Hearing Transcripts

104
1 problem with it. And none of my JIC colleagues had any
2 problem with it either; and they knew, they did not see
3 this exchange, but they knew that these exchanges were
4 taking place.
5 Q. Some documents were provided to the Inquiry on
6 29th August, after you gave evidence at phase 1. Could
7 we have CAB/27/2, please?
8 LORD HUTTON: Mr Sumption, it is now 1 o'clock, would this
9 be a convenient time?
10 MR SUMPTION: Yes, I think I shall probably have a further
11 10 or 15 minutes. I am sorry to be taking a bit longer
12 than I should, my Lord.
13 LORD HUTTON: No, very good. We will adjourn now.
14 (1.03 pm)
15 (The short adjournment)
16 (2.00 pm)
17 MR SUMPTION: Could we have CAB/27/2, please? This is the
18 first of three documents that was disclosed at the end
19 of August, after you gave your evidence first time
20 round. It is a note of a meeting in your office on
21 18th September. What was the meeting about; can you
22 tell us?
23 A. This was a meeting held under my Chairmanship to discuss
24 and agree, looking ahead by this stage to the production
25 process, at the issues relating to the actual production

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1 of the document, the briefing which would need to happen
2 alongside it, issues such as press lines and
3 dissemination. So it was a series of practical issues,
4 quite separate from the drafting of the text itself.
5 Q. Is that answer affected by the text which is redacted?
6 A. What is redacted are either sort of individual names, as
7 you can see at the top there, which would add nothing to
8 the understanding of the document; and there is also
9 separate redaction in addition to names which relates to
10 briefing arrangements for foreign governments and
11 sensitive recipients.
12 Q. If you look on the first page, you will see:
13 "Ownership of the dossier.
14 "Ownership lay with No. 10."
15 Why did that appear there?
16 A. Right. We had one previous meeting on this subject, on
17 16th September, and that was also talking about
18 production arrangements; and at that stage there had not
19 been any discussion of: well, which Government
20 Department was going to be taking the lead on presenting
21 this document on behalf of the Government?
22 So this point was raised straight away at the
23 18th September meeting; and it was immediately agreed
24 that this was a document which was going to be
25 presented -- or since this was a document that was going

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1 to be presented by the Prime Minister to Parliament on
2 behalf of the Government, its ownership, in that sense,
3 looking ahead to that moment, lay with No. 10 and the
4 JIC itself does not produce documents for public
5 dissemination and there had never been any intention
6 that it would do so. So it is ownership in that sense
7 and it is a forward looking statement.
8 Q. Could we look at CAB/27/5, please? This is a further
9 meeting in your office on 20th September. What was this
10 meeting about?
11 A. Well, it was a continuation, there was a series of
12 rolling meetings on this, as we progressed the
13 production.
14 Q. That is --
15 A. Sorry.
16 Q. Sorry.
17 A. It also, I see there, on the first bullet point,
18 addressed the question of how arrangements at the
19 printers and proofreading should be managed and that
20 action lay with me.
21 Q. CAB/27/8. The same question, what was this about?
22 A. Is that the same document?
23 Q. No. The last one you saw was CAB/27/5.
24 A. This is another date, this is the 23rd. Again, same
25 subject, and this was after the proofreading. I should

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1 add that I had been made responsible for or I had made
2 myself responsible for the proofreading, even though the
3 production and the ownership point passed to No. 10.
4 The proofreading was so intimately linked to the text
5 that clearly I needed to stay in charge of it.
6 Now here at the bottom, on a similar point, I think,
7 the aspect of that which arose on 23rd September related
8 to the liaison between my staff and No. 10 for the
9 management of the website, to make sure that the website
10 was in line with the printed text of the document. It
11 was the same principle, that my staff and I myself
12 needed to be in charge of anything to do with the text.
13 Q. Is there anything in these three documents which you
14 regard as relevant to the question whether you had
15 ownership of the process of drafting the dossier?
16 A. Well, I think both those points. The emphasis on my
17 personal involvement with the proofreading, where
18 I signed off the proofs for each page, and then also the
19 rather small point of the website on the 23rd.
20 Q. Turning to a different question: have you read the
21 transcript of the evidence given to the Inquiry by
22 Dr Jones?
23 A. Yes, I have.
24 Q. I would like to ask you for your comments on the
25 evidence of Dr Jones. First of all, what was the role

108
1 of the DIS and Dr Jones in particular in relation to the
2 preparation of the dossier?
3 A. Well, the DIS of course played a key role in the
4 formulation of the dossier. They are a major source of
5 military expertise, advice and input and also scientific
6 and technical expertise with a military angle to it.
7 Dr Jones was the head of one of three of the -- he was
8 assistant director in one of the directorates at DIS.
9 He was there responsible for three branches within DIS
10 which the assessment staff consulted during the process
11 of putting together the dossier. Altogether assessment
12 staff consulted ten branches in three different
13 directorates.
14 Q. What was Dr Jones' role in relation to the intelligence
15 about the 45 minutes point in particular?
16 A. Well, the role of his staff was advising on the
17 capability of Iraq to produce chemical agent and to fill
18 munitions. That was relevant, in this particular
19 context, to his responsibility.
20 Q. What would he have known about the intelligence on which
21 the 45 minutes point was based?
22 A. He and his staff, relevant staff, would have seen the
23 intelligence. If I can just add there, an addition --
24 Q. The raw intelligence or the assessment?
25 A. No, they would have seen both. If I could just add

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1 there a relevant point, that I referred to the role of
2 his branch in relation to the capability to produce
3 agent and fill munitions. The lead branch on the
4 45 minutes point was not one of Dr Jones' branches, it
5 was another branch in another directorate of DIS which
6 took the lead in relation to doctoring, deployment,
7 command and control and firing mechanisms, and they had
8 the lead role on advising on the 45 minutes point.
9 Q. Yes. Now, Dr Jones said that the DIS had expressed
10 concerns that intelligence received about the 45 minutes
11 point was second-hand and possibly unreliable and about
12 the strength of the language in which the draft referred
13 to chemical weapons production. Were you aware of those
14 concerns at the time?
15 A. I was not aware of concerns about the source being
16 second-hand or the information being unreliable. I was
17 aware of the concern about -- briefly aware of the
18 concern about the CW agent production.
19 Q. How did you learn of that concern?
20 A. That was reported to me by Julian Miller, the Chief of
21 Assessment Staff, following the meeting of the drafting
22 group on 17th September.
23 Q. Yes. What had they received to alert them to these
24 concerns?
25 A. Well, that was just one of the many points that was

110
1 raised in the drafting meeting; and the reason that
2 particular point was mentioned was that it related to
3 the existence of additional compartmented intelligence.
4 Q. Additional?
5 A. Compartmented or especially sensitive intelligence --
6 Q. Yes.
7 A. -- which was underpinning the judgment.
8 Q. Was that compartmented intelligence available to
9 Dr Jones?
10 A. No, it was not.
11 Q. When you and the assessment staff learnt of the DIS's
12 concerns on this point, what did they do about them?
13 A. They arranged for the management in DIS to be briefed on
14 the compartmented intelligence which came from SIS and
15 I was told that that was being done.
16 Q. What was the outcome of that process?
17 A. That briefing took place.
18 Q. Yes, but was any change made to the dossier in response
19 to the DIS's concerns about this point?
20 A. The draft that was circulated on 19th September retained
21 the wording which had been there on 16th September. No
22 comment on that point came back from DIS amongst the
23 three pages of comments that they submitted on
24 19th September; and in accordance with the normal
25 silence procedures we took that as assent.

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1 Q. Dr Jones gave evidence also about another matter, namely
2 the definition of weapons of mass destruction, the
3 definition of weapons of mass destruction.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And, in particular, he gave evidence about whether they
6 included battlefield munitions. Is there an accepted
7 definition of weapons of mass destruction?
8 A. Well, the best I can do here is to quote the most recent
9 statement made on behalf of the British Government on
10 this issue which was by the Foreign Office Minister
11 Mr O'Brien in answer to a Parliamentary Question on
12 28th January this year, in which he said there is no
13 universally accepted definition of the phrase "weapons
14 of mass destruction" but it is generally held to refer
15 to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
16 Q. Does that include battlefield munitions or not?
17 A. Yes, it does.
18 Q. Can I ask you briefly to comment on the evidence of
19 Mr A? Have you read that?
20 A. Yes, I have.
21 Q. Mr A gave evidence that at the time of the DIS meeting
22 on 19th September he thought that too much was being
23 made of the al-Qa'qa' phosgene plant. Were you aware of
24 any reservations on that point in September 2002?
25 A. No such reservations were passed to us.

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1 Q. Do you have any comments to make on the point now that
2 you are aware of it?
3 A. I would say this: that this phosgene of course is an
4 example of dual use and has been quoted in that sense.
5 It has industrial uses but it also can be used as
6 a chemical agent or as a precursor for nerve agent.
7 This particular plant had been bombed in 1991 and it was
8 subsequently dismantled under UNSCOM supervision. After
9 1998, and the inspectors having left, it was rebuilt;
10 and in that context, given its dual use status and the
11 fact it had been rebuilt, it was an object of interest.
12 That is why it was mentioned.
13 MR SUMPTION: Thank you.
14 LORD HUTTON: Yes Mr Caldecott.
15 Cross-examined by MR CALDECOTT
16 MR CALDECOTT: Could I pass up to Mr Scarlett these hard
17 copies. I have the same for his Lordship. (Handed).
18 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much.
19 MR CALDECOTT: Mr Scarlett, can you help me a little,
20 please, about the status of final JIC assessments?
21 First of all, they are what go to the Prime Minister and
22 Ministers; is that right?
23 A. Yes, that is right.
24 Q. And they would not go to them in draft form, they get
25 the final version only?

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1 A. That is correct.
2 Q. Obviously if the public are to be put in the position of
3 the Prime Minister, it is the final assessments which
4 the public would expect to see reflected in the dossier.
5 A. Yes, that is correct.
6 Q. A final JIC assessment, as I understand from your
7 evidence this morning, has broadly two parts: some main
8 text and some key judgments, I think you said, at the
9 front?
10 A. Yes. Correct.
11 Q. Obviously the main text may itself contain a degree of
12 assessment and judgment?
13 A. That is correct.
14 Q. And these judgments, whether they are in the main text
15 or in the key judgments, will have been reached after
16 going, if I can use the phrase "round the houses",
17 central intelligence groups, SIS, DIS --
18 A. Full drafting and assessment process.
19 Q. Can we just look please at the 45 minute claim in the
20 context of the final assessment? Just to help
21 everybody, the guidance that I have on this is drawn
22 from the ISC report, because we have very little else to
23 go on.
24 Firstly, I am right, am I not -- just to give the
25 reference, I take this from paragraph 50 of the ISC

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1 report, at BBC/30/4 -- that the 45 minutes claim nowhere
2 appeared in any key judgment in the 9th September final
3 assessment?
4 A. That is correct. The 45 minutes claim was not in the
5 key judgments on the 9th September assessment.
6 Q. And the assessment started with a proviso, I think I am
7 right in saying, which I actually do not have the
8 reference to, but there is a proviso about the
9 importance of distinguishing between assessments,
10 judgments and the like. I seem to have the wrong
11 reference.
12 A. Sorry, I do not see it there.
13 Q. I will come back to that, if I may.
14 In the main body of the chemical and biological
15 capability section, but not in any key judgment, appears
16 the 45 minute claim as it has been given to the Inquiry.
17 A. Yes, it is there on the document.
18 Q. The word "indicates" in that claim represents a judgment
19 by the assessment staff having gone round the houses, if
20 I can continue to use that shorthand.
21 A. It represents a statement included in the assessment of
22 9th September, drawn up by assessment staff having
23 coordinated the draft in a normal way, through the CIG,
24 as to how this point is best expressed in that document.
25 Q. Yes. But it does represent a judgment --

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1 A. No it does not.
2 Q. Does it not?
3 A. No it does not. It is a statement, "Intelligence ...
4 indicates that...".
5 Q. Well it could be a firm statement, "intelligence shows
6 that", or a qualified statement that it "indicates
7 that". Which of the two it is is a matter of
8 assessment, is it not?
9 A. That is one of the ways in which intelligence that is
10 being put into an assessment is described in documents
11 of this kind; and that says what it says.
12 Q. But the use of that way is an exercise of choice, is it
13 not?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. They could have said "shows", they chose to say
16 "indicates".
17 A. That is right.
18 Q. Which is less strong. We have had almost unanimous
19 evidence about this that "indicates" is the normal
20 language for possibility and "shows" is the normal
21 language for certainty.
22 A. If you are referring to what intelligence is telling you
23 about that point. This relates purely to what the
24 intelligence report says.
25 Q. But I suggest to you, again, that this includes an

116
1 element of assessment. It could equally have said
2 "intelligence also shows that" and that is an exercise
3 of choice.
4 A. It reflects a decision by the assessment staff and the
5 CIG when drawing up that assessment as to how that piece
6 of intelligence on this particular point was to be
7 described in that assessment.
8 Q. In the way it is here presented it carries with it
9 a message for anybody reading it, does it not?
10 A. Yes, it describes the intelligence.
11 Q. Yes. And it describes it as amounting to an indication
12 rather than a certainty?
13 A. With regard to that particular piece of intelligence?
14 Q. Yes.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Thank you. And the Prime Minister, who no doubt is
17 alert to these nuances, reading that final assessment
18 would have so read it?
19 A. In that assessment, yes.
20 Q. Thank you. Now --
21 LORD HUTTON: When you refer to "in that assessment",
22 I think you drew a distinction before as to the
23 difference in meaning between the dossier and the
24 assessment. But are you using the word "assessment"
25 there as referring to the dossier?

