so whoever it was might have been
hearing things from somebody who was involved.
Q. And did you, at this stage, think: we are now about to put
him before the Intelligence and Security Committee, we
are going to write a letter, we had better find out what he
actually did do in relation to the September dossier, or
were no enquiries made?
A. We did not discuss making any further interviews, as I
recall, at that meeting.
Q. But you have decided he has to go away for what you call a
"security style" interview, and you have explained
what you mean by that, and he has gone off for that interview.
Surely another thing to chase down would be what he
actually did in relation to the September dossier? That would
have been, one assumes, a fairly easy enquiry to
make.
A. At this particular stage, at this particular discussion, I
had not seen a full account of the second interview. We had
heard the conclusions of the second interview, not the
detail.
Q. Right. So you write this draft letter. But you get some
further communications from the Intelligence and Security
Commission, is that right?
A. Committee, yes.
Q. Sorry, Committee.
-
A. Yes, we receive a message from them some time after 13.30,
after a further meeting has convened.
Q. What are you told?
A. I should explain at the end of this meeting, and before going
to Canada, Sir David Omand had communicated
with the Clerk of the Committee to tell him what was proposed,
and the Clerk had then replied, reporting a comment
from the Chairman, that the Chairman did not wish to receive the
letter that was proposed but would be content if
there were to be a public statement which would contain a
reference to the fact that the person concerned would be
available for interview with the Intelligence and Security
Committee. That was the message which came back from
the Clerk.
Q. So what did everyone decide to do, issue a public
statement?
A. There was no decision to do anything; but the next step in
the discussion in the 13.30 meeting was to put to one
side this draft here of a letter and to look at a possible draft
for a public statement.
Q. Did you look at any drafts for public statements?
A. There was some initial drafting of the main points to be
covered at that meeting in the Prime Minister's office, and
then the meeting came to an end.
Q. Can I take you to MoD/1/56, which is actually the press
statement as is issued.
A. Yes.
Q. There are some various comments we have seen that have been
made on it in the past. You do not appear to
have written anything on the press statement.
A. No, I did not.
Q. Did you make any contribution to the drafting of it?
A. Not specifically. I was present at the discussion in the
Prime Minister's office which initially set out the terms of
the press statement. And then I was present at a meeting in
Godric Smith's office, where the press statement was
drafted in more detail.
Q. You can see here that if one looks at the end of the first
paragraph: "The official has told us that he made no
allegations or accusations about the dossier and, in particular,
did not suggest that any material had been added to
the dossier by Alastair Campbell or Downing~Street against the
wishes of the intelligence community. He is not a
member of the Intelligence Services or the Defence Intelligence
Staff." You have told us before the meeting at 11.30
you had not actually seen the notes of the second interview.
A. Hmm.
Q. We are now about to put out a press statement to the world at
large, and everyone is obviously concerned not to
mislead anyone. Has anyone yet checked to see whether Dr Kelly
had anything to do with the September drafting of
the dossier?
A. This statement, again, was drawn up -- in fact, it was drawn
up in some detail in the presence of Kevin Tebbit,
who by that time had joined the meeting; but the whole subject
was subject to agreement by the Ministry of
Defence, who were the people who held the details of the second
interview.
Q. Well, had you checked --
A. I had not checked.
Q. And did anyone tell you that they had checked to see what Dr
Kelly --
A. They did not.
Q. Did you not think that it was something that ought to be
addressed?
A. I do not recall any discussion of that point in the
meeting.
Q. We know on 8th July that Mr Howard is also writing to you --
this is CAB/1/77 -- about Dr Kelly's views of the
Iraqi WMD programme. If we scroll down we can see that in
paragraph 1: "What reflects points made by David Kelly
in his letter [which we know to have been 30th June] and his
interviews." Then he talks about his knowledge of
WMD programme: "No unease about the dossier." On the 45 minute
deployment issue, at the bottom, he says his
standard view is he does not know the intelligence and is not
familiar with an Iraqi weapons system. The only other
point, over the page, to note was that 30 per cent change of CW
production capability, and he distinguishes
between production and possession.
A. Yes.
Q. Why is this letter being written to you?
A. Because I had asked for those views to be reported to me on
7th July. I had taken that away as an action which I
-
understood had been left with me after the early morning meeting
on 7th July in the Prime Minister's Office.
Q. If we go back to CAB/1/77 and go to the top, we can see some
handwriting. Whose handwriting is that?
A. Sadly it is mine.
Q. I think we have managed to work out some more of what it
says: "See over the page and the attached extract
from Gilligan's evidence to the FAC."
