Indeed throughout the build-up to the war Tony Blair repeated again and again his fear that unless Saddam Hussein was tackled, weapons of mass destruction would find their way into the hands of terrorists.
But today we discovered that this argument was in direct contradiction to the advice given the Prime Minister by the Joint Intelligence Committee.
The Intelligence and Security Committee today reported the JIC believed the collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of WMD ending up in the hands of terrorists.
Our political Correspondent Garry Gibbon reports how Tony Blair overruled his spy chiefs in the decision to got war:
Mr Blair repeatedly said he had to take Britain to war against Iraq because of the intelligence reports that crossed his desk. He never mentioned this one. It has been until today the best kept secret of the war - a report signed by all the heads of intelligence warning Mr Blair that an invasion of Iraq would increase the risk of weapons of mass destruction getting into the hands of terrorists.
Mr Blair over-ruled the heads of the intelligence services and went ahead with the war. And he continued to insist that war would reduce the risk of terrorist groups acquiring chemical and biological weaponry.
But it's now clear that the intelligence services collectively thought the Prime Minister's reasoning for going to war was a mistake. A Parliamentary committee which has seen the intelligence chiefs' report reveals that, a month before the war began, they warned Mr Blair that:
"... any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists ..."
The report challenged the entire rationale behind the war on Iraq:
"The JIC assessed that al-Qaeda and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to Western interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq."
Mr Blair - who was holding talks with the French prime Minister today - admitted he had over-ruled the intelligence community when he gave evidence in private to the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. He told them it was his personal judgement and only time would tell if he was right.
Ms Taylor's committee was investigating the whole controversy of how the government used intelligent assets in the run up to war with Iraq.
It's an all-party committee, which meets in secret and is the only parliamentary committee allowed to interview intelligence officers and see intelligence material. On the central BBC allegation, that the government flammed-up the dossier, the committee acquitted the government.
The committee did criticise some of the wording in the dossier. It said the dossier sometimes seemed emphatic when there were doubt about Saddam's real military strength. And the committee believed that the claim that Saddam Hussein could fire weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes flat was presented unhelpfully without sufficient context.
The government welcomed the report as balanced and constructive.
Mr Straw's Cabinet colleague Geoff Hoon was - as predicted - rebuked by the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Committee said that the defence secretary and his officials were not as forthcoming as they should have been about criticism there had been of the government's dossier on Iraq from members of the defence intelligence staff.
The report concludes:
"The Defence Secretary did not tell us that two members of the DIS had written with concerns. Nor did his officials, even when pressed on the matter ..."
Mr Hoon later made his apologies in the Commons.
But the committee was careful not to use the sort of language that would force a resignation - and Mr Hoon's job does not look to be under immediate threat.
The committee throughout is cautious in its language. It says there were genuine mistakes made in the unprecedented experiment of publishing intelligence assessments, but nothing improper - just lessons to be learnt.
In a similar mood, the committee appears unconcerned that the intelligence community - like many of Mr Blair's political opponents - was warning him months ago that war with Iraq would spawn more terrorism.
|