117
1 A. Well, my Lord, I am referring to that document there;
2 and in my comments at the moment I am purely referring
3 to what is in the classified JIC assessment of
4 9th September which I think is what is referred to here
5 in this -- yes, it is indeed, in this extract from the
6 ISC report.
7 LORD HUTTON: I see. So that is definitely a normal type
8 JIC assessment --
9 A. That is drawing --
10 LORD HUTTON: -- as opposed to a draft of the dossier
11 itself?
12 A. Indeed, my Lord.
13 MR CALDECOTT: That is how I had understood your evidence,
14 Mr Scarlett.
15 A. That is right.
16 Q. We are not talking about the dossier at the moment, we
17 are talking about how this JIC final assessment would
18 have been understood?
19 A. That is quite right.
20 Q. What I want to be clear about this -- I can well
21 understand that the dossier would refer to key judgments
22 taken from JIC assessments it was presenting to the
23 public.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. I can also well understand that it would report what

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1 appears in the main text; but can I tell you what my
2 difficulty is: I do not understand, at the moment, how
3 the dossier could add a judgment which never appeared in
4 any JIC assessment previously and which was, in fact,
5 inconsistent with the wording of the only judgment that
6 did appear in any previous JIC assessment on the point,
7 namely "indicates".
8 A. No. The first point on your last point is it is not
9 inconsistent with what appears there, it adds to it.
10 Q. It strengthens it, does it not?
11 A. No, it does not. It takes it from a different point of
12 view. In the draft of 11th September, the intelligence
13 report, which is also referred to here on the
14 9th September assessment which was a very recent
15 intelligence, it had only come in at the beginning of
16 September, was referred to purely in the context of the
17 intelligence report. Intelligence "indicates" that is
18 normal.
19 In the draft of the 16th September it was expressed
20 for the first time in the executive summary as
21 a judgment. That judgment is not just drawing on the
22 intelligence, it is drawing on standing JIC assessment
23 about the command, control and logistical arrangements
24 of the Iraqi armed forces for the deployment of chemical
25 and biological weapons. It is based and is drawing on

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1 the long-standing overall assessment of the capability
2 of the Iraqi armed forces in this area; and it is also
3 drawing on the intelligence.
4 In other words, it goes beyond that specific
5 intelligence report. It is a classic example of what
6 I mean by "judgment" as opposed to a specific reference
7 to specific items of intelligence.
8 Q. You see, that is to treat the dossier as if it were
9 a new JIC assessment itself.
10 A. The drafters were under instructions from the JIC to
11 make use of the most recent intelligence, incorporate
12 it, absorb it, and by logic where necessary consider the
13 standing assessments.
14 Q. You see when the Inquiry asked about the JIC's
15 conclusions on the 45 minute point, they were supplied
16 with the draft JIC assessment of 5th September.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And the final JIC assessment of 9th September.
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And an account was given as to how they were reached;
21 but there was no suggestion that there was any further
22 JIC assessment of the 45 minute claim in the dossier
23 itself.
24 A. The ISC were told that on 16th September in the draft of
25 the dossier and in the context of the dossier a draft

120
1 executive -- a draft judgment was prepared by assessment
2 staff.
3 Q. Are you saying that members of the public would have
4 understood from the term "executive summary" that the
5 dossier was a wholly new JIC assessment, freestanding
6 from earlier JIC assessments?
7 A. Since the dossier quite clearly stated that it is
8 drawing on standing JIC assessments, and incorporating
9 the most recent intelligence, I think it was quite
10 reasonable for that -- in fact absolutely reasonable for
11 that conclusion to be drawn.
12 Q. Can I show you how the Prime Minister introduced the
13 dossier at in the House of Commons at BBC/30/27? At the
14 top of the page, please:
15 "The dossier is based on the work of the British
16 Joint Intelligence Committee. For over 60 years,
17 beginning just prior to WWII, the JIC has provided
18 intelligence assessments to British Prime Ministers.
19 Normally its work is secret. Unusually, because it is
20 important we explain our concerns over Saddam to the
21 British people, we have decided to disclose these
22 assessments."
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Those are the assessments as supplied to the
25 Prime Minister.

121
1 "I am aware, of course, that people are going to
2 have to take elements of this on the good faith of our
3 Intelligence Services."
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. The plain impression given there is that what they are
6 getting in the dossier is the intelligence assessments
7 as given to the British Prime Minister and, no doubt,
8 including the very latest on Iraq.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. But nothing more. It is not suggested that the dossier
11 itself is some wholly new JIC assessment and update, is
12 it?
13 A. The executive -- the judgment that was made in draft on
14 16th September was discussed explicitly in the drafting
15 group with representatives from various members of the
16 JIC on 17th September. It was discussed explicitly as
17 a draft executive judgment. That indeed was the
18 discussion which was taking place around the comment of
19 the DIS, so that those representatives took that away
20 for discussion, as necessary, in their agencies.
21 We happen to know that it was specifically discussed
22 within DIS in that context and accepted as an executive
23 judgment from the comments and evidence from
24 Mr Tony Cragg, the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence
25 at the time; and it was then circulated to the whole

122
1 members of the JIC in that form on 19th September, and
2 accepted by members of the JIC. It was a judgment, it
3 became a judgment of the JIC and entirely consistent,
4 therefore, with what the Prime Minister is saying in his
5 foreword.
6 Q. Your evidence this morning was that the assessment staff
7 said: you could not have a judgment that says "suggests"
8 or "indicates"; do you remember saying that?
9 A. Yes, I do indeed.
10 Q. But you can certainly have a judgment which says "may",
11 can you not?
12 A. You could, but in this case it did not because it did
13 not need to.
14 Q. But we know, from early drafts, that the word
15 "indicates" was interpreted as "may", do we not?
16 A. The word "indicates" relates to the intelligence report.
17 It does not relate to the standing JIC assessments
18 already there from March 2002, for example, on the
19 command and control capabilities of the Iraqi armed
20 forces and the long-standing overall assessment of
21 Iraq's capabilities which were rather exceptional an
22 experience in this area. So it goes beyond that
23 specific intelligence report.
24 Q. I am, at the moment, on specifically the 45 minutes
25 claim --

123
1 A. That is what I am referring to.
2 Q. -- where it is clear that the word "indicates" was
3 interpreted as "may" by your assessment staff in early
4 drafts of this dossier.
5 A. Because it is referring, in that context, to one
6 intelligence report. The judgment goes beyond that one
7 intelligence report.
8 Q. There was no new intelligence at all after 9th September
9 which related to the 45 minutes claim, was there?
10 A. There was not.
11 Q. I want to move on in this context just to explore it
12 a bit further. What was agreed on 17th September?
13 LORD HUTTON: Before you go on, Mr Caldecott, may I ask you
14 this: are you making the point to Mr Scarlett that where
15 there is an assessment issued to the public which, of
16 course, would include Members of Parliament and
17 interested persons, that members of the public would in
18 their own minds draw a distinction between a JIC
19 assessment which was made public and a dossier based on
20 intelligence information which came with the authority
21 of JIC?
22 MR CALDECOTT: My Lord, the central point I am putting is
23 this: members of the public were being told: you are
24 here being given effectively a digest of what I, the
25 Prime Minister, have received in JIC assessments up

124
1 until now.
2 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
3 MR CALDECOTT: Those are obviously the final JIC
4 assessments. Therefore, we say that the key to what the
5 public were being told must lie in the language of those
6 final JIC assessments, not in the language of the
7 dossier in terms of the core text but in the language of
8 the JIC assessments, final JIC assessments.
9 Now, the 9th September was the last final JIC
10 assessment on the 45 minutes claim. There is no
11 statement of certainty at all in any key judgment. The
12 only reference is "indicates" in the main text.
13 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
14 MR CALDECOTT: That as we know translated as a possibility,
15 not a certainty. That is how I put it to Mr Scarlett,
16 his own assessment staff read it in the early days of
17 the drafts.
18 LORD HUTTON: Yes. I quite appreciate that was the
19 distinction you were drawing. What I just want to
20 understand is: are you suggesting to Mr Scarlett that in
21 some way the public is misled if they are issued with
22 a dossier which has in fact been authorised by the
23 Chairman of JIC with the authority of JIC itself? In
24 other words, that the average member of the public would
25 think to themselves, if they directed their minds to the

125
1 matter in detail: I am being misled, because I took this
2 dossier to be an exact statement of JIC assessments as
3 opposed to a document on intelligence matters issued
4 with the authority of JIC?
5 MR CALDECOTT: My Lord, yes, because there is, we would say,
6 a real distinction between the formality of final JIC
7 assessments as given to the Prime Minister, which is
8 what the Prime Minister is saying I am presenting --
9 LORD HUTTON: Quite, yes.
10 MR CALDECOTT: -- and a rather looser point of something
11 which the JIC have said: yes, we can produce this
12 dossier, we are fine with it. Of course it is rather
13 more important when you get to a specific claim and its
14 specific language. Then the point becomes rather more
15 intense. I am not sure I put it very elegantly.
16 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much. I am sure Mr Scarlett
17 has, himself, fully appreciated the distinction much
18 more readily than me. Yes thank you. I did not mean
19 that in any sarcastic way.
20 MR CALDECOTT: I hope not my Lord. I do not know whether it
21 was a swinging ball or not.
22 LORD HUTTON: No, not at all.
23 MR CALDECOTT: Can I go back to what you said this morning
24 about the 17th September meeting. I do again on this
25 same point wish to be clear about this.

126
1 A. Hmm.
2 Q. This was not a meeting you attended but a meeting
3 chaired by Mr Miller?
4 A. That is right.
5 Q. It was decided that after the end of the discussion the
6 assessment staff would go away and look at the
7 9th September classified assessment --
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. -- and also at the intelligence --
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. -- and bring the wording of the text, the two middle
12 sort of points, into line with what the assessment and
13 the intelligence said?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Now the only assessment element of the 45 minute claim
16 in the 9th September final assessment is in the main
17 text, is it not?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And it says that it is merely an indication.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. If that was the agreement, how is it reflected by
22 strengthening the word "may" to the word "are"?
23 A. Because the intelligence contained no indication of
24 "may", no indication of uncertainty. It was a statement
25 in the intelligence report that they had this

127
1 capability. But the JIC assessment of the 9th September
2 put it in terms of intelligence indicates that they have
3 that capability, and that was therefore reflected in
4 exactly those terms in the main body of the redrafted
5 text, which is what the assessment staff said they would
6 do.
7 Q. But that, with respect, is to -- I do not know what the
8 wording of the raw intelligence is but of course I take
9 it from you.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. But --
12 A. Thank you.
13 Q. -- that is slightly to look, is it not, at the wording
14 of the raw intelligence without taking into account the
15 assessment element and the choice of the word
16 "indicates"? We have had a lot of evidence about the
17 importance of precision and the significance of words
18 like "indicates".
19 A. Indeed.
20 Q. If you do go back you do not just look at the raw
21 intelligence, you look at how it was assessed; and it
22 was assessed as "indicates", not "shows". Why does it
23 therefore get put up to "are" if you are implementing
24 this agreement?
25 A. The 9th September assessment that intelligence indicates

128
1 that chemical and biological munitions could be with
2 military units and ready for firing within 20 to
3 45 minutes -- that was the wording, the sense of which
4 was accurately reflected in the redrafting on the
5 17th September of the dossier. That is the point I am
6 making. They went back to the intelligence, the
7 original intelligence, which contained no caveat of
8 uncertainty. They went back to the way in which it was
9 phrased in the 9th September assessment and they
10 redrafted their main body of the dossier to come into
11 line with that, which it had not been before, including
12 the words "intelligence indicates that".
13 Q. You say there was no element of uncertainty in this
14 intelligence?
15 A. Report, yes.
16 Q. Report. Well, can I just put to you some possible
17 elements of uncertainty which might have influenced the
18 assessors to say "indicates" and not "shows"? Firstly,
19 you did not know what munitions the Iraqi officer was
20 specifically referring to, did you?
21 A. No, that is right.
22 Q. You did not know from where or to where the munitions
23 might be moved within 45 minutes?
24 A. That is right.
25 Q. Indeed, it was thought at one point that it must mean

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1 that these munitions were at forward depots but it was
2 thought that was too uncertain so it was removed?
3 A. No, that was removed because it was not stated as such
4 in the intelligence report; but that was the assessment
5 at the time of what it did refer to, and indeed remains
6 the assessment of what it did refer to, that these were
7 munitions at forward deployed points.
8 Q. You see, "forward deployed points" is removed. If they
9 are not at forward deployed points, one asks oneself:
10 where are they?
11 A. At forward deployed points, that is where we assessed
12 them to be.
13 Q. Why remove "forward deployed points" in that sense?
14 A. We were being accurate and precise and not putting into
15 the 9th September assessment wording which was not
16 actually in the assessment. We could have left it in,
17 it was a fine point but it was decided not to put it in,
18 so it was not.
19 Q. Do you accept that assessors could have regard to the
20 fact, for example, that they did not know from where to
21 where exactly what was covered by this period of
22 45 minutes? They did not know the specific weapons
23 referred to. It was relayed to them through an
24 intermediary -- I appreciate a reliable one, but
25 nonetheless it is second-hand. All these were matters