A. Yes.
Q. "Note ..." You will have to help me with the second word?
A. "Also".
Q. "... that Kelly may state his view, if given the chance by
the FAC, that the trailers are not for BW production. It is
not clear ..." "To me" is that?
A. Even I cannot read that. It seems to be "to me".
Q. "... how widely the FAC will go in their questioning." Was
there concern that the FAC might go widely in their
questioning?
A. It was the same point that had been registered on the Monday,
and I was writing this on the Thursday, that it
would be useful to know what he would or would not say at the --
for example, before the FAC. Useful in the sense
that it is just always useful to know points which have an
impact of one kind or another on the position of the
Government, no more than that. So I am addressing that
particular interest by writing this comment. The main
purpose of this manuscript note is to draw the attention of the
addressees to what is over the page, the underlined
bit, which relates to his views on the likelihood of production
and possession of weaponry, because that is very
closely similar to the views recorded by Andrew Gilligan as
being held by his source. It is not identically the same;
and in my view that underlined strongly the chance that he was
actually Mr Gilligan's source. That is why I sent that
note through to No. 10.
LORD HUTTON: Mr Scarlett, may I just ask you: are you able to
make any comment on the penultimate line of the
first page of that letter, that Dr Kelly says that his standard
view is that he does not know the intelligence and is not
familiar with an Iraqi weapons system that matches that sort of
timescale? Now, I think that Dr Kelly had suggested
to someone else that the source for the 45 minutes reference
might have confused it with some multiple barrelled
Iraqi weapon. Are you able to make any comment -- and if, for
security reasons, you cannot please just say so, but
are you able to comment on that comment by Dr Kelly: he is not
familiar with an Iraqi weapons system that matches
that sort of timescale?
A. I can only make a limited comment, my Lord.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. Which, I think, may not be relevant; but certainly Andrew
Gilligan, when quoting his source, said that the source
believed that the report was relating to warheads for
missiles.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. Which, in fact, it was not; it related to munitions, which we
had interpreted to mean battlefield mortar shells or
small calibre weaponry, quite different from missiles.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. So it is possible that Dr Kelly, who, as I still understand
it, never did see or probably did not see the original
report, was in a state of genuine confusion about what the
report actually said.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. And that could explain that particular comment, but I am not
sure.
LORD HUTTON: Yes. I see. Thank you.
MR DINGEMANS: That is 8th July, Mr Howard's writing to you. Can
I take you to CAB/11/134, because you get an
e-mail from Claire Sumner on 7th July to Alastair Campbell but
copied to you and David Manning and Jonathan
Powell: " I am being chased by the Clerk on this -- what is the
view?" There is a reply on behalf of David Manning: "I
see no reason for Alastair to do this. He has been exonerated by
the FAC [obviously the report of 7th July]. ISC
should concentrate on intelligence issues, talking to heads of
agencies and Chairman of JIC." Was that your view as
well, that it would really be appropriate for the ISC to
concentrate on intelligence issues, the heads of agencies and
yourself, rather than speak to someone like Dr Kelly?
A. I did not have a strong view one way or the other on this,
and I did not record one.
Q. On 8th July we know that the press statement is issued. There
is also some defensive Q and A material that is
-
issued. Were you party to any discussions in relation to
that?
A. No, I was not.
Q. Do you have any view on the propriety or otherwise of that
defensive Q and A material?
A. No, I do not.
Q. If we turn to CAB/1/87, we can see a further exchange on 9th
July, with you being copied in, from Claire Sumner
to Alastair Campbell confirming he is going to appear from 8.30
to 9.45 on 17th July and will have to leave promptly:
"I asked where they were with other interviews. "The ISC Clerk
told me that the Committee were not interested in
interviewing Andrew G as he could not say anything more to them
than the FAC. "He said that on the source they
were waiting for David Omand to write to them with
correspondence. He implied that he did not believe it was the
source so could not see the point of ISC seeing him and said
they were not interested in the BBC/AC row." Did you
see this e-mail?
A. I did.
Q. What was your view on it?
A. Well, my immediate view was that the Clerk had, for
understandable reasons, sort of misunderstood the situation
because he was resting his view on the view which had been taken
at the end of the week before by the -- that is
right, the end of the week before by the FAC, and that was a
view which I thought was unlikely to be true and so the
other thought which went through my mind was that when the
Committee -- if the Committee came to the view that
indeed he was the source, then they would take a different
view.
Q. But one of the things that would convince them that he was
the source was showing them he had actually made
the comments about the 45 minutes and --
A. I am sorry, can I just correct myself there? I am muddling
that up. The FAC conclusion, of course, had not been
recorded at that stage. I am sorry, I am getting my dates
wrong.
