Alastair Campbell did try to 'beef up' Iraq dossier, claims officer

Published on Thursday 12 May 2011 18:48

ALASTAIR Campbell's claim that the controversial Iraq dossier was not about putting the "case for war" has been strongly denied by a former top military intelligence officer.

Mr Campbell, Tony Blair's former communications director, last year dismissed suggestions that he sought to "beef up" the September 2002 dossier on Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

"It was not the case for war, it was the case why the Prime Minister had become more concerned," he told the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War.

But Major-General Michael Laurie, the Ministry of Defence's director-general intelligence collection from 2002 to 2003, said this was the opposite of the instructions given to the officials who drafted the dossier.

He said in a statement released by the Chilcot Inquiry yesterday: "Alastair Campbell said to the inquiry that the purpose of the dossier was not 'to make a case for war'. I had no doubt at that time this was exactly its purpose and these very words were used.

"The previous paper, drafted in February and March, known to us then also as the dossier, was rejected because it did not make a strong enough case.

"From then until September, we were under pressure to find intelligence that could reinforce the case."

Maj-Gen Laurie said his boss, Chief of Defence Intelligence Air Marshal Sir Joe French, was "under pressure" to find more proof of weapons programmes.

"We could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment that related to WMD, generally concluding that they must have been dismantled, buried or taken abroad," he said in his statement dated January 2010.

"There has probably never been a greater detailed scrutiny of every piece of ground in any country.

"During the drafting of the final dossier, every fact was managed to make it as strong as possible, the final statements reaching beyond the conclusions intelligence assessments would normally draw from such facts."

Maj-Gen Laurie said it was "clear" direction and pressure were being applied to the joint intelligence committee (JIC), whose chairman, Sir John Scarlett, was the dossier's author.

He went on: "We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that, to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence, the wording was developed with care.

"The question that needs to be asked is, if there had been no remit to draft the 'dossier', would the JIC in their normal process have produced papers that would have come to the same assessment as the dossier?"

In a message on Twitter, Mr Campbell said he had "nothing to add" to his evidence to the inquiry.He wrote: "Dossier not case for war. Set out why govt more concerned re Iraq WMD. Never met Gen Laurie."

Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said the Chilcot Inquiry team would have to resolve this "direct and unequivocal conflict of evidence".

"The controversy surrounding the dossier of September 2002 lies right at the very heart of the criticisms made of the Blair government," he said.

"Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues will have to decide which of these two versions is correct. They can't both be right."