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1 properly to take into account in deciding whether it
2 indicated or showed a particular state of affairs.
3 A. You are talking as if the assessors sit there and
4 operate in a vacuum. They do not. They are assessing
5 individual intelligence reports against the background
6 of their knowledge. This was a point of precision which
7 was being given, a timing which was being given for the
8 first time with precision, to an assessment which
9 already existed about the capability of the Iraqi armed
10 forces in this area. That is what assessment is about.
11 There is too much emphasis on sources, single reporting.
12 Assessment is a much more complicated thing than that
13 and it takes many aspects into account, as has been
14 explained many times to this Inquiry.
15 Q. Mr Scarlett I am entirely with you about that and
16 I readily accept that the assessment staff doing their
17 exercise on 9th September took into account all these
18 matters, but the fact is that their conclusion was
19 "indicates".
20 A. The sentence in the assessment was referring to the
21 intelligence report as such. It was not looking at it
22 in the wider context. The JIC had instructed the
23 drafters to incorporate and take account and assess
24 recent intelligence which was coming in, the 45 minutes
25 report clearly fell into that category and under that

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1 rubric the assessment staff drafted, on 16th September,
2 for the first time, a judgment, drafted a judgment,
3 which was then discussed at the 17th September meeting,
4 which was then circulated to JIC members, was accepted
5 by JIC members, explicitly in the case of DIS and SIS,
6 and therefore had the full authority of a JIC
7 assessment.
8 Q. But, you see, if the word "indicates" in the
9 9th September assessment is a mere word of narrative and
10 not a word of judgment, why, on 17th September, is it
11 agreed that you will have regard to what the assessment
12 said on this subject?
13 A. We did, and that was what was taken into account in the
14 main body of the text; but what was in the executive --
15 what was in the judgment was a different point. As
16 I have said, the judgment is a judgment taking into
17 account the factors I have already indicated to you. It
18 is not a summary of the main points in the text. The
19 word "indicates" relates to the specific intelligence
20 report. The judgment does not just confine itself to
21 one intelligence report.
22 Q. Much as I would like to spend the afternoon continuing
23 on this, I think I had better move on.
24 Can we go forward, please, to 9th September?
25 I think it is right that everyone in DIS and SIS with

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1 assessment potential was involved one way or another in
2 the dossier?
3 A. Hmm.
4 Q. You had a meeting with Mr Campbell on 9th September,
5 shortly followed by a much larger meeting; is that
6 right?
7 A. That is right, yes -- not much larger, but larger.
8 Q. Would I be right that there were senior DIS staff at the
9 meeting of the 9th September?
10 A. I think there was somebody from DIS there, but I cannot
11 be certain.
12 Q. From GCHQ?
13 A. Again, I think so.
14 Q. From SIS?
15 A. Yes, certainly.
16 Q. Was Mr Howard there?
17 A. I do not think so.
18 Q. Sir David Omand?
19 A. No, he was not but he was circulated and one or two
20 others were on the record of the meeting afterwards.
21 Q. Your position in intelligence matters is plainly far
22 superior to that of Mr Campbell, is it not?
23 A. It is indeed.
24 Q. He may not agree with you, but I do.
25 You, presumably, regarded it as important to get

133
1 across the message that you were in charge of this
2 dossier?
3 A. I did, yes.
4 Q. And you asked Mr Campbell, as we know -- I think you
5 said to him: it would be helpful if you set out the
6 process, and that was one of the points he was to
7 include in it?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Why did you not chair that first planning meeting in
10 order to get across the clear message that you were in
11 charge and not the communications side of
12 Downing Street?
13 A. That meeting was held to discuss the overall structure,
14 format, presentation of the dossier; and
15 Alastair Campbell, as the Prime Minister's
16 representative and very clearly representing his
17 views -- and the Prime Minister was commissioning this
18 document -- chaired that meeting in that role. At that
19 meeting we did not in any way discuss intelligence
20 matters or anything in terms of intelligence content,
21 intelligence reports, intelligence items, which fell
22 within my area of responsibility. Therefore it was
23 natural for him to chair it.
24 Q. Did it discuss the use of JIC assessments in the dossier
25 in any form?

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1 A. In very general terms, at my instigation the idea was
2 put forward that the dossier should include an account
3 of the history of JIC assessments over the previous
4 three years because, indeed, it was those assessments
5 over the previous three to three and a half years which
6 were underpinning the judgments or going to underpin the
7 judgments in the dossier. That was a general concept,
8 which I put forward.
9 Q. Now I --
10 A. There was no discussion of detail at all.
11 Q. I just want to ask you about this: at this stage, after
12 your discussion on 9th September, and I am not going to
13 re-enter our old dispute, but did you have in mind that
14 the dossier would include, as it were, new judgments by
15 the Joint Intelligence Committee on the 45 minutes
16 point? By which I mean judgments that had not appeared
17 in the 9th September assessment?
18 A. At that meeting on 9th September I was not thinking
19 about the 45 minutes point and my thinking was not going
20 that far. At that meeting I was thinking about the need
21 for the dossier to include, as far as it was safe to do
22 so, specific reference to individual items of
23 intelligence. It would be, you know, intelligence-based
24 explicitly and also refer explicitly to JIC assessments.
25 Q. The 9th September JIC assessment had been sent out on

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1 5th September with a deadline for reply of the 9th.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Was there any time on the 9th when the replies had to be
4 in by?
5 A. What I can tell you in answer to that is that the last
6 written comments, I am almost certain, came in by the
7 close of play on the 6th, which was the Friday. The 9th
8 was a Monday. There may have been one or two telephone
9 comments early on the Monday. What I can tell you is
10 the JIC assessment of 9th September issued at
11 1400 hours.
12 Q. Could you look, please, at CAB/6/3 which is the second
13 page of Mr Campbell's subsequent minute of this meeting.
14 It is the first paragraph of any length:
15 "The media/political judgment will inevitably focus
16 on 'what's new?'..."
17 Do you see that?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Knowing Mr Campbell's interest in the latest headlines,
20 he must have asked you, must he not: what is the
21 up-to-date position on JIC assessments on Iraq?
22 A. Sorry to disappoint you, he did not.
23 Q. He restrained himself, did he?
24 A. I do not know. He did not.
25 Q. When did he first ask you about the up-to-date JIC

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1 assessments on Iraq?
2 A. I do not recall him ever doing so in the terms that you
3 have just indicated.
4 Q. You are sure about that, are you?
5 A. I do not recall him ever doing so in the terms you have
6 just indicated. The first that he saw of our drafting
7 and latest intelligence and the way we were expressing
8 it in the dossier was late on the evening of the
9 10th September, which was the following day, that I do
10 know for certain. That gave him, of course, quite a lot
11 of detail.
12 Q. Did you understand him to be saying on 9th September
13 that he and others from Downing Street, Foreign Office
14 press staff would be making drafting recommendations and
15 suggestions to you?
16 A. What I understood from that meeting was that there would
17 be interest from him, certainly, in No. 10, on the way
18 that the dossier was eventually presented. In fact
19 I think he says in his record that whilst the assessment
20 staff, with the authority of the JIC, are drafting the
21 dossier, he would head a small group which would
22 consider presentation. That is what he put in the
23 minute.
24 Q. I just want to deal with one very short point. I think
25 it was your own conclusion, I do not know whether it is

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1 reflected in the full JIC paper, which I have not seen,
2 that the 9th September 45 minute claim related to
3 battlefield munitions?
4 A. It did, yes.
5 Q. I think we can see how you might well have reached that
6 conclusion if we look at BBC/30/3, very quickly.
7 This is an extract from the Intelligence and
8 Security Committee report.
9 A. Hmm.
10 Q. It deals with delivery systems.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. The potential systems are set out in 46.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. A number of serious doubts about almost all of them,
15 except for artillery shells and so on, are expressed in
16 47.
17 Then in 48:
18 "The JIC assessed that the Iraqis might use chemical
19 and biological weapons against neighbouring states or
20 concentrations of Western forces. We were told that the
21 weapons systems most likely to be used to deliver
22 chemical and biological munitions against Western forces
23 were artillery and rockets."
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. "These are battlefield weapons, which can be used

138
1 tactically to great effect, but they are not strategic
2 weapons."
3 Firstly, was that made clear to the Prime Minister?
4 A. There was no discussion with the Prime Minister that
5 I can recall about the 45 minutes point in connection
6 with battlefield or strategic systems. Indeed I do not
7 remember a discussion with the Prime Minister about the
8 45 minutes point at all.
9 Q. Who, apart from the internal assessment staff, was this
10 message conveyed to?
11 A. Sorry, what message?
12 Q. Only battlefield munitions, not strategic weapons.
13 A. You say "only battlefield munitions". Do you know what
14 a battlefield munition, a battlefield weapon, might
15 actually involve? I can tell you the assessment from
16 the DIS of what the most likely delivery system for
17 chemical and biological, particularly chemical weapons,
18 would be, and this was based on the experience of the
19 Iran/Iraq War. Multiple rocket launchers, in particular
20 the BM21 with a range of 20-kilometres or artillery up
21 to the 155 millimetre artillery, which would have
22 a range of 40 kilometres. In the Iran/Iraq War 20,000
23 Iranians were killed or wounded through the use of
24 chemical weapons, so the difference between strategic
25 and tactical in those contexts is quite difficult to

139
1 draw, particularly as Iran's use of chemical weapons in
2 the Iran/Iraq War had a strategic effect of halting
3 a major Iranian advance. I just thought I would say
4 that.
5 Q. Mr Scarlett, I totally take the point but you are well
6 aware, are you not, of the distinction between range and
7 casualty?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Yes. Strategic weapons have a far longer range, they
10 could reach British bases in Cyprus, for example, which
11 is what the newspaper said on 25th September.
12 A. A small number of newspapers said it on 25th September
13 and not thereafter.
14 Q. A small number of newspapers with a readership of
15 millions.
16 A. On the 25th September there were a small number of
17 headlines about that; and afterwards virtually no
18 reference to it.
19 Q. Were you concerned that that should be corrected,
20 Mr Scarlett?
21 A. No, I was not and I will tell you why not. First of
22 all, as regards my own assessment staff, we were ready
23 to field enquiries from the press offices of No. 10, the
24 MoD, the FCO with anything relating to issues of this
25 kind. We received no enquiries whatsoever about the

140
1 45 minute point.
2 The second point was I was of course following the
3 press coverage of the dossier and I was interested to
4 note that immediately after the headline flurry on
5 various points on the 24th and 25th September the press
6 coverage fell quickly into assessing the dossier as
7 a sober and cautious document that most explicitly did
8 not make a case for war, if anything it made a case for
9 the return of the inspectors and it focused in
10 particular, quite rightly in my view, on the importance
11 of what the dossier had to say about the nuclear issue.
12 I was content with the way that coverage came out; and
13 that is -- that was my attitude over many months indeed.
14 Q. Do I understand you to say that you do not correct it
15 because no questions had been asked about it?
16 A. No, you may understand it but that would be wrong, but
17 I have explained that the reason why that was not an
18 issue in my mind was because of the very sober and
19 sensible way in which media coverage of the dossier fell
20 into place immediately after the 25th September.
21 Q. Well, what about the 25th September itself? This is the
22 day it is announced in the House of Commons by the
23 Prime Minister, and certainly a number of newspapers,
24 with mass readerships throughout the country, have
25 misunderstood it. Why was it not put right and why were

141
1 you not concerned to put it right?
2 A. Because it was a fleeting moment and then the underlying
3 assessment by the media of the dossier was as I have
4 just described, and beyond that, of course, it is not my
5 immediate responsibility to correct headlines and if
6 I did that, I certainly would not have time to do my
7 job.
8 Q. Can we just look, please, at the wording of the first
9 draft? I think probably BBC/29/9 I hope is our
10 constructed document on this.
11 LORD HUTTON: I am sorry, BBC?
12 MR CALDECOTT: 29/9, my Lord, I am sorry.
13 LORD HUTTON: Yes, thank you very much.
14 A. Yes.
15 MR CALDECOTT: Now, this is your first -- I say your first
16 draft.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You were drafting the executive summary personally, is
19 that right?
20 A. No, that is not right.
21 Q. I am sorry about that.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Was that also drafted by Mr Miller under your
24 supervision?
25 A. The executive summary and the text, the main text of the

142
1 dossier, was all part of the drafting process taking
2 place under the leadership of Mr Miller but of course
3 under my overall supervision.
4 Q. And you saw this draft before it went out, therefore,
5 for comment?
6 A. I did, yes.
7 Q. We see the word "indicates" in the executive summary --
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. -- which is the word which is taken directly, I think,
10 from the main text of the 9th September draft?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Your assessment staff have used a different word for it
13 in the main text. We see three lines up from
14 paragraph 13 "within the last month intelligence has
15 suggested"; right?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. That word "suggested" reflects, does it not, the
18 judgment element in the word "indicates" in the
19 9th September draft?
20 A. Well, so would "indicate"; and "suggests" normally tends
21 to be slightly weaker than "indicates".
22 Q. And certainly weaker than "shows"?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Can I just ask you: much later you did a briefing note,
25 I think to assist Mr Campbell in briefing the

143
1 Prime Minister for Question Time. Do you remember that
2 on 4th June?
3 A. No, I do not remember that.
4 Q. I am sorry, it is a very recent document we have just
5 seen.
6 A. I think I can help you if that is all right. No, that
7 is all right, there was not a note for Mr Campbell to
8 assist him with the Prime Minister, it was a letter from
9 me, as Chairman of the JIC, personally to the
10 Prime Minister of 4th June.
11 Q. You are quite right, it is my fault. It is headed
12 "Prime Minister".
13 A. That is fine.
14 Q. CAB/45/2 is where it starts. I just wanted to ask you
15 about some words at CAB/45/4 which is page 3 of the
16 document.
17 A. Fine.
18 LORD HUTTON: This is dated, Mr Caldecott?
19 MR CALDECOTT: 4th June my Lord.
20 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much.
21 MR CALDECOTT: I promise I will be brief about this, we will
22 not go back over old territory.
23 I just wanted to ask you about one line.
24 A. Please.
25 Q. About five lines in on that page.