Q. On the --
A. In fact, he did not believe it was the source. That must be
based -- the view of the Clerk of the ISC there must be
based on the fact that the source had said, you know, he was not
the source.
Q. The Clerk of the ISC must have seen, by then, the Ministry of
Defence press statement because that is issued on
8th July.
A. Yes.
Q. So it is obviously basing it on that.
A. Yes.
Q. But one reason the Clerk may have been muddled was because
the press statement did not say: Mr Gilligan was
right about the 45 minutes being added late, he was right about
it being single source. But that is not surprising
because Dr Kelly would have known that for this reason: namely
his involvement in the drafting with the dossier in
September.
A. Sorry, can I ask you to repeat that? I am not quite sure I am
following you.
Q. The MoD press statement, I have already asked you about
whether or not that was accurate.
A. Yes.
Q. Because it did not tell anyone that Dr Kelly had an
involvement in drafting the dossier in September, did it?
A. That was because at that stage, to be clear about this, I and
the others involved did not know that he had had
any involvement, even of a minimal kind, in the drafting of the
intelligence parts of the September dossier.
Q. But on 7th July you had noted in your note that Dr Kelly must
or there was a strong probability that Dr Kelly was
not telling the whole truth about what he had said to Andrew
Gilligan because he must have got the 45 minutes from
someone.
A. Yes, but he could have learned that from somebody who was
involved in the drafting of the dossier.
Q. He is sent off or offered to the ISC on that basis, that it
was assumed that he must have picked it up in general
conversations?
A. No, I do not think that is a fair representation of what
happened at all. Whether or not he was the source for
Andrew Gilligan's knowledge about the 45 minute report coming in
late and being based on one report, the
conversation which he reported as having had with Andrew
Gilligan meant there was a very high chance that he was
Andrew Gilligan's single source.
Q. I have asked you about Mr Howard's letter to you. Can I just
take you to another document, CAB/1/106, which is
-
a letter of 14th July which is from Colin Smith of the Counter
Proliferation Strategy CPD, and he writes in 1(a): "DCDI
is to brief David Kelly this afternoon for his appearances
tomorrow before the FAC and the ISC, and will strongly
recommend that Kelly is not drawn on his assessment of the
dossier (but stick to what he told Gilligan). Kelly is
apparently feeling the pressure and does not appear to be
handling it well." Were you party to any discussions about
what Dr Kelly should or should not be drawn on in front of any
of the Committees?
A. Only very briefly, in the following sense: that I had a brief
conversation, I cannot remember on which day, with
Martin Howard where I noted to him that it was going to be
important that Dr Kelly had proper support before he
appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee and received a
briefing. By that I meant, but I am not sure whether I
spelled it out, that if he was going to be appearing and might
be asked about a range of questions, it was going to
be necessary for it to be clear that he was not speaking as a
spokesman of Government policy for the Ministry of
Defence, that the views he might have on areas of expertise were
his own particular views and other experts might
have other views. That was the issue that was in my mind. I
recall Martin saying to me that he was giving him very
detailed support but of course he would be able to say what he
liked before the Committee. That was the end of
that conversation.
Q. So do the terms of the letter slightly surprise you, that it
is being recommended -- strongly recommended -- that
Kelly is not drawn on his assessment of the dossier?
A. (Pause). You know, at the time I had no particular, you know,
thoughts about that point. I honestly cannot say that
I, you know, dwelt on it.
Q. I did not ask for your views at the time but now. Are you
slightly surprised by the terms of that letter?
A. Not really.
Q. And why is that?
A. (Pause). I am not even completely sure that this is an
accurate record of this discussion. This record is a note
made, I think, by somebody in the FCO who attended a meeting
which I chaired on 14th July. I recall DCDI, Martin
Howard, talking about his briefing of David Kelly that
afternoon. I do not recall particularly what he said. And I do
also recall him saying that Dr Kelly was beginning to show signs
of feeling some pressure. So I do remember him
making these comments; but I am not sure that the rest of it is
accurate. It is not an official record of the meeting, it
is an internal note within the FCO.
Q. Perhaps we can have the official record when you go back, if
there are other records of this meeting.
A. Certainly, if there are.
Q. That is very kind.
LORD HUTTON: Did you make any comment or did you ever send any
minute or e-mail to anyone about Dr Kelly
being under pressure if he went to give evidence before the FAC
or the ISC?
A. No, I did not, my Lord. I would add that I saw the management
of that to be a matter absolutely for the Ministry of
Defence, who were in possession of all the information and I was
not.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
MR DINGEMANS: Can I help you in relation to your last question.
