Category: News
Date: 11.07.2004
Printable version
Dr Brian Jones, former head of the Ministry of Defence's intelligence
branch - Defence Intelligence Staff - tells 91热爆 ONE's Panorama
(Sunday 11 July, 10.15pm) that he was "confused" and "couldn't relate
to" Tony Blair's response to Lord Hutton, when the Prime Minister told
the inquiry that "there was a tremendous amount of information and evidence
coming across my desk as to the WMD and programmes associated with it
that Saddam had".
Asked by Panorama's John Ware, "What do you think
of the Prime Minister's response?" Dr Jones replies: "It confused me
at the time."
"Because you couldn't relate to it?" asks John Ware. To which Dr Jones
responds: "Because I couldn't relate to it."
John Ware also asks: "Do you know anyone who could relate to it?"
Dr Jones replies: "Certainly no one on my staff had any visibility
of large quantities of intelligence of that sort."
Dr Jones also talks of the coverage of intelligence from Iraq before
military operations.
"I just want to try and get a snapshot from you of how big the gaps
were in the coverage of intelligence from Iraq. Was it known which agents
had been produced since Gulf War 1?" asks John Ware.
"No, it wasn't," replies Dr Jones.
"Was it known whether agent had been stockpiled, or consisted only
of a small reserve?" questions John Ware.
"It was not known with certainty. There was a reasonable assumption
that there may have been some stocks left over from the first Gulf War.
If there had been any other production, then we have not identified
that it had taken place," replies Dr Jones.
Dr Jones is also asked if he knew where and how the weapons had been
filled with agents and if he knew how the weapons and agents had been
transported and deployed. On both occasions he replies, "No."
The programme also hears from John Morrison, the former Deputy Chief
of Defence Intelligence.
He tells Panorama that he could "almost hear the collective raspberry
going up around Whitehall" when he heard the Prime Minister state in
the House of Commons and in the dossier that the threat from Iraq was
serious and current.
He believes that in his public statements prior to the war the Prime
Minister went beyond what a professional analyst would have concluded
given the evidence.
John Morrison tells the programme: ".In moving from what the dossier
said Saddam had, which was a capability possibly, to asserting that
Iraq presented a threat, then the Prime Minister was going way beyond
anything any professional analyst would have agreed."
John Morrison also talks for the first time about Operation Desert
Fox, the three day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets in December 1998
following a crisis in relations between the UN weapons inspectors and
the Iraqi regime.
For the analysts in the MoD this operation provided a foretaste of
what was to come in the run up to the Iraq War.
They felt pressured after the operation to sign up to the claim that
targets actively involved in the WMD production had been hit in the
strikes - when they were not certain that was the case.
He says: "I am sure Number Ten wanted it [Desert Fox] to be a success
and I am sure the MoD wanted it to be a success.
"But wanting doesn't make it so. after Desert Fox I actually sent
a note round to all the analysts involved congratulating them on standing
firm, in the case, in some cases of individual pressure to say things
that weren't true. in the sense that they didn't know whether they were
true or not."
Notes to Editors
Panorama will be shown at 10.15pm on Sunday 11 July on 91热爆
ONE.
All quotes used must credit the programme.
Transcripts are available, for media use only, on request.