144
1 A. Hmm.
2 Q. "The report was highlighted in the same terms in a JIC
3 assessment of 9th September."
4 All I want to ask you is this: is the report there
5 the dossier or is it the original intelligence report?
6 A. Let me just read it. No, it is the original
7 intelligence report.
8 Q. I thought that was right. Thank you.
9 Can I just move, please, to your circulation of this
10 draft to JIC members which we find at CAB/33/133. You
11 attach a current draft. Third line:
12 "Nevertheless, you need to see where we have got to.
13 I would be grateful if you could study the
14 intelligence-related sections (essentially
15 section 6)..."; do you see that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. "... and let me or Julian Miller have your views by
18 midday tomorrow, if not at this afternoon's JIC
19 [meeting]."
20 A. That is right.
21 Q. It is right here, is it not, that you are asking them to
22 focus specifically on the main text? Do you see the
23 words there "essentially section 6"?
24 A. Which in that draft was what became the intelligence
25 section on current capabilities in the final version.

145
1 It changed quite a bit of course in terms of structure.
2 Q. You say in the last sentence:
3 "We also need to be sure that overall the balance of
4 the judgments remain consistent with those previously
5 reached by the [Joint Intelligence Committee]."
6 A. I do.
7 Q. You then have a meeting on 11th September at 6 o'clock?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. I went through this with Mr Campbell.
10 A. Okay.
11 Q. I am going to try to take it quite briefly.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Those present are Mr Kelly, Mr Smith, two
14 Prime Minister's Official Spokesmen --
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. -- Mr Bassett the special adviser and Mr Pruce.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Can I ask you about this: Mr Pruce, who Mr Campbell said
19 was "punching above his pay grade" was his expression,
20 he was in fact someone whom the agencies were
21 specifically asked, were they not, could be admitted to
22 these meetings?
23 A. To the meetings of the drafting group on 9th and
24 17th September, that is correct.
25 Q. I do not want to go through these e-mails in great

146
1 detail. You have been through them before.
2 A. Hmm.
3 Q. But you did say in your evidence last time that
4 certainly the gist of them was mentioned to you in the
5 6 o'clock meeting.
6 A. I think what I said last time was that I did not see
7 those e-mails at the time, in fact I did not see them
8 until they came before the Inquiry. But now that I had
9 seen them, and I had a recollection, but no record, of
10 the 11th September 6 o'clock discussion, that some of
11 the main themes were represented in the very general
12 advice that was given to me by Alastair Campbell
13 himself.
14 Q. Can I just ask you, briefly, about this question of
15 records? There has been a very important planning
16 meeting on 9th September.
17 A. Hmm.
18 Q. Did you make any notes of that meeting?
19 A. The note was made by Alastair Campbell.
20 Q. Oh, Mr Campbell did make a note of that meeting at the
21 time?
22 A. That was the record that was sent out, two and a half
23 pages.
24 Q. I do not think so.
25 A. Yes, it was. You just quoted it on the screen.

147
1 Q. He said he was asked to do that by you after the event.
2 We have seen no contemporaneous note of that meeting.
3 A. That note which was written immediately afterwards
4 recorded the outcome of that meeting and the meeting of
5 5th September. As far as I was concerned, that was more
6 than adequate.
7 Q. Nobody was making a contemporaneous note as this
8 discussion about structure proceeded on 9th September?
9 A. As far as I was concerned, of course this was not my
10 business, I was not chairing this meeting, but as far as
11 I was concerned, all the relevant points at that
12 discussion were recorded immediately in that I think two
13 and a half page minute.
14 Q. But the answer to my question is that you are unaware of
15 anybody making a contemporaneous note of that meeting of
16 9th September planning the structure of the dossier?
17 A. I cannot answer for the organisation of
18 Alastair Campbell's own directorate. I am not aware of
19 it, no, nor am I concerned about it.
20 Q. Can we now look at the 16th September draft, please?
21 BBC/29/10. I will try to take this reasonably quickly.
22 This has now, has it not, gone around, as it were, the
23 agencies for comment? Indeed it has also gone to JIC
24 members.
25 A. Yes.

148
1 Q. We see that there is a conclusion.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Was that suggested to you by Mr Bassett?
4 A. No, it was not.
5 Q. Never mentioned by him?
6 A. Not that I recall.
7 Q. We see the word "may" in the main text twice.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And that I think probably again seems to relate to an
10 interpretation of the word "suggested". We see it going
11 down the queue from "indicates" to "suggested" and now
12 put in as "may".
13 A. I know you might think that, that is understandable. In
14 fact I do not think it does. As I explained to
15 the Inquiry last time, I having consulted the people who
16 drafted this particular draft, they have no
17 recollection, still have no recollection of why that was
18 phrased as "may" rather than as it was phrased on the
19 11th September.
20 Q. Can I make a suggestion to you? You referred this
21 morning to a concern to put the language of the JIC into
22 layman's language. I appreciate nobody seems to be able
23 to remember how this word "may" arose but it would be an
24 obvious explanation as to why it was used.
25 A. But not necessarily a truthful one.

149
1 Q. Not necessarily but we are having to do our best because
2 you cannot remember.
3 A. I cannot say that that is correct because I have no
4 knowledge of it at all. Therefore I cannot say it and
5 therefore I cannot give my authority to that
6 interpretation and I am not doing so.
7 Q. What we do know is, and I need not go to it because you
8 were taken to it in evidence, there is the e-mail that
9 goes out from a member of your assessment staff at about
10 midday on the 11th about the question of being round the
11 buoys before and the "last" with an exclamation mark.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. A degree of weariness with requesting more intelligence.
14 A. Hmm.
15 Q. That goes out at about midday on the 11th. The message
16 from Mr Bassett after that last request had gone out we
17 see at CAB/11/23 in one of his e-mails that was read to
18 you before. In pretty strong terms he is saying that he
19 wants more, better, more convincing intelligence. He
20 even seems to think that intelligence is being held
21 back.
22 He sent that e-mail only two and a half hours before
23 a meeting that he attended with you.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Did he not express that sentiment to you?

150
1 A. I have no memory at all of -- I remember Phil Bassett
2 being at the meeting. I do not remember what he said
3 and I do not remember taking any notice of it.
4 Q. You see that actually was the e-mail read to you
5 immediately before you gave your answer first time round
6 that you did remember the gist of these e-mails being
7 put to you orally at the meeting.
8 A. What I said the last time round was the general advice
9 that I took away from Alastair Campbell, from nobody
10 else at that meeting, was that the 11th September draft,
11 as we continued to work on it, needed, ideally, to have
12 more detail in it, it needed to be less assertive, less
13 rhetorical, that that was the broad outline of the
14 advice. And I happen to agree that I thought that was
15 good advice and I took that away. And indeed the
16 16th September draft was clearly striking a slightly
17 different tone in its language.
18 Q. Can we just quickly look at the terms in which you sent
19 the next draft, the 16th September draft round to JIC
20 members? CAB/33/134. Paragraph 2, please, Mr Scarlett.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Again you are drawing the attention of JIC members in
23 particular, are you not, to the main text, the second
24 sentence?
25 A. (Pause).

151
1 "This includes the reference to JIC's assessments
2 which were discussed at our meeting", on the 11th, yes.
3 What I am drawing attention to there is the passages
4 in this new draft referring to the history, the
5 developing history of JIC assessments over the previous
6 three years which we had specifically discussed on
7 11th September. That is what I am referring to there.
8 Q. Can I just ask you a small point, which you may be able
9 to help me with? Could we, first of all, please, have
10 on screen CAB/11/142? Paragraph 4, please, towards the
11 very bottom. Do you see there:
12 "These judgments have been endorsed by the Joint
13 Intelligence Committee."
14 Do you see that?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Can we now, please, have CAB/3/26 which is the
17 19th September version. About a third from the top,
18 paragraph 6, please:
19 "These judgments reflect the views of..."
20 So, for some reason it has been changed from
21 "endorsed by" to "reflect the views of".
22 A. Sorry, this refers to which draft?
23 Q. The second one, the rather weaker one, "reflect the
24 views" is 19th September. The stronger one, "endorsed
25 by", 16th September. Can you remember why that

152
1 happened?
2 A. No, I cannot and I do not -- can you scroll up to the
3 top of the bullet points, the previous page, sorry.
4 Q. I think you will probably have to go to the previous
5 page for that.
6 A. There we are:
7 "As a result of this intelligence we judge that Iraq
8 has..."
9 So it is explicit that these are the judgment. They
10 reflect the views of the JIC. That is very firm
11 wording, I think.
12 Q. Can we just look at CAB/11/141, please? Towards the
13 bottom of the page, the last line:
14 "... and it allows us to judge that Iraq..."
15 A. That is right.
16 Q. Do you see, both these versions are plainly referring to
17 judgments but one says "endorsed" and one says "reflect
18 the views of", but you cannot remember any debate
19 leading to that change?
20 A. No, and I see no difference between them either.
21 Q. So there would be no point changing it then?
22 A. Well one thing means -- both are saying that these
23 judgments carry the authority of the JIC. That, for me,
24 is good enough.
25 Q. We then get the 19th September draft. I have debated

153
1 with you the effect of the meeting of the
2 17th September --
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. -- which I think is your explanation for why "may" goes
5 up to "are". I put to you the doubts we have about
6 that.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. I am not going to go around it again.
9 A. Okay.
10 Q. I am neither, in the time available, going to go through
11 all the changes that Mr Sumption went through. But
12 I just want to see the extent to which the changes being
13 canvassed by Mr Campbell were actually discussed at the
14 JIC Committee meeting of 18th September. Could we,
15 please, have BBC/30/24?
16 This is a response or a holding response, one might
17 describe it as, to Mr Campbell's minute to you of
18 17th September. I imagine it is from your assistant,
19 a secretary or someone similar, it is redacted:
20 "John Scarlett has seen these comments and is taking
21 account of them in the revisions now in the process of
22 being incorporated. Both he and Julian Miller are now
23 at the regular Wednesday JIC meeting and will be unable
24 to move drafting forward for the next hour and a half or
25 so. He will revert later."

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1 So it does look, does it not, from this, that the
2 suggestions by Mr Campbell, subject to the debate
3 between us about the 17th September meeting on point 10,
4 were not, cannot have been raised at the 18th JIC
5 meeting; is that right?
6 A. Well, actually this e-mail is not referring to the
7 17th September memo, it is referring to an e-mail
8 message from Mr Campbell to me or my office on the
9 18th September. But I do not have the e-mail in front
10 of me here, so I cannot tell you exactly what was in it.
11 But I did subsequently receive, as I said, I think three
12 e-mails after the 17th September from him. So that is
13 what that is about.
14 Q. Right. Can we, please, move on to the 19th September?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. I just want to ask you -- CAB/23/1, please -- one
17 question about paragraph 3. This is for circulation to
18 JIC members, the last on the copying list there, you
19 will see.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. "Copies go to JIC members on a personal basis,
22 reflecting the continuing sensitivity of the document
23 and the imperative need to avoid leaks."
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Does that mean that the 19th September draft did not go

155
1 round the system but was only seen by the JIC members?
2 A. No, it does not. That is a call for JIC members to be
3 especially careful as to how this draft is handled
4 within their organisations, given the fact that, you
5 know, it is about to become public and you are into that
6 area of sensitivity. This draft would have been --
7 certainly was seen by the normal representatives on the
8 drafting group. That is what that refers to. It is --
9 you know, obviously it is a fair question but that is
10 definitely what it refers to.
11 Q. What limitation did you have in mind by the word
12 "essential"?
13 A. Well, what I meant by that was comments they felt, the
14 members felt, were weighty and important. I was not
15 defining it any more carefully than that and I think
16 they would have understood that, although, as I have
17 said, we did receive three pages of detailed comments
18 from DIS, most of which we incorporated.
19 Q. It was not very long to consider this draft, was it,
20 because the deadline was 3 o'clock the same day?
21 A. No, but the JIC is used to working, and the coordination
22 mechanism and the support mechanism is used to working
23 within very tight deadlines. It does it all the time.
24 Q. Even the computer illiterates like me understand this
25 concept of tracking changes.