At CAB/11/4, Tuesday 8th July, and we know this
is a minute made after the event, if one scrolls down the page,
1330 meeting: "Discussion of how BBC will react (will
they be ready to discuss this in a business-like way). If Dr
Kelly name becomes public will Government be criticised
for putting him under 'wider pressure'? PM repeats that MoD must
remain in charge and follow their procedures."
That is all I have been able to see where you draft anything
referring to pressure; is that right?
A. Yes. I recall that discussion. There was a brief conversation
around: well, if his name does become public
following on from a public statement of the kind that the
meeting had been discussed, would the Government be
criticised in any way and, if so, what for? I said: that, well,
the Government would possibly be accused of putting
him under pressure to allow the public statement to have been
made and there was no further discussion of that
point as I recall. I was just registering that point.
Q. Can I just ask you one further question in relation to the
dossier before I ask you your final question. I am sorry, I
missed it this morning. It is CAB/11/77. This is an e-mail from
Jonathan Powell to you on 17th September which is
the same date, at the bottom of the page, that Mr Campbell
writes his memo if that helps to orientate you.
A. Yes.
Q. "The dossier is good and convincing for those who are
prepared to be convinced. "I have only three points, none
of which affect the way the document is drafted or presented.
"First the document does nothing to demonstrate a
-
threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam. On other words
it shows he has the means but does not
demonstrate motive let alone the rest. We will need to make it
clear in launching the document that we do not claim
that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat. The case we
are making is that he has continued to develop
WMD since 1998, and is in breach of those resolutions." Going
back to 77 and up the page, because that is how the
e-mails work, you respond saying: "We are now doing a note on
Iraq and A
Q." Is that Al-Qaida?
A. Yes, indeed.
Q. "The dossier mentions about eight sites." Then there is an
intervention from Felicity Hatfield on behalf of Alastair
Campbell. Jonathan Powell, at the top, responds on those other
points, but at the bottom of that says: "The threat
argument will be a major problem in the press Parliamentary
assault after the dossier comes out. We need to flag up
in the point in the preface at publication and during the
debate. We need to set the test for ourselves at a level we
can meet." We have also seen another e-mail in which he said
that the dossier ought to make it clear there is no
current threat, I think as he put it. Can I take you to his
actual words which is CAB/11/53, where he says that in the
penultimate paragraph: "You need to make it clear that Saddam
could not attack us at the moment. The thesis is he
would be a threat to the UK in the future if we do not check
him."
A. Sorry, which?
Q. This is the bottom of that page.
A. I see. Yes.
Q. You do not appear to have been copied into this e-mail?
A. No, I was not.
Q. Were you aware of these suggestions being made?
A. I was not aware of that e-mail and have not seen that before.
On the other e-mail, which was either sent to me or
was copied to me --
Q. And you respond to?
A. Yes, and I respond to on the points which I saw as being
relevant to me, I did not understand, and I still do not
understand, or take that memo to be a request or suggestion to
me that the dossier and the text of it should be
changed in any way to reflect the point which Jonathan Powell
was making. I took it to be a reference to what he
thought should be stated in a political statement, which --
whatever political statements were being made in relation
to the launching of the dossier. But in any case, even if he had
asked for that to be, as it were, put into the dossier, I
am not sure I would have seen it as a statement which would have
fitted easily into the way that the dossier was
construct. But he did not ask so it was not something I
pursued.
Q. Is there anything else relating to Dr Kelly's death that you
can assist his Lordship with?
A. I do not think there is.
Q. And is there anything else that you wanted to say?
A. No, there is not.
LORD HUTTON: Could we just go back to CAB/11/4? Could we scroll
down a bit. Thank you. That is it. Yes. Now,
Mr Scarlett, the note there: "If Doctor K name becomes public
will Government be criticised for putting him under
'wider pressure'?" You say that is a point that you raised?
A. Yes.
LORD HUTTON: One might have expected there be some sort of
response from someone at the meeting to the
effect that we have no option but to put him before the ISC or
we may be accused of a cover-up if we do not reveal
his name. Do you recollect any comment? One would have thought
there would be some sort of response to the
point that you made?
A. There was not, my Lord, and that may be because it was
understood by everybody at the meeting to be the case
that Dr Kelly had been warned and was aware of the fact that his
name, or rather that the public statement would be
made saying that somebody would come forward and that his name
was very likely to come out and that he
accepted that. So that was part of the underlying assumption on
I which the discussion was taking place. So I am
not sure I find it, even in retrospect, particularly surprising
that no comment was made to my point, but as I recall no
comment was made.
LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Scarlett. Thank you.
This would be a convenient time to rise, I
think.
-
3.15 pm: Short Break
3.20 pm: SIR DAVID OMAND (called) Examined by MR DINGEMANS
MR DINGEMANS: Can you give his Lordship your full name.
