The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
years if it
obtained fissile material and other essential components from
foreign
sources was
included without addressing how feasible and likely that
would
be. In
addition, the Executive Summary gave prominence to the
International
Institute
of Strategic Studies suggestion that Iraq would be able to
assemble
nuclear
weapons within months if it could obtain fissile material,
without
reference
to the material in the main text of the dossier which made clear
that
the UK took
a very different view.
•
The need to
be scrupulous in discriminating between facts and knowledge
on
the one
hand and opinion, judgement or belief on the other.
•
The need
for vigilance to avoid unwittingly crossing the line from
supposition to
certainty,
including by constant repetition of received wisdom.
841.
When assessed
intelligence is explicitly and publicly used to support a
policy
decision,
there would be benefit in subjecting that assessment and the
underpinning
intelligence
to subsequent scrutiny, by a suitable, independent body, such as
the
Intelligence
and Security Committee, with a view to identifying lessons for the
future.
842.
In the context
of the lessons from the preparation of the September 2002
dossier,
the Inquiry
identifies in Section 4.2 the benefits of separating the
responsibilities for
assessment
of intelligence from setting out the arguments in support of a
policy.
843.
The evidence
in Section 4.3 reinforces that lesson. It shows that the
intelligence
and
assessments made by the JIC about Iraq’s capabilities and intent
continued to be
used to
prepare briefing material to support Government statements in a way
which
conveyed
certainty without acknowledging the limitations of the
intelligence.
844.
The
independence and impartiality of the JIC remains of the utmost
importance.
845.
As the Foreign
Affairs Committee report in July 2003 pointed out, the
late
Sir Percy
Cradock wrote in his history of the JIC that:
“Ideally,
intelligence and policy should be close but distinct. Too distinct
and
assessments
become an in‑growing, self‑regarding activity, producing little or
no
work of
interest to the decision‑makers ... Too close a link and policy
begins to play
back on
estimates, producing the answers the policy makers would like ...
The
analysts
become courtiers, whereas their proper function is to report their
findings
... without
fear or favour. The best arrangement is intelligence and policy in
separate
but
adjoining rooms, with communicating doors and thin partition walls
...”280
846.
Mr Straw
told the FAC in 2003:
“The reason
why we have a Joint Intelligence Committee which is separate from
the
intelligence
agencies is precisely so that those who are obtaining the
intelligence are
280
Cradock,
Sir Percy. Know your
enemy – How the Joint Intelligence Committee saw the
World.
John Murray,
2002.
132