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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Was any attempt made in the draft sent round to indicate
3 the changes in later drafts from the previous draft,
4 because we have seen no copy which indicates that was
5 ever done?
6 A. No, I do not think that was so, and it was not necessary
7 because the members of the drafting group were following
8 this in detail and were in frequent contact with each
9 other, and they were all well-qualified and expert in
10 this field.
11 Q. This deadline of 3 o'clock was an effective deadline,
12 was it not? It was the closing of the shutters as far
13 as JIC members were concerned?
14 A. I would not use that expression. In fact, it was not
15 quite. Comments were coming in after 3 o'clock and were
16 absorbed without difficulty by the assessment staff
17 during the course of that working day, which again is
18 quite formal for them. I agree that is quite a tight
19 deadline but that is a normal one for them.
20 Q. I want to ask you about a change we have not yet looked
21 at in evidence. Could we, please, look at CAB/11/103?
22 This is a suggestion that comes in from
23 Downing Street --
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. -- after your deadline of 3 o'clock. It is timed at

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1 3.45 from Mr Powell, the Downing Street Chief of Staff.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Sent only to you and Mr Campbell and copied to Sir David
4 Manning.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. "Found my copy. I think it is good.
7 "I agree with Alastair you should drop the
8 conclusion."
9 That we know is done.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. "Alastair -- what will be the headline in the Standard
12 on day of publication?
13 "What do we want it to be?"
14 I will not ask you about that.
15 A. No.
16 Q. "I think the statement on page 19 that 'Saddam is
17 prepared to use chemical and biological weapons if he
18 believes his regime is under threat' is a bit of
19 a problem. It backs up the Don McIntyre argument that
20 there is no CBW threat and we will only create one if we
21 attack him."
22 Now, Don McIntyre is a chief political columnist at
23 the Independent.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. "I think you should redraft the para. My memory of the

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1 intelligence is that he has set up plans to use CBW on
2 Western forces and that these weapons are integrated
3 into his military planning."
4 Right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. The suggestion there, is it not, is that the dossier
7 should be redrafted to remove an express suggestion that
8 Saddam Hussein is a defensive threat?
9 A. Hmm.
10 Q. And leave an implication that, in fact, he is an
11 offensive threat; is that right?
12 A. No. It is not right. It is not to leave the
13 implication that he is an offensive threat, it is to
14 take away the explicit, as it were, limitation that it
15 is a defensive -- not a defensive threat, but it is
16 a defensive sort of point.
17 Q. Do you accept you can transform a dossier by omission,
18 Mr Scarlett?
19 A. Well, omission is --
20 Q. Taking out what was in it before?
21 A. Of course, that is -- it is important what you take out
22 as well as what you put in.
23 Q. You see, such a change would make a great effect, would
24 it not, on the threat in fact presented by
25 Saddam Hussein in the eyes of the public?

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1 A. Shall I say what I did about this?
2 Q. Yes, please do.
3 A. Yes. This e-mail did prompt me and the assessment staff
4 to look again at that particular passage. Now, we were
5 acting under the instructions from the JIC to keep what
6 we were writing in line with standing JIC assessments
7 and also with recent intelligence. As I recall this
8 particular paragraph -- obviously this particular
9 paragraph was under the heading of what recent
10 intelligence was showing. Now, there had been an
11 intelligence report which made that point, I mean
12 a recent intelligence report which is why it was phrased
13 like this.
14 When we looked at it again, we also realised two
15 things: first of all, that there was no standing JIC
16 assessment which made it clear whether we were defining
17 Saddam's threat, if you like, as defensive or CW posture
18 as defensive or offensive. More to the point, there was
19 recent reporting, in addition, which was not reflected
20 here, but which was quite clear reporting, which placed
21 his attachment to CBW and the importance that he placed
22 on it very much in the context of his perception of his
23 regional position, his plans to acquire and maintain
24 regional influence and, as one report, and maybe more,
25 put it: dominate his neighbours. In other words, the

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1 recent intelligence was more complex than that phrase
2 implied.
3 Bearing those points in mind, we concluded that this
4 was not right, the way this was phrased; and therefore
5 we took that out. That is what I did.
6 Q. This formula had appeared in the draft of the
7 11th September, circulated to JIC members and approved.
8 It had appeared in the draft of the 16th September,
9 circulated to JIC members and approved. It appeared in
10 the draft of the 19th September, circulated to JIC
11 members and approved. Why the change? Only the reason
12 you have given.
13 A. Well that is an important reason and I was acting under
14 JIC instructions, and within our authority and delegated
15 authority, as I have explained, in basing what we did on
16 the recent intelligence.
17 Q. Can we, please, look at BBC/30/8 as to what the
18 intelligence did say on this subject, so far as we can
19 work it out? This is an extract, again, of the ISC
20 report.
21 A. Hmm.
22 Q. BBC/30/8, please. Scroll down a little bit, please, to
23 119.
24 "The assessments staff produced an intelligence
25 update on 27 November 2002."

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1 That is obviously after publication.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. "It reiterated an earlier JIC assessment that if Saddam
4 were to be faced with the likelihood of military defeat
5 and removal from power, he would be unlikely to be
6 deterred from using chemical and biological weapons by
7 any diplomatic or military means."
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Now that is consistent, is it not, with the original
10 wording?
11 A. What that says -- it says what he would do if he was --
12 and he would use these weapons if he were faced with
13 these circumstances. It does not say, at all, that
14 those are the only circumstances in which he would use
15 those weapons and the reporting definitely did not say
16 that.
17 Q. Can we look at what I assume is, in fact, the later
18 intelligence update on 27th November at paragraph 120?
19 I accept this is post publication.
20 A. Hmm.
21 Q. "It was assessed that Saddam was prepared to order
22 missile strikes against Israel, with chemical or
23 biological warheads, in order to widen the war should
24 hostilities begin. Saddam had also identified [other
25 countries] as targets. The update also contained recent

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1 intelligence that Saddam would use chemical or
2 biological weapons if allied forces approached Baghdad,
3 if Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul fell to allied control, or if
4 Iraqi military units rebelled."
5 All of those states of affairs are triggered by a
6 defensive position of extreme danger for Saddam Hussain,
7 are they not?
8 A. Yes, because that assessment in that update is relating
9 to that specific set of circumstances, the likelihood of
10 an invasion of Iraq. It is the same point as I have
11 just made.
12 Q. Can we just finish this by looking at the changes that
13 were made in the dossier as a result of this
14 intervention from Downing Street at BBC/29/19?
15 A. Sorry, can I just interrupt to say, before I forget,
16 that it was not as a result of the interventions from
17 Downing Street, it was as a result of the exercise of my
18 professional judgment and that of my colleagues in
19 assessment staff for the reasons I have just given.
20 Q. It would not have occurred without Mr Powell's
21 memorandum, would it?
22 A. I said we were prompted to look again at this by the
23 memorandum. I was exercising my judgment as I was
24 authorised to do entirely in line with the existing
25 intelligence -- the recent intelligence which indeed had

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1 come in and which was not taken into account properly by
2 that phrase.
3 Q. I think it is right we should look at the change to
4 complete this. Bottom of BBC/29/19.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. The strike through is what was deleted and the
7 underlining what was put in. We see the most important
8 words deleted are "if he believes his regime is under
9 threat". Again one sees "including against his own
10 people" replaces the fact that it would only happen if
11 there was an internal uprising by the Shia population.
12 A. It does not say it would only happen, it says against an
13 internal uprising. Again the same point, there was
14 intelligence which said that, but there was also
15 intelligence which said that he was prepared to use CBW
16 against the Shia in circumstances other than the
17 internal uprising, which was why that change was made.
18 It is the same point.
19 Q. Can we look at BBC/29/2 for another last minute change
20 whose origins presently remain obscure. This is a list
21 of titles.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. The 19th September draft is Iraq's programme for weapons
24 of mass destruction, the emphasis being on what
25 Saddam Hussein was intending to develop.

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1 A. Hmm.
2 Q. The change of title on the 20th is to "Iraq's weapons of
3 mass destruction", the emphasis being on the weapons he
4 in fact has.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Who suggested that change at the very last minute?
7 A. It was not a suggestion, it was me. I decided it,
8 because the title "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction"
9 was an accurate reflection of the contents of the
10 dossier. For no other reason. What I remember more was
11 lingering on whether I was going to say the British
12 Government assessment or the assessment of the British
13 Government. That is true. I do remember thinking that
14 if -- the first line is simply a description of what the
15 dossier actually contained.
16 Q. It is probably answered by that, but I think just for
17 everybody's assistance, I draw your attention to
18 something Dr Kelly said to Ms Watts in his telephone
19 conversation that was recorded at BBC/1/60. It is just
20 a couple of sentences at the very bottom of BBC/1/60.
21 The bottom three lines almost:
22 "I think that was the real concern that everyone
23 had, it was not so much what they have now but what they
24 would have in the future. But that unfortunately wasn't
25 expressed strongly in the dossier because that takes

165
1 away the case for war."
2 Do you have any comment to make about that?
3 A. That is not a completely accurate assessment of what
4 I understood or certainly what indeed was the attitude
5 of the JIC for which Dr Kelly was not in a position to
6 speak. The attitude of the JIC was that both points
7 were relevant. It was of concern what they had at that
8 stage as assessed by the JIC and it was of concern as to
9 what was going to happen in the future.
10 Q. I want to turn, please, to a completely different topic
11 which is various dealings you had with Parliament or
12 Parliamentary Committees.
13 The BBC's allegations, I think I am right in saying,
14 you perceived as a very serious attack on the JIC as
15 well as a serious attack on those like Mr Campbell and
16 others in Government, as I understand it?
17 A. Well --
18 Q. That is right?
19 A. I perceived the allegation, in particular the allegation
20 in the 6.07 broadcast on the 29th May, as completely
21 wrong. That was my point, that it was a false
22 allegation and one that I was in a position to deny
23 straightaway.
24 Q. Am I right that you to some extent briefed the
25 Prime Minister on Question Time on the 4th June?

166
1 A. Yes, I did.
2 Q. Can we please look at CAB/1/238? There are four points.
3 This is the first one, Question Time on 4th June.
4 A. I briefed him before Question Time, of course.
5 Q. Yes of course. Four lines in:
6 "Furthermore, the allegation that the 45 minute
7 claim..."
8 A. I cannot see it.
9 Q. Sorry, I beg your pardon. My fault, it is not up yet.
10 CAB/1/238. Top of the page, please, four lines in:
11 "Furthermore, the allegation that the 45 minute
12 claim provoked disquiet among the intelligence
13 community, which disagreed with its inclusion in the
14 dossier -- I have discussed it, as I said, with the
15 Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee -- is also
16 completely and totally untrue. Instead of hearing from
17 one or many anonymous sources, I suggest that if people
18 have any evidence, they actually produce it."
19 Who did you consult about whether or not there was
20 any disquiet about the 45 minute claim before briefing
21 the Prime Minister in this very strong language that he
22 uses?
23 A. Well, first of all, I would say that the key point in
24 that sentence is the intelligence community which
25 disagreed with its inclusion in the dossier.

167
1 I consulted the head -- before that, I consulted the
2 head of GCHQ, I consulted personally the head of SIS.
3 Furthermore, I had written the Prime Minister a letter,
4 in effect, a note, which I think you previously referred
5 to, which I had circulated to all members of the JIC.
6 So all members of the JIC had seen it and had approved
7 it. And it was on the basis of that note that I was
8 briefing the Prime Minister.
9 I was therefore confident, as I had been all along,
10 that the representatives of the intelligence community
11 were not aware of disquiet about the inclusion of the
12 45 minute point in the dossier, and that there was
13 nobody in a position to represent the intelligence
14 community, that is at the level of the JIC and senior
15 members of the intelligence community, who had raised
16 any difficulty with this point at all.
17 It was on the basis of those points that I briefed
18 the Prime Minister with a note of the 4th June which, as
19 I said, I had circulated and agreed with all members of
20 the JIC and is important in that regard.
21 Q. There are two elements to that statement, Mr Scarlett,
22 are there not? One is disquiet about the 45 minutes
23 claim and the other is its inclusion in the dossier.
24 But anybody listening would have thought there was no
25 disquiet about the 45 minutes claim as it appeared in

168
1 the dossier.
2 A. I briefed the Prime Minister in the terms that I have
3 just said. In fact that sentence as written there links
4 the two, "... provoked disquiet amongst the intelligence
5 community, which disagreed with its inclusion in the
6 dossier". There was no disagreement, and even now,
7 after we have heard about some disquiet in one
8 particular section of one particular part of the
9 intelligence community, that is not about its inclusion
10 in the dossier. So actually that statement is a solid
11 one. I briefed the Prime Minister in the terms I have
12 just said.
13 Q. I just want to make it clear that I do not accept that
14 is the limited meaning which the ordinary listener would
15 place on those words and certainly Mr Campbell accepted
16 that there were two elements to it.
17 A. You asked the question who did I consult and I think
18 I did reply.
19 Q. Did you consult DCDI?
20 A. DCDI and CDI saw my letter before I sent it.
21 Q. I see. The second question is your involvement in
22 talking to Mr Campbell about his oral evidence to the
23 Foreign Affairs Committee.
24 A. Hmm.
25 Q. He did discuss it with you before he gave it, did he