A. David Bruce Omand.
Q. What is your occupation?
A. I am the Security and Intelligence Coordinator in the Cabinet
Office.
Q. How long have you held that post for?
A. I took up that post last September, on the retirement of Sir
Richard Wilson as Cabinet Secretary. I was appointed
by the Prime Minister to a new Permanent Secretary post as
Security Intelligence Coordinator. In that post I have
day-to-day responsibility for a number of the functions
traditionally associated with the Cabinet Secretary's post,
including accounting to Parliament for the Single Intelligence
account and acting as line manager for the Chairman
of the Joint Intelligence Committee, as you have heard earlier
today; and through him, the Cabinet Office
assessment staff and security policy division. My major
responsibility, however, is overseeing cross-Government
work on civil contingencies and counter terrorism, often
popularly referred to as "homeland security".
Q. Did you have any involvement in the drafting of the
dossier?
A. As a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee I took my
share of collective responsibility in --
Q. You were a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the
time, were you?
A. Yes, I had been, in previous jobs, a member of the JIC for a
total of some five years. When I took up my new
position I decided to rejoin the Committee.
Q. Were you a member at the time that the dossier was being
drafted from 5th September?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you on the drafting committee of the Joint Intelligence
Committee?
A. No.
Q. I think we have heard that there were meetings of the Joint
Intelligence Committee itself on 5th and 9th
September, where assessments were considered in relation to the
45 minutes point, and various drafts of the
dossier were produced. Did you have any hand in producing those
drafts of the dossiers or reviewing them?
A. I was part of that process; I attended those meetings and I
did offer comments to John Scarlett on the handling of
the dossier.
Q. On the handling of the dossier. Were you aware or copied into
the e-mails, we have seen some of them, for
example from persons in the Communications Department about the
dossiers?
A. No, but John Scarlett kept me in touch. We meet very
regularly and he kept me in touch with his work on the
dossier.
Q. Right. Did you, for example, see the memorandum that we have
seen this morning from Alastair Campbell, dated
17th September, and Mr Scarlett's response of 18th
September?
A. Yes, I did see those documents.
Q. You saw those. Were you aware of any general unhappiness with
the fact that communications personnel were
assisting in presentational aspects of the dossier?
A. None whatever. And can I say that I do see John Scarlett very
frequently; I have complete confidence in him and I
am sure he would have spoken to me immediately if he had felt
there was any unease.
Q. Were you aware of any unhappiness lower down the scale, for
example within the Defence Intelligence Staff?
A. Not at all.
LORD HUTTON: Not at -- I beg your pardon?
A. Not at all.
MR DINGEMANS: Meaning there might have been unhappiness and you
were unaware of it or you knew that was
going on in the DIS?
A. That I was not at all aware of any unhappiness.
Q. You were not, for example, having contact with members of the
DIS at this stage?
A. No. There are three members of the Joint Intelligence
Committee from the Ministry of Defence: the Director
General for Policy, Chief of Defence Intelligence and the Deputy
Chief of Defence Intelligence; and they participated
in our debates and discussions in the JIC. At no stage was any
unease reported. Can I also add here that we did
-
debate, in the JIC, the decision to produce the dossier. We
debated at length how we would protect sources and
methods; and I saw it as my particular responsibility to ensure
that the whole exercise was conducted in a way that
did not endanger our intelligence.
Q. There had been press reports there were rows between yourself
and Mr Campbell; are those reports true?
A. No.
Q. And that there were rows between a Mr Lander and Mr Campbell;
are those reports true?
A. To the best of my knowledge, no.
Q. You certainly did not see any?
A. No.
Q. And Mr Scarlett and Mr Campbell; you were not aware of any
rows?
A. No, and I certainly would have been aware if there had been
any disagreement over the handling of the dossier.
Q. You have seen, I think, because you were here earlier on, the
conclusion that the FAC came to about the fact that
the dossier should have been in more traditional language, as
they expressed it. First of all, do you accept that the
dossier was not in "traditional", whatever that might mean,
intelligence language?
A. No, I do not accept that. I think the dossier was a faithful
reflection of the underlying intelligence assessments
that the JIC had reached; and very great care was taken,
throughout the process, to ensure that that was the case.
Q. We have seen an e-mail today, CAB/23/15. That e-mail is -- I
think we were told by Mr Scarlett -- from someone
on the Joint Intelligence Committee back to, as it were, the
agencies. It says: "Unsurprisingly they [as in No. 10]
have further questions and areas they would like expanded."
