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11-09-2003 Scotsman Leaked report shows Hoon is running out of allies By Gethin Chamberlain Defence Correspondent WHEN Geoff Hoon appeared in private before the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, the plan appears to have been simple enough: deny everything and, if cornered, resort to bluster. Quite what Mr Hoon said to the committee about the government's dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction should have remained a secret until its report is published today because the intelligence and security committee, unlike the committee that Dr David Kelly had to face, takes its evidence in private. But Mr Hoon is rapidly running out of allies, and it appears there are those who are keen to make sure he does not get off the hook. Details of the report appear to have been leaked and make uncomfortable reading for the Defence Secretary. If the leaks are to be believed, the committee was far from impressed with his performance, particularly his response to questions on concerns among defence intelligence staff about the claims made in the dossier. Mr Hoon's line, before the committee and before the Hutton Inquiry, was that he knew nothing about any concerns among intelligence staff when the dossier was being drawn up, an approach also adopted by Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and John Scarlett, the joint intelligence committee (JIC) chairman, who told Lord Hutton he was "not at all aware" of any concerns about the dossier. But if Mr Hoon did, as one leak suggests, flatly deny to the intelligence and security committee that there were concerns among defence intelligence staff about the dossier, he would have been on dangerous ground. Documents submitted to the Hutton Inquiry clearly show that Mr Hoon was informed before he went before the intelligence and security committee in July that two members of the defence intelligence staff had raised concerns about the dossier. A note from Martin Howard, the deputy chief of defence intelligence, to one of those staff members who had put his concerns in writing states that "the Defence Secretary and the former CDI (chief of defence staff) have also been briefed on your note as part of the preparations for the evidence they gave this week to the intelligence and security committee." But Mr Howard was clearly concerned about how far Mr Hoon might be pressed on the subject by the committee. To try to head them off, a set of fall-back positions was drawn up for Mr Hoon and the CDI. His advice was that Mr Hoon should tell the committee there were concerns raised by two members of staff but that they did not have access to all the intelligence. He urged Mr Hoon to rebuff any attempts to find out who the two staff members were: "We should resist any calls from the ISC (intelligence and security committee) to disclose the identities of the individuals concerned, call them as witnesses, or have access to their written comments to line management," he wrote. Mr Howard suggested that the Defence Secretary should explain that "although some individuals did express concern to their line management, this was ... part of the usual process of debate and argument over assessment, which goes on regularly within the DIS (defence intelligence staff) and within the broader intelligence community as a prelude to a consensus view being reached by the JIC". Worried that details of the level of dissent might leak out, he set out further advice for Mr Hoon on how to play down the concerns of the defence intelligence staff. "If pressed, we could go on to say that all intelligence assessments contain large elements of judgment - indeed, that is their purpose - and that it is not always possible to incorporate the differing views." Whether Mr Hoon heeded Mr Howard's advice will become clear today, but yesterday's leaks suggested that the Defence Secretary may have tried instead to skirt around the issue. Other reports suggested he may have followed the advice of Mr Howard by reluctantly admitting to knowing about the dissent after the event. It is not difficult to see why Mr Hoon would have been reluctant to acknowledge that he was aware of any concerns about the dossier. Had that been the case, it would have raised questions about why those concerns were ignored. When Mr Hoon appeared before the Hutton Inquiry, he adopted the line that he had been kept in the dark at the time the dossier was being produced, and although he had subsequently learned of the concerns of the defence intelligence staff, he did not regard them as significant. Asked by James Dingemans, QC, whether he was "aware of any unhappiness expressed by members of the defence intelligence staff with the dossier," he replied: "Not at the time, not before publication. Very much later I was aware that two officials had expressed some concern about certain language used in the dossier.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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