169
1 not?
2 A. He did, yes.
3 Q. And he did discuss with you the issue of drafts?
4 A. Well, I do not actually remember that, but maybe he did.
5 Q. Did you follow his evidence closely?
6 A. Not line for line, no I did not.
7 Q. Have you read it subsequently?
8 A. Not in full, no.
9 Q. You see, what he says, FAC/2/279, in answer to question
10 987, he is being asked here whether the 45 minutes claim
11 was inserted against the wishes of the intelligence
12 agencies:
13 "Was it put in at your suggestion?"
14 Answer:
15 "No, otherwise -- it existed in the very first draft
16 and, as far as I am aware, that part of the paper stayed
17 like that."
18 That was demonstrably wrong, was it not?
19 A. That is Mr Campbell speaking. I am not saying that and
20 I cannot answer for him.
21 Q. We have been through the drafts, Mr Scarlett. It is
22 demonstrably wrong, is it not?
23 A. I do not know whether Mr Campbell had seen all the
24 drafts and I did not know when he said that. I cannot
25 answer for what he says there. That is for Mr Campbell

170
1 to speak on that, but I am sure he did.
2 Q. He told them he had seen all the drafts. But let us
3 look at question 988:
4 "I can assure you that I have had many, many
5 discussions about this issue with the Chairman of the
6 JIC, not least in preparation for this hearing."
7 Were you aware that he had told the Foreign Affairs
8 Committee that the draft on the 45 minutes point never
9 changed?
10 A. I have to say no, I was not.
11 Q. If you were aware of it, it would plainly have to be
12 corrected, would it not?
13 A. Well, I was not aware of it so I cannot say more.
14 Q. Very well. Let us move on to the written supplemental
15 memorandum which was prepared.
16 Can I just remind you about this? Mr Campbell gave
17 evidence on 25th June. On 27th June, he had a meeting
18 with you, as I understand it, to prepare a supplementary
19 memorandum to be submitted to the Foreign Affairs
20 Committee?
21 A. To discuss one, yes.
22 Q. He says this in his evidence at the first round of
23 evidence:
24 "I spent most of the morning having to work with
25 John Scarlett and others putting together

171
1 a supplementary memo to the FAC that had to be in by
2 lunchtime."
3 Who were the "others"?
4 A. In No. 10, as I recall, the other person at the meeting
5 was Clare Sumner; and there may have been one or two
6 others as well, I am not absolutely certain.
7 Q. Was Mr Howard there?
8 A. No.
9 Q. As I understand it, you did not know that Mr Campbell
10 had told the FAC that the drafts had never changed.
11 A. No, I was not aware of that.
12 Q. What you, however, obviously did know was that there had
13 been an exchange of minutes between Mr Campbell and you
14 on 17th September and 18th September, and you had them
15 in front of you, did you not, when you prepared this
16 memorandum?
17 A. When we discussed the memorandum, yes.
18 LORD HUTTON: Mr Caldecott, we need to give the
19 stenographers a break, I think. Is this a convenient
20 moment?
21 MR CALDECOTT: Certainly.
22 LORD HUTTON: I will rise at this stage for five minutes
23 I think.
24 (3.30 pm)
25 (Short Break)

172
1 (3.35 pm)
2 MR CALDECOTT: Mr Scarlett, you did read this memorandum
3 before it went in to the Foreign Affairs Committee,
4 I assume?
5 A. Yes, I did.
6 Q. Can I, please, just ask you to look at FAC/3/131? If we
7 could just scroll down a little bit, please. Do you see
8 about halfway into that page:
9 "The JIC Chairman first sent me a draft of the
10 dossier on 10 September.
11 "To the best of my recollection, and that of
12 Chairman of the JIC, I did not make any comments on the
13 text of the draft at that stage.
14 "On 17 September, he sent me a further draft."
15 Right?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. "As far as we recall, our discussions on the text took
18 place over 17 and 18 September."
19 Why was that an exercise in recollection when you
20 had the documents in front of you, Mr Scarlett?
21 A. Because that would assume that I was confident that
22 those documents did indeed reflect the full extent of
23 our exchanges. I was not actually quite confident of
24 that. I thought it was possible that we had had other
25 exchanges, possibly before, more likely afterwards. But

173
1 I simply did not remember all that time afterwards. So
2 I wanted to be cautious. As it has turned out, of
3 course, now, we have found e-mails which show that there
4 were further exchanges, so this was not quite complete.
5 Q. Do you accept that without any reference to any
6 document, the words "as far as we all" and "our
7 discussions" suggest that you were trying to remember
8 oral conversations between the two of you?
9 A. No, I do not. I do not think it excludes a document.
10 I do not think it does suggest that.
11 Q. Why did you not simply provides the documents to the
12 FAC? Why go to all this trouble to summarise them?
13 A. Because the documents on their own, which were written
14 in shorthand, were very informal and were between two
15 people who knew the subject they were discussing, would
16 have been virtually meaningless. Secondly, it had been
17 explained to the FAC that original documents were not
18 being provided to the Committee. So there was no
19 question of doing that.
20 Q. Of course, if the documents had been disclosed to the
21 FAC, they would have seen that Mr Campbell had suggested
22 a change or commented on a change to the 45 minutes
23 claim, would they not?
24 A. Well, except that he did not request a change on the
25 45 minutes.

174
1 Q. I changed -- I added "or commented on".
2 A. He commented on an inconsistency on that point, that is
3 what the comment was.
4 Q. And you replied that you had tightened up the language?
5 A. In response to his query.
6 Q. But if the FAC had seen the document they would have
7 discovered that, would they not?
8 A. Well they might have concluded I tightened it up in
9 response to Alastair Campbell. In fact, as I have
10 already explained, I did not.
11 Q. Why not include that point in your list of the
12 discussions? You had the document in front of you and,
13 as we all know, point 10 disappears.
14 A. Alastair Campbell, as he has explained, I think, chose
15 to answer the specific question that he was asked, which
16 was an account of the changes which he had requested.
17 It was clear to me that this was not a change which he
18 had requested. That was the view that he took in
19 choosing to answer this; and I thought that was an
20 accurate view.
21 Q. You see, the whole controversy was over the 45 minutes
22 claim, yet that is the one point -- well not quite the
23 one point --
24 A. No.
25 Q. -- but a conspicuous point that is left out.

175
1 A. Well, I can repeat that he was asked to give an account
2 of his request for changes and that was -- first of all
3 it was not the only point left out and secondly it was
4 not a request for a change, that is --
5 Q. I suggest to you, Mr Scarlett, I want there to be no
6 doubt about this, that in the context of what the FAC
7 were looking at candour clearly required that that
8 exchange on the 45 minutes point should have been
9 disclosed to the FAC. Do you agree or disagree?
10 A. I, as I have said, thought that the -- I concluded that
11 the reply which went back was an accurate reply to the
12 question that he had been asked. The letter also said
13 that he had made a number of other comments including
14 referring or pointing out inconsistencies and making
15 some grammatical corrections or something like that.
16 Q. The FAC were bound to assume that this was a full and
17 complete account, were they not?
18 LORD HUTTON: Sorry, forgive me, you say the letter there
19 refers to inconsistencies somewhere, Mr Scarlett?
20 A. Yes, my Lord. Somewhere in this reply Mr Campbell
21 refers to drawing attention to inconsistencies.
22 MR CALDECOTT: The top of the page, my Lord.
23 A. Yes.
24 LORD HUTTON: Just a moment, Mr Caldecott.
25 MR CALDECOTT: It is the top of page 3/131, I think, the

176
1 fourth line.
2 LORD HUTTON: "... checked that the text was consistent
3 throughout..."; is that what you are referring to,
4 Mr Scarlett?
5 A. Yes, it is my Lord.
6 MR CALDECOTT: If the FAC had known that checking that the
7 text was consistent had included an exchange on the
8 45 minutes claim, I suggest they would have been
9 extremely surprised at the failure to mention it.
10 A. The request was for an account of changes requested, and
11 that was what the reply said.
12 Q. You see, some of the other points are, in fact, more
13 comments than requests, are they not?
14 A. Well, for example --
15 Q. I will have to go back to the original draft but point 2
16 in my recollection --
17 A. I was going to say you could have drawn attention to
18 point 2 which maybe could also be -- well, it clearly
19 was a reference to an inconsistency.
20 Q. Yes.
21 A. But it also rather more stated a reason for, as
22 I recall, if you show me, a request for this -- an
23 underlying request for this to be changed. That is
24 a fine point.
25 Q. Are you seriously suggesting that the FAC would have

177
1 thought that there might be a change to the 45 minutes
2 claim included in that prefatory statement "checked that
3 the text was consistent throughout"?
4 A. I can only repeat that the letter from the FAC had asked
5 for an account of a request for changes. The point you
6 are referring to was not a request for a change. It was
7 pointing to an inconsistency. No change was made as
8 a result of that request and there was no influence
9 exercised by Mr Campbell at any stage whatsoever on the
10 45 minutes point in the drafting of the dossier.
11 Q. Can we move on to some other changes to the memorandum?
12 I am indebted at this point to the Inquiry rather than
13 our own researches. At PKN/1/2, please. Can I just ask
14 you, please, about one or two of the italicised passages
15 that are taken out of the draft, that were in it at one
16 stage and then taken out?
17 A. Can I ask what the status of this note is?
18 Q. This is a construct, I think, comparing a draft of the
19 memorandum with its final version.
20 A. Why can I not see the draft?
21 Q. I do not have the draft in front of me at the moment.
22 If you scroll down, the italics are what was in the
23 first draft but not in the final draft.
24 A. I do not understand why I cannot see the draft. How can
25 I comment on a document the status of which I am not

178
1 clear about? I do not know what this means.
2 Q. CAB/31/11 you will see the draft version.
3 A. Okay, fine.
4 Q. I shall have to take time to find the references using
5 the document. I am sorry about this. Could we, please,
6 find a passage starting "However, once the decision was
7 taken..."
8 LORD HUTTON: Mr Caldecott, if you could just assist me,
9 what is this document? Who drew it up?
10 MR CALDECOTT: No, my Lord, it is prepared by the Inquiry
11 rather than us. It is a comparison between a first
12 draft, as I understand it, of the supplemental
13 memorandum from Mr Campbell. The italics are words
14 which were in the first draft but not in the final
15 draft.
16 LORD HUTTON: This is the memorandum for the FAC?
17 MR CALDECOTT: That is right, my Lord, yes.
18 LORD HUTTON: So there at least two drafts?
19 MR CALDECOTT: My Lord, that is right.
20 LORD HUTTON: Yes, I see. Yes.
21 MR CALDECOTT: And the underlined passages were not in the
22 first draft but added to the final draft.
23 LORD HUTTON: I see, yes, thank you.
24 A. I am still not quite sure what it is that I am looking
25 at here. Can I see the first page?

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1 MR CALDECOTT: The first page we will see is CAB/31/8.
2 A. This is to the Prime Minister. It does not look like
3 a draft to me.
4 LORD HUTTON: It is from Mr Campbell to the Prime Minister
5 re the FAC.
6 MR CALDECOTT: If we look in the second line, do you see at
7 the end of the second line of this document:
8 "He will then write to him explaining this decision
9 and will attach to his letter a supplementary memorandum
10 from me to the Committee, which is attached."
11 Do you see that?
12 Then at the bottom of this page, headed "Memorandum
13 to FAC", we see a first draft of the memorandum. Do you
14 see?
15 A. Right.
16 Q. I just have to find the passage that I want to show you
17 because, for ease's sake, I had been ...
18 A. This is not the draft, is it?
19 Q. I have found the second but I still need to find --
20 A. This is not the draft, this is the covering note ...
21 Q. Sorry, I still need to find it.
22 A. No, I sympathise.
23 Q. CAB/31/10. It looks on my copy as though it is
24 contiguous, but it appears not to be.
25 A. Sorry, there must be a page before this.

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1 MR CALDECOTT: I am trying to find "However, once the
2 decision was taken ...", which at the moment I cannot
3 see.
4 My Lord, I am sorry, this is the problem of taking
5 a document from somebody else.
6 LORD HUTTON: Well would you like to leave it for a short
7 time and come back to it?
8 MR CALDECOTT: Yes.
9 LORD HUTTON: Perhaps the speediest way is if I rise for
10 5 minutes rather than perhaps having to bring
11 Mr Scarlett back.
12 MR CALDECOTT: I am concerned about the Assistant Chief
13 Constable, who I know would like to be away. In one
14 sense the comments I can put can be made on the
15 documents. This is not a case where I really need the
16 oral evidence. I just felt in fairness to Mr Scarlett,
17 I would prefer to put them.
18 LORD HUTTON: Provided Mr Scarlett has a full opportunity to
19 understand precisely what the document is. Are you just
20 proposing to put the gist of it now to Mr Scarlett?
21 MR CALDECOTT: There are only two changes. He may not have
22 known about them, in which case that will be the end of
23 the matter. But the two changes I was interested in --
24 LORD HUTTON: Just again so I fully understand this: it
25 appears from the first document we saw up on the screen

181
1 that this was a memorandum from Mr Campbell to the
2 Prime Minister as to the question as to whether or not
3 he should appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee.
4 MR CALDECOTT: Yes.
5 LORD HUTTON: Is the memorandum that you are referring to
6 a memorandum which the Committee asked Mr Campbell to
7 submit to it after he had given evidence or before he
8 gave evidence?
9 MR CALDECOTT: My Lord, the written statement itself is at
10 CAB/1/257 as submitted to the FAC. The problem is
11 I know there was a separate memorandum sent by
12 Mr Campbell before he went to the FAC.
13 LORD HUTTON: Yes, because it may be that insofar as
14 Mr Campbell is explaining to the Prime Minister why he
15 is going to appear, one might think that related to the
16 first memorandum.
17 MR CALDECOTT: I think it is better if I do not question on
18 something which I have assumed is a construct. One
19 needs to know more. It is not fair to the witness --
20 LORD HUTTON: I want to be clear. You are not making any
21 point then to Mr Scarlett about these documents.
22 MR CALDECOTT: My Lord, I think I have to abandon that.
23 LORD HUTTON: That can be totally ignored?
24 MR CALDECOTT: Yes.
25 LORD HUTTON: Very well. Thank you.