Towards the bottom of the e-mail: "I appreciate
everyone, us included, has been around at least some of these
buoys before, particularly item 4. But No. 10 through
the Chairman want the document to be a strong as possible within
the bounds of available intelligence. This is
therefore a last (!) call for any items of intelligence that
agencies think can and should be included." Were you aware
of the e-mail at the time?
A. No.
Q. It gives the impression that there is a bit of a sort of
looking into cupboards to see if there is anything that has
been overlooked that might be put in the dossier. Would that be
a fair assessment of the e-mail?
A. I think you have to remember the Joint Intelligence Committee
itself was anxious to produce as strong a
document as possible, consistent with the protection of
intelligence sources and methods.
Q. Were you party to the final meeting of the Joint Intelligence
Committee that signed off the dossier?
A. Yes.
Q. And everyone assented to that?
A. Yes, they did.
Q. Turning on to February 2003, we have heard that Mr Gilligan
comes by a document, a secret document, relating
to the links between or absence of links between Al-Qaida and
Saddam Hussein. I think we have also heard that
that did not come to Mr Gilligan from Dr Kelly, from Mr
Gilligan's evidence. Were you aware of that leak?
A. Yes, and I was concerned by it.
Q. Were any steps taken?
A. I discussed with Sir Kevin Tebbit, the Permanent Secretary at
the Ministry of Defence, the possibility that there
could be a source of compromise of classified information within
the Ministry of Defence, and he reassured me that
he too was taking steps to investigate whether that might be the
case.
Q. And forwarding on then to 29th May, we have the broadcast by
Mr Gilligan on Today. Did you in fact hear the
broadcast?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And your reaction to it?
A. Extreme surprise.
Q. Were you party to any action as a result of that?
A. No, although I did raise it with my office when I came in
about 8 o'clock that morning to check that something
was being done and that the story would be responded to; and as
far as I know the answer to that was: yes, it was
being handled by the No. 10 press office.
Q. We have seen documents with Mr Scarlett of 4th June about a
leak inquiry and some reports up to you on 10th
June and your memos, and there is a final analysis on 9th July.
If it is all right with you I will not take you through
-
those documents.
A. It is.
Q. But those suggest that attempts were being made to identify
the source of the leak; is that right?
A. That is correct. It was difficult to pin down where this
source or sources of compromise might be; and, therefore,
it did not seem justifiable to launch a formal leak
investigation, which involves the appointment of an outside
investigator who would then conduct an extensive series of
interviews with all those who would have seen the
relevant documents, not knowing where to start. That meant we
had to try to narrow the field down, which is why we
asked the security policy division to see if they could
undertake a preliminary investigation.
Q. We have seen the results of that. Did you hear of Dr Kelly's
name at all during June?
A. No.
Q. Before your first involvement in July, had you heard of Dr
Kelly before?
A. I had not.
Q. What was your involvement in relation to Dr Kelly?
A. When I was telephoned about 5.30 on the Friday, 4th July, by
Sir Kevin Tebbit, who informed me that an
individual, Dr Kelly, had come forward.
Q. What discussion did you have with anyone as a result of
that?
A. I discussed the situation with Kevin Tebbit. He told me he
was going to write to me and seek my involvement, my
help, in ensuring the matter was handled properly and that there
was proper interdepartmental coordination of what
clearly could be a difficult case to handle. I agreed to this;
and he said he would write to me. I then spoke to John
Scarlett, as you have heard, and asked him if he knew of Dr
Kelly and if Dr Kelly had been involved in the drawing up
of the dossier, since that clearly would be an important pointer
as to whether or not this could be the source of the
stories.
Q. So you raised, on that Friday, the issue of whether or not Dr
Kelly had actually been involved with drawing up the
dossier?
A. Yes, and I was assured by John Scarlett that he had not been
part of John Scarlett's central assessment team's
work.
Q. He was not a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee or
indeed the Assessment Committee for the Joint
Intelligence Committee.
A. Correct.
Q. Were any steps made to find out what involvement, if any, he
had had with the final drafts of the dossier?
A. At that stage, no. My assumption was that that would indeed
happen.
Q. Your assumption was that that would happen?
A. Yes, that this would be checked up on as part of the Ministry
of Defence's investigation of Dr Kelly's involvement.
Q. Right. So you did not raise it expressly.
A. No.
Q. You assumed it would just be dealt with.
A. Yes.
Q. We have then heard you go over to No. 10, and there is a
meeting at which you are joined by Mr Powell and Sir
David Manning; is that right?
A. Yes. I suggested to John Scarlett that we should try to speak
to Sir David Manning as soon as possible, since he
was involved in the coordination of work on the Foreign Affairs
Committee inquiry which was due to report on the
Monday, and recall that I had been telephoned at 5.30 on a
Friday afternoon and the report was due out on the
Monday. So there was very little time if anything was to be done
in respect of that publication.
