The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
reporting
this material but of presenting the judgements which flow from it
to an
experienced
readership. Explaining those judgements to a wider public audience
is
a very
different and difficult presentational task.”301
733.
The Inquiry
asked Sir David Omand whether the involvement of Mr Scarlett
and
Sir Richard
Dearlove, as part of Mr Blair’s circle of close advisers, had
risked breaching
the
distinction between provision of intelligence and the formulation
of policy, and
whether
they had become too involved in the making and selling of
policy.
734.
Sir David
Omand told the Inquiry that the “golden rule” for the Chairman of
the
Joint
Intelligence Committee should be that: “he would deliver the views
of the Joint
Intelligence
Committee, he would never venture a view on the policy even if
asked”.302
735.
Asked if it
had been difficult to maintain the separation between intelligence
and
policy, Sir
John Scarlett replied:
“I cannot
recall worrying about this at the time in a deep way. Obviously I,
we worried
about it
because we understood that it was necessary to ensure that the
public
assessment
was consistent with what was being said in the classified
assessments,
and so that
discipline was very strong within us, and in ways that have
been
discussed
many times, we sought to protect ourselves against
…”303
“So I do
not recall worrying about it in a deep way or in the sense that it
was
something
which I or we couldn’t control. It was something to which we had to
pay
very close
attention, both through the procedures and processes we followed,
and
by the way
we reached our judgments. But I never felt that I was not in
control of the
process,
and I have said that on quite a number of occasions.”
737.
The
independence and impartiality of the JIC remains of the
utmost
importance.
738.
As the FAC
report in July 2003 pointed out, the late Sir Percy Cradock,
Chairman
of the JIC
from 1985 to 1992, 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
301
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
327.
302
Public
hearing, 20 January 2010, pages 61-62.
303
Private
hearing, 5 May 2010, page 44.
420