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1 A. Thank you.
2 MR CALDECOTT: One nil to you, Mr Scarlett, I think on that
3 document.
4 A. I did not do anything, I just sat here.
5 Q. Can I go on to deal very shortly with a point which is
6 the question of the drafts and not producing the drafts?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. It was a request directed to the Joint Intelligence
9 Committee.
10 A. No it was not.
11 Q. It was not?
12 A. No, it was a request addressed to Alastair Campbell, who
13 said that he would pass it on to the Joint Intelligence
14 Committee verbally.
15 Q. Yes, but in terms of where it was going to end up?
16 A. It is quite an important point actually because neither
17 the Joint Intelligence Committee nor the
18 Foreign Secretary nor any Minister ever received this
19 request in any other form than a comment at the hearing
20 to Alastair Campbell. So I never received anything.
21 Q. I see. So did you get it passed on to you orally by
22 Mr Campbell?
23 A. Very briefly he mentioned it to me. The Committee had
24 said that they were going to send a written summary of
25 the -- or written account of the requests which had been

183
1 made at the Committee. A written account did come, it
2 did not include anything to do with that.
3 Q. I see.
4 A. So I never received it.
5 Q. And did that lack of a formal request influence your
6 treatment of it or not?
7 A. If I had received a formal request then I certainly
8 would have placed it before the Joint Intelligence
9 Committee and indeed to the Foreign Secretary. I know
10 in advance, as I have already explained, what my
11 colleagues in the Joint Intelligence Committee would
12 have advised very strongly indeed about this request;
13 but as I never received it, the question never arose.
14 Q. Can I move on to the last topic which I hope you are
15 familiar with.
16 A. Okay.
17 Q. Because I want to take it shortly because of the time
18 element. You will recall that in July of 2003 --
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. -- there came to your attention a letter from
21 Dr Jones --
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. -- and a letter from a colleague of his.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. They were both addressed to among others DCDI.

184
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And they were both very late in the process.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. I am sure you have prepared for this and are aware of
5 the criticism that we make about these not being brought
6 to the attention, in terms, of the Intelligence and
7 Security Committee. You understand the criticism?
8 A. I understand the comment, yes.
9 Q. What I want to ask you: you obviously read those
10 minutes, because they were attached to the briefing note
11 which you discussed with Mr Howard?
12 A. Yes, I read them I think on 17th or 18th July which was
13 then the first time I had ever heard of them.
14 Q. The briefing note, I think you were called in by
15 Mr Howard to discuss it with him before it was finalised
16 and went to the Secretary of State?
17 A. No, that is not true. There was a meeting in
18 Sir David Omand's office at which I was present, where
19 Mr Howard was also present, where Mr Howard informed us
20 of the existence of these letters which we had not
21 previously heard about. And that was on 17th July.
22 Q. Would you agree, first of all, that DCDI is not
23 Dr Jones' immediate line manager?
24 A. No, he is the line manager of Dr Jones' line manager.
25 Q. Thank you. Still less is he the line manager of

185
1 a member of Dr Jones' staff?
2 A. Well, no, he is even further removed.
3 Q. Quite. Did you see the letter or hear about the letter
4 from Dr Jones to Mr Howard expressing his serious
5 concern that Mr Straw had inadvertently misled the
6 Foreign Affairs Committee by suggesting that there had
7 been no formal complaint about the intelligence issues
8 in the dossier, to summarise?
9 A. At the same meeting, that is the first time I had heard
10 of it.
11 Q. So you were aware that Dr Jones, now in retirement, had
12 been sufficiently concerned to write plainly because he
13 thought, on the face of it, his letter should be drawn
14 to the attention of the ISC?
15 A. He thought that. Well, did he think that? I am not
16 sure he said that. That is not my recollection.
17 Q. He asked for advice on it. He was plainly moved to
18 write. He talked about his serious concerns.
19 A. Yes, I do not think he said anything about the ISC.
20 I do not remember that. It might be worth checking.
21 Q. You are right about that. He was concerned about the
22 evidence Mr Straw had given to the Foreign Affairs
23 Committee, that is what prompted him to write.
24 A. That is what he wrote, yes.
25 Q. I can take this very briefly, because it is a short

186
1 point. Firstly, I suggest it was quite wrong to give
2 the impression to the ISC that this was simply
3 a customary debate between analysts and a document which
4 went simply to the immediate line manager?
5 A. Obviously this has been a contentious point and the ISC
6 has taken a well known position on it. But the fact is
7 that it was a note which went to the line manager and it
8 was one which was dealt with within DIS, by his line
9 managers.
10 Q. Well, all I can say, Mr Scarlett, is I do not want any
11 misunderstanding.
12 A. No.
13 Q. It is right I should put a point to you.
14 A. No, fine.
15 Q. We suggest that the letter from Dr Jones was a very
16 serious letter. He was concerned that Parliament had
17 been inadvertently misled by Mr Straw. The obvious way
18 of dealing with it was simply to give his letter and
19 that of his colleague to the ISC. If it amounted to
20 very little, as you say you thought, then no doubt they
21 would reach the same conclusion. If it mattered, they
22 were alerted to it.
23 Were you aware of the letter that was sent back to
24 Dr Jones?
25 A. At the same time I saw that too.

187
1 Q. Do you agree, as I think Mr Howard agreed, that it
2 tended to give the impression that the ISC would be told
3 about his letter?
4 A. Well, I do not remember Mr Howard agreeing that.
5 I should say on this, this was a matter for DIS; and
6 these decisions were being taken by a very senior
7 official or this advice was being given by a very senior
8 official, Mr Howard, in DIS and it is not for me to
9 speak for DIS.
10 What I would say is I thought the advice that they
11 said -- go to Mr Hoon, which was the fact there had been
12 a dispute specifically about the 45 minute point, should
13 be passed to the ISC. That was clearly right. Whether
14 they should be shown the letters which were an internal
15 matter, which had been dealt with within DIS -- after
16 all, let us not forget that the point which had been
17 raised had been overruled by Mr Jones' boss and, as we
18 now know, by Mr Jones' boss's boss and by Mr Jones'
19 boss's boss's boss. This was something which had
20 clearly been dealt with within DIS. It seemed to me to
21 be reasonable for DIS to give the advice that they took
22 but that was for DIS, it was not my decision.
23 Q. Mr Scarlett, you no doubt appreciate the distinction
24 between the fact of a complaint and the merits of
25 a complaint?

188
1 A. Yes, self-evidently and -- sorry, I do not understand
2 the point.
3 Q. What Mr Straw had said to the Foreign Affairs Committee
4 is that there had been no formal complaint.
5 A. But DIS took the view that this was not a formal
6 complaint. That seemed to me to be a reasonable view
7 since it was something which had been dealt with within
8 the DIS and had not, in any way, been passed on outside
9 the DIS, including on the 19th September when the DIS
10 had had a chance to bring it to the attention of the
11 Joint Intelligence Committee, the Chairman, in my case,
12 or indeed on the 18th September to the full Committee,
13 and they had not done so.
14 Q. But the problem was that it was characterised by the ISC
15 as a customary exchange with the immediate line manager,
16 and it certainly was not that.
17 A. I was aware of the advice that was put up by DIS. What
18 happened to the ISC is not anything over which I can
19 possibly have any responsibility or speak for, and it is
20 very important that that is made clear.
21 Q. Can I just, lastly, just ask you about one point.
22 I appreciate it is only because I cannot cross-examine
23 Mr Cragg. It is really a comment point because it will
24 not have gone to you, I accept.
25 A. No.

189
1 Q. MoD/22/1 which is Dr Jones' letter, paragraph 3. He
2 says there:
3 "We have a number of questions in our minds relating
4 to the intelligence on the military plans for the use of
5 chemical and biological weapons, particularly about the
6 times mentioned and the failure to differentiate between
7 the two types of weapon."
8 You could not deal with a complaint in those terms
9 without going back to Dr Jones and asking what the
10 number of questions were, could you?
11 A. That is a DIS point. As I understood it, from
12 Mr Cragg's evidence, the matter was discussed in DIS at
13 the time between himself and Dr Jones' director and
14 between Dr Jones' director and Dr Jones, at those
15 different levels. I really cannot say more than that.
16 Q. That is a matter for Dr Jones' evidence and not for you,
17 I accept.
18 A. Thank you.
19 MR CALDECOTT: For once I am almost on time.
20 Cross-examined by MR DINGEMANS
21 Q. My time has rather been taken up by others Mr Scarlett,
22 so I will be brief. CAB/31/8, just to tidy up this
23 confusion on this document if I may?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. This was a draft memorandum attached to a note

190
1 Mr Campbell wrote to the Prime Minister. When it comes
2 on the screen you will see in the top right-hand corner
3 you are on the distribution list.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. What he has here
6 is a memorandum to the FAC. It is a draft memorandum he
7 is preparing and inviting comments on.
8 A. Okay.
9 Q. Go to CAB/31/11 halfway down the page:
10 "I should therefore emphasise that the intelligence
11 judgments were entirely those of the Joint Intelligence
12 Committee [then these words] and there was no question
13 of interference with them. The allegation that I 'sexed
14 up' the document and in doing so abused intelligence is
15 one that I reject entirely, and I have the support of
16 the Chairman of the JIC and the head of the SIS."
17 There is obviously a note to you:
18 "(John are you happy with this (and can you check
19 that Richard is)..."
20 If we go back to PKN/1/2 we can see what actually is
21 in the final document as put. What I think you were
22 going to be asked by Mr Caldecott, if we scroll down was
23 this: in the final document, as put:
24 "I should therefore emphasise that the intelligence
25 judgments were entirely those of the Joint Intelligence

191
1 Committee and there was no question of anyone seeking to
2 override them", with the words "of interference with
3 them" omitted.
4 What Mr Caldecott was going to ask you was this: did
5 you ask Mr Campbell to take out the word "interference"?
6 A. I honestly do not know because I do not know the
7 relationship between the first document that you have
8 attached and this because the first document we were
9 looking at was a draft memorandum which I suppose was
10 submitted to the Prime Minister before he even went --
11 Q. Absolutely?
12 A. -- to the Joint Intelligence Committee.
13 Q. This was at a time when he was deciding whether or not
14 to go --
15 A. I understand that. I do not know whether that was
16 a first draft, whether there was a second draft, a third
17 draft, I cannot track it through.
18 Q. We have only ever seen the first draft and then the
19 draft submitted to the FAC.
20 A. I am therefore, as you will understand, reluctant to
21 give a view; but maybe it will be helpful if I say that
22 in my note of 4th June to the Prime Minister I use the
23 word, I think, that no-one at any stage has attempted to
24 overrule my judgment as Chairman of the JIC; and the
25 words "overrule, "may override" were ones that I just

192
1 was habitually using throughout. So maybe that is
2 a point, but I am not absolutely certain as to how it
3 changed like that.
4 Q. Did you consider that anyone had attempted to interfere
5 with your judgment?
6 A. No, I did not. Absolutely not.
7 Q. Did you understand that anyone was making a case with
8 the dossier?
9 A. No, I did not, actually. My understanding of the
10 objective of the dossier was the one that I have given.
11 Q. Mr Campbell said yesterday when I asked him: what case
12 were you intending to put through the dossier to the
13 public, because he explained that press spokesmen
14 et cetera were involved in making cases, was this: the
15 explanation as to why the Government were growing more
16 and more concerned about the issue of Iraqi WMD.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Were you aware of any strand of thinking along those
19 lines?
20 A. That is a politician talking in effect or someone
21 talking on behalf of a politician. My concern, which
22 was a related one, was to make available in the public
23 domain the intelligence assessments as they were being
24 presented to the Prime Minister which would enable the
25 Prime Minister and the Government to explain the

193
1 conclusions they were drawing. I was not conscious of
2 going any further than that.
3 Q. When you gave evidence last time, and I asked you about
4 any expressions of unhappiness within DIS --
5 A. Hmm.
6 Q. -- you told me unequivocally you were not aware of any
7 expressions of unhappiness within the DIS.
8 A. No, I was not.
9 Q. On the other hand, today you have reported
10 a conversation with Mr Miller about chemical warfare
11 concerns and the need for a follow-up meeting at the
12 DIS.
13 A. That is not an expression of unhappiness. That was
14 Mr Miller telling me that this point had been raised at
15 the drafting group, and a number of points had been
16 raised, but this one had in particular, and briefing was
17 done; and I heard no more about it. So I did not know
18 that there was any unresolved question and therefore
19 unhappiness in DIS. I believed that that matter had
20 been resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
21 Q. What did Mr Miller say when he said that the chemical
22 warfare concerns had been raised with you or to you?
23 A. No more than that, that it had been raised, that the
24 point about the compartmented intelligence had been
25 explained, that it had been agreed a briefing would be

194
1 given to DIS senior management. That was it.
2 I suppose, I do not remember precisely, but I would have
3 logically thought: well, if this concern persists we
4 will hear about it at a subsequent stage of the drafting
5 process, or indeed at the JIC the next day, but we heard
6 no more.
7 Q. Finally this: when asked about weapons of mass
8 destruction by Mr Caldecott, you referred to a statement
9 made by a Minister as to definition.
10 A. Yes, yes.
11 Q. Is there any confusion either at JIC level or what you
12 understand to be public level about the definition of
13 "weapons of mass destruction"?
14 A. No, there is not. I am not aware of any confusion. It
15 is as I have described. And that is the definition that
16 we work to. It certainly includes battlefield weapons,
17 which I have talked about.
18 MR DINGEMANS: I am sorry I have had to be so short with
19 you, Mr Scarlett.
20 A. Okay. I am not.
21 LORD HUTTON: Any re-examination?
22 MR SUMPTION: I have nothing to add.
23 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much, Mr Scarlett.
24 A. My Lord.
25 MR DINGEMANS: Assistant Chief Constable Page, please.