LORD HUTTON: I have asked at least one other witness, Sir David,
as to the reason why these very senior officials,
including yourself, all assembled to discuss this report with
Sir Kevin Tebbit. I mean, it does seem a galaxy gathering
to discuss this matter, if I may so put it. Do you have any
comment on that?
A. I think the explanation lies in the front pages of the
newspapers, that this was an issue which had dominated
political debate in the country for a considerable time and
showed no signs of diminishing. It was a matter of intense
interest and concern to the Prime Minister, in view of the
nature of the allegations which were being made. It was a
matter of concern to me, because it was directly challenging the
integrity of a process for which I was responsible.
LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you.
-
MR DINGEMANS: Was anything decided on 4th July?
A. Friday, 4th? We discussed, at the meeting, the likelihood of
Dr Kelly being the single source to which Mr Gilligan
had referred. We came to the conclusion that we did not have
enough information, at that stage, to take any action,
and that that would be our recommendation. This followed the
advice from Sir Kevin Tebbit, particularly in view of
the discrepancies which they had noted between Dr Kelly's
account and the account given by Mr Gilligan. We could
not be certain that Dr Kelly was, indeed, responsible for this
story.
Q. So why was that not the end of the matter?
A. Simply because if it turned out, on further investigation,
that there was more behind this, then it could represent
an explanation of the story which, as I have said, had been
dominating political debate in the country.
Q. So what was decided to be done on that Friday evening?
A. To seek more information. Firstly, to await the arrival of
Kevin Tebbit's letter to see exactly what terms he was
reporting this in to us and to urge the Ministry of Defence to
see if they could clarify the inconsistencies which Kevin
Tebbit had told me of but only in the most general terms.
Q. Did you see Sir Kevin Tebbit's letter of 4th July to you that
evening?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. I think we see it at MoD/1/34. You have heard my questioning
of Mr Scarlett, so I need not go to the relevant
passages, but in that letter it is made perfectly clear that Dr
Kelly is saying that he did not say anything about the 45
minutes or anything material about the 45 minutes to Mr
Gilligan; in particular, he had not said that the information
was single source and he had not said that it was added late.
Were you aware of that on 4th July?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you think of those, as it were, denials by Dr
Kelly?
A. My thought was that there were a number of possibilities:
that Dr Kelly might not have been, on this first interview,
revealing all that he could say on the matter, for quite
understandable reasons; or that he was genuinely coming
forward to help the Ministry clear up a misunderstanding, and
that he had been seriously misrepresented in the
reporting. There was, therefore, more than one possibility; and
at that stage we really could not be certain what the
situation actually was. Therefore, my recommendation to the
meeting was that we should take no action in respect
of the Foreign Affairs Committee, although their report was due
imminently on the Monday. I was, at the same time,
anxious that the group of officials, senior officials as Lord
Hutton has referred to us, should properly consider the
point about the Foreign Affairs Committee because we would be
placed in a very false position if we had sat on
information which was very relevant to a report by a
Parliamentary Select Committee, which was imminent.
LORD HUTTON: Sir David, I think it may be obvious again but I
would just like to ask you: when you say that Dr
Kelly may not have revealed all "for understandable reasons",
would you be good enough to spell out what those
understandable reasons are? It may well be obvious but I think
it would be helpful if you would state them.
A. That Dr Kelly may have come forward in a genuine wish to
clear matters up but he had minimised his participation
in the meeting with Mr Gilligan in order to protect himself from
any action by the Ministry of Defence.
LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you.
MR DINGEMANS: You say there that one of the concerns was not to
be in a false position of not cooperating, as it
were, fully with a Parliamentary Committee. But is it not right
that the Foreign Affairs Committee had actually asked
for drafts of the dossiers as a way of sorting out this dispute
between Mr Gilligan and Mr Campbell and they had not
been provided?
A. I think I would put the point the other way round, that the
Foreign Affairs Committee was already, as they
eventually recorded in their report, annoyed with the Government
at not, as they saw it, fully cooperating. For them
to have discovered we had been sitting on relevant information
would have compounded the events.
Q. Why were not copies of the earlier drafts of the dossier
disclosed? I mean, that would have assisted in making
the points that you make about the dossier.
A. For the reasons that Mr Scarlett has explained, that the
process -- the close examination of the process of putting
together the dossier would reveal more about the nature of the
intelligence underlying the assessments than we
thought would be safe.
Q. Is that how it ends on 4th July, with you having received a
copy of Sir Kevin Tebbit's letter?
A. Yes. Having had the discussion, Jonathan Powell having said
he would mention this to the Prime Minister, he then
rang me back to say he had mentioned it to the Prime Minister
and the Prime Minister agreed with our assessment
-
that no action should be taken until we had further information
about what exactly all this was about. I relayed that
back to Kevin Tebbit by telephone.
Q. Then what happens on 5th July?
A. On 5th July I receive a second letter from Kevin Tebbit.
Q. Yes. We have seen that. It picks up an article by Mr Baldwin
in The Times on 5th July.
A. That is right. And I speak to Kevin Tebbit more than once on
the Saturday to discuss whether this sheds more
light on the possibility of it being the source. We agreed that
prima facie it does that but there remain these
inconsistencies. Sir Kevin drew to my attention the fact that
Richard Hatfield, the personnel director, believed, on the
basis of the first interview, that Dr Kelly was not the single
source and therefore we were proceeding with some
caution on the matter. The other event on the Saturday was that
I was rung by the resident Duty Clerk at the Foreign
Office, who passed on a message from the Foreign Secretary that
in his view we did not have enough information, at
the moment, to warrant informing the Foreign Affairs
Committee.
Q. Did you have any contact with anyone on the Sunday?
A. Yes. I spoke to Sir Kevin Tebbit again; and I was rung by the
Prime Minister, who was at Chequers.
Q. And he rang you in the morning or in the afternoon?
A. In the morning, about 11.30.
Q. What did you discuss with the Prime Minister?
A. I updated him on the basis of my conversations with Kevin
Tebbit and on the basis of the second letter. We
discussed the options for informing the Foreign Affairs
Committee, which effectively -- and you have had this
confirmed, I think, by the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee -- might well have meant their postponing the
publication of their report. We discussed whether we knew enough
to be certain to trigger such an action. And my
advice, which the Prime Minister endorsed, was that we should
follow the recommendation of the Ministry of
Defence and await further information from the reinterview of Dr
Kelly.
Q. So it is decided, or provisionally decided, over the weekend
that Dr Kelly should be reinterviewed; is that right?
A. Yes. The Ministry of Defence were intending to do that. I
discussed it with Kevin Tebbit. I made sure that the
Prime Minister was aware of that and that he agreed this was a
sensible course to follow.
Q. We have seen a note that you prepared on 21st July, so it is
after the event but obviously closer to it. It is
CAB/11/5, at the top from Sir David Omand, dated 21st July 2003.
Going down to the bottom there is a review of
the weekend decision not to inform the FAC before the
publication of the report that Dr Kelly had come forward:
"There was some questioning from the PM about what we knew about
Dr Kelly, and whether we could find out more
about his views." It looks as if that is the only reference to
the weekend discussions before you turn to 7th July; is
that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Was anything else said or did anything else happen on the
weekend that is relevant to this Inquiry?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. I think you write a letter to Sir Kevin Tebbit at MoD/1/42.
It appears to be dated 5th July. No doubt you can
confirm that is just a typo in the top?
A. It was typed on my laptop at home, which automatically
inserts a date. The letter was started on the Saturday but
I reopened it and finished it on the Sunday without correcting
the date.
Q. Right. so you started on the Saturday, finished off on the
Sunday, and that is your response to Sir Kevin Tebbit.
That brings us up to the Monday morning, is that right?
A. That is correct.
Q. What happens on the Monday morning?
A. On the Monday morning, the -- where are we? (Pause).
Q. Do you have a meeting with anyone?
A. Yes, I just -- if you will excuse me -- want to get my
thoughts in order.
LORD HUTTON: Certainly. Take whatever time you wish, Sir
David.
A. The first thing on the morning of the 7th was the receipt of
the message from John Scarlett, to which I think you
have already referred.
MR DINGEMANS: Yes.
A. Giving John's assessment. I had conducted a parallel
assessment over the weekend for my own purpose, looking
-
at the statements which had been made and trying to compare
those, and had reached more or less the same
conclusion as John Scarlett.
Q. That?
A. That there was a prima facie case for believing this was the
single source and that reinterview was the next step.
Can I also add, my interpretation -- I did not discuss this with
John Scarlett -- of what was meant by a "security style
interview" is the kind of interview you are giving me, that is
carefully prepared, determined to get to the truth, and
courteous.
Q. That is very kind of you. We have seen the note that Mr
Scarlett made, and that is CAB/1/46. Did you produce
any similar note?
A. You have referred to the record that I made, which was after
the event of the meetings that followed.
Q. Yes, but no contemporaneous note?
A. No contemporaneous note, no.
Q. Is this fair: your provisional view on 7th July is that Dr
Kelly is likely to be Mr Gilligan's single source?
A. Likely to be, but still with a considerable uncertainty about
the in