195
1 ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE MICHAEL PAGE (called)
2 Examined by MR DINGEMANS
3 LORD HUTTON: Just sit down, please, Mr Page.
4 A. My Lord.
5 MR DINGEMANS: Could you give his Lordship your full name.
6 A. Michael Page.
7 Q. You are Assistant Chief Constable of Thames Valley
8 Police?
9 A. That is correct.
10 Q. You have already given evidence before?
11 A. I have.
12 Q. We were not in a position at that stage to sign off your
13 evidence. Can you just briefly outline to his Lordship
14 the lines of inquiry that you set out when confronted
15 with the discovery of Dr Kelly's body?
16 A. Yes, certainly. Very early on in the inquiry one sets
17 up a series of hypotheses which one tries then to knock
18 down. For the sake of completeness the first of these
19 would be: was the death natural or accidental? In this
20 case it is fairly obvious that was not the case. The
21 next question is: was it murder? I think as I pointed
22 out in my last evidence, the examination of the scene
23 and the supporting forensic evidence made me confident
24 that actually there was no third party involved at the
25 scene of the crime and therefore, to all intents and

196
1 purposes, murder can be ruled out.
2 One is then left with the option that Dr Kelly
3 killed himself.
4 LORD HUTTON: Sorry, may I just ask you Mr Page, you say no
5 third party was involved at the scene of the crime. Did
6 you consider the possibility that Dr Kelly might have
7 been overpowered and killed elsewhere and his body then
8 taken to the wooded area where it was found?
9 A. Yes, my Lord; and I think, again, upon examination of
10 the pathologist's evidence and of the biologist's
11 evidence, it is pretty clear to me that Dr Kelly died at
12 the scene.
13 LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you.
14 MR DINGEMANS: You were going on to say having ruled out
15 natural causes, having ruled out murder.
16 A. One is left with the fact that Dr Kelly killed himself.
17 My duty in that respect is to establish to the best of
18 my satisfaction that there was no criminal dimension to
19 Dr Kelly's death.
20 Q. Have you found any evidence suggesting that there was
21 a criminal element?
22 A. Based on the extensive inquiries that we have undertaken
23 thus far, I can find no evidence to suggest any criminal
24 dimension to Dr Kelly's death.
25 Q. Can you give his Lordship, and everyone else, some idea

197
1 of how many people you have interviewed in the course of
2 your inquiries?
3 A. Yes, certainly. We have made contact with somewhere in
4 the region of 500 individuals during the course of our
5 inquiry.
6 Q. How many statements have you taken?
7 A. We have taken 300 statements and we have seized in
8 excess of 700 documents in addition to the computer
9 files I referred to when I gave evidence last time.
10 LORD HUTTON: Mr Page, could you just elaborate just
11 a little on what you mean by no criminal dimension?
12 A. Well, again, my Lord, I would -- I suppose being
13 a police officer I am inherently suspicious and I would
14 look at the circumstances and ask myself a range of
15 questions as to why Dr Kelly would have taken his own
16 life.
17 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
18 A. And very early on in the inquiry, based on early
19 discussions with the inquiry it seemed entirely out of
20 character for Dr Kelly to take that move. Therefore, my
21 view of whether there was a criminal dimension to this
22 would centre around: was he being blackmailed? Was he
23 being put under some other criminal behaviour that would
24 have prompted him to take this action?
25 LORD HUTTON: Thank you for that, I just wanted you to

198
1 elaborate that. And you have excluded that in your
2 inquiries?
3 A. We have carried out extensive inquiries and based on
4 those inquiries, I can find no evidence that he was
5 being blackmailed or indeed any other evidence of any
6 other criminal dimension.
7 LORD HUTTON: Yes, thank you very much.
8 MR DINGEMANS: In the course of those inquiries and
9 interviews I think you have interviewed a number of
10 people that Dr Kelly spoke to at some length, is that
11 right?
12 A. Yes, we have obviously established all known contacts
13 that Dr Kelly had in the last few days of his life; and
14 we have explored all those contacts. We assessed the
15 nature of the relationship between the contact and
16 Dr Kelly. Some were very fairly easily dealt with
17 because they were obviously casual contacts or business
18 contacts and we were able to deal with those by way of
19 questioning. Some we assessed the relationship with
20 Dr Kelly to be more of a friendship, and therefore my
21 main concern there was whether Dr Kelly may have
22 confided in those individuals and therefore with
23 a certain number of individuals we actually interviewed
24 them and took statements from them.
25 Q. And took statements. One of the persons that you

199
1 interviewed and took statements from in fact was able to
2 give evidence and that was Olivia Bosch and we have
3 heard from her.
4 A. That is correct, my Lord.
5 Q. Have there been other people you have contacted and
6 taken statements from?
7 A. In order, my Lord, there were twelve individuals
8 including Olivia Bosch from whom we took statements.
9 Q. Was one of those persons Mia Pedersen?
10 A. Yes, we interviewed Mia Pedersen. She declined to give
11 a statement as such but I have a record of the
12 interviews that took place.
13 Q. Were you able to obtain any relevant evidence from her?
14 A. The conversation with Mia Pedersen added nothing that
15 was of relevance to my inquiry at all.
16 Q. There was also some called Gabriella Kraz-Wadsak, is
17 that right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Who is she?
20 A. Gabriella Kraz-Wadsak is an officer in the German army.
21 She worked alongside Dr Kelly in Iraq for a number of
22 years and had been in contact with Dr Kelly in the days
23 before his death as indeed she had been for some years
24 before that.
25 Q. Was she able to give any relevant evidence?

200
1 A. Nothing that furthered my inquiries at all.
2 Q. There was a document TVP/2/20 headed "Gabriella's
3 concerns". Was she able to explain what this meant to
4 you?
5 A. Yes, indeed my Lord. Apparently the document refers to
6 a conversation or conversations that she had with
7 Dr Kelly between June 14th and the 17th, and apparently
8 refers to Dr Kelly's assessment of the efficacy of the
9 inspection programme in Iraq. Hence, I think there is
10 a heading there which says "Confidence of legitimacy and
11 deterrence effect"; and apparently around the issues
12 that Dr Kelly has recorded there and recorded numbers
13 along each side of, they were discussing those issues
14 and assessing impact of the programme.
15 Q. Have you managed to investigate phone and e-mail
16 contacts?
17 A. Yes. We have investigated all telephone and e-mail
18 contacts.
19 Q. Does that include mobile telephones?
20 A. That includes mobile telephones.
21 Q. Have you been able to find anything relevant from those
22 contacts?
23 A. Nothing of relevance. I will just say that our
24 inquiries in respect of one of those are still ongoing
25 but that is a technical issue more than anything else.

201
1 Q. We heard about investigations that have been carried out
2 in the post-mortem and toxicology reports.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And the pathologist said that Dr Kelly's lung had been
5 removed for tests. Have you discussed that matter with
6 the toxicologist?
7 A. I have discussed that matter with the toxicologist. The
8 lung was not subjected to tests, and the rationale given
9 to my team by the toxicologist is that the blood was
10 tested for an entire range of substances including
11 volatile substances and stupefying substances. No trace
12 whatsoever was found and therefore they considered that
13 examining the lung would not be relevant because if it
14 was not in the blood, it would not be in the lung.
15 Q. In the course of your inquiries were you contacted by
16 a person who suggested there had been three men dressed
17 in black wandering around at the time that Dr Kelly's
18 body was found?
19 A. Yes, I think both we and the Inquiry received
20 a communication from a gentleman who expressed concern
21 that he had noticed three individuals dressed in dark or
22 black clothing near the scene where Dr Kelly's body was
23 found. I am speaking from memory, but I think the
24 sighting was at somewhere between 8.30 and 9.30 in the
25 morning, something like that.

202
1 Q. Did you follow up that sighting?
2 A. Yes, we undertook some fairly extensive work. We got
3 statements from all our officers who were at the scene
4 and that was in excess of 50. We plotted their
5 movements on a map and eventually were able to
6 triangulate where the writer was talking about and
7 identify three of our officers, so I am satisfied that
8 I am aware of the identity of these three individuals.
9 Q. Were you ever contacted by Dr Kelly's dentist?
10 A. Yes, we did receive a telephone call from Dr Kelly's
11 dentist, shortly -- I cannot recall whether it was on
12 the day that he died or the day after but we did receive
13 a call, yes.
14 Q. What was that about?
15 A. The doctor -- the dentist, rather, expressed some
16 concerns. Upon hearing of Dr Kelly's death on Friday
17 18th July, she was aware he was a patient and apparently
18 the practice has a process whereby patients are
19 contacted shortly before an appointment. She was aware
20 that he was due an appointment shortly and she did not
21 want to cause distress to Dr Kelly or his family, so she
22 went to the filing cabinet to find his notes of his
23 dental records and they were missing.
24 Q. So what did the police do?
25 A. We carried out a full examination of the surgery and, in

203
1 particular, one window which the dentist was concerned
2 may not have been secure. We found no trace of anything
3 untoward either in the surgery or on the window.
4 Q. Did you carry out any further investigations as a result
5 of this?
6 A. Yes, the dental records -- we had another call from the
7 dentist to say that the dental records had reappeared on
8 the Sunday in the place in the filing cabinet where they
9 should have been. We forensically examined those and
10 could find no evidence of extraneous fingerprints or
11 whatever on that file. However, upon hearing about
12 this, and again I stress because I am a police officer
13 and probably inherently suspicious, because dental
14 records are a means of identification it did prompt me
15 to take the extra precaution of having DNA checks
16 carried out to confirm that the body we had was the body
17 of Dr Kelly, notwithstanding the fact that that had been
18 identified by his family.
19 Q. Did you have those DNA checks carried out?
20 A. I did and they confirmed that it was the body of
21 Dr Kelly.
22 Q. We have heard that Dr Kelly received a letter from
23 Mr Hatfield dated 9th July 2003 at the end of a meeting;
24 and we have also heard that it was found unopened after
25 his death in his study. Have any tests been carried out

204
1 on that letter?
2 A. Yes, that was the letter I believe that was seized by
3 Detective Sergeant Webb. It was sealed although it was
4 a resealable envelope. It was sent for forensic tests
5 and there was no trace of any of Dr Kelly's fingerprints
6 on that letter, so from that I can only conclude that he
7 had not read that copy of the letter at least.
8 Q. Having carried out all your investigations, is there any
9 evidence of the involvement of third parties in
10 Dr Kelly's death?
11 A. I still have a few lines of inquiry to complete,
12 although I should stress that I do not anticipate that
13 those lines of inquiry will reveal anything of an earth
14 shattering nature; and I can say that based upon the
15 inquiries we have made at the moment, further to my
16 statement, that I do not believe that there was any
17 third party involvement at the scene of Dr Kelly's
18 death. I am reasonably satisfied that there was no
19 third party involvement or criminal dimension to
20 Dr Kelly's death in the wider dimension.
21 Q. Including blackmail, for example?
22 A. Including blackmail, for example.
23 Q. Subject to those points, is there anything else that you
24 know which is relevant to the circumstances of
25 Dr Kelly's death that you can assist his Lordship with?

205
1 A. Nothing at present, but should anything arise you will
2 be the first to know.
3 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed Mr Page. Sorry it
4 was rather a long wait this afternoon. That concludes
5 the evidence for today?
6 MR DINGEMANS: My Lord, yes.
7 LORD HUTTON: Very well, we will sit again at 10.15
8 tomorrow.
9 (4.23 pm)
10 (Hearing adjourned until 10.15 am the following day)
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

206
1 INDEX
2 PAGE
3 MR TOM KELLY (called) ............................ 2
4
5 Examined by MR SUMPTION ...................... 2
6
7 Cross-examined by MR GOMPERTZ ................ 15
8
9 Cross-examined by MR DINGEMANS ............... 43
10
11 MR GODRIC WILLIAM NAYLOR SMITH ................... 51
12 (called)
13
14 Examined by MR KNOX .......................... 51
15
16 MR JOHN SCARLETT (called) ........................ 77
17
18 Examined by MR SUMPTION ...................... 77
19
20 Cross-examined by MR CALDECOTT ............... 114
21
22 Cross-examined by MR DINGEMANS ............... 191
23
24 ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE MICHAEL ................ 197
25 PAGE (called)

207
1
2 Examined by MR DINGEMANS ..................... 197
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

208

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