A pattern of reticence

This reticence is part of an established pattern. It is very noticeable that throughout the public parts of the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) and Hutton Inquiries, government witnesses generally fudged the question of who had written the executive summary.

At the FAC hearing of 24 June 2003, Jack Straw, then Foreign Secretary, was asked by David Chidgey MP:

"I am really looking to know, do we know who actually drafted the executive summary from the body of the report and then the foreword because the language does seem to change?" (Q753)

Straw dodged the question about the executive summary entirely. Initially he stalled, "Is that the question?" Then he answered, "The Prime Minister signed the foreword."

FCO political director Peter Ricketts sought to imply that the executive summary was drafted within the JIC machinery but by avoiding saying so directly, he as good as admitted that it was not:

"What you are seeing in the executive summary is the assessment and the judgment that our intelligence community brought. Having looked at all of the various factors you drew attention to in the body of the document the JIC exist to make a judgment to ministers and that is the judgment they came to."

But Alastair Campbell went for the big lie:

"The Chairman of the JIC wrote the Executive Summary."

Unfortunately for Campbell, at the Hutton Inquiry, JIC Chairman John Scarlett flatly contradicted him. Invited to say that he had drafted the executive summary personally, he declined: "No, that is not right." (Sections 141-142) He was then asked, "Was that also drafted by Mr Miller under your supervision?" In reply, he failed even to say that it was the work of the JIC assessment staff:

"The executive summary and the text, the main text of the dossier, was all part of the drafting process taking place under the leadership of Mr Miller but of course under my overall supervision."

What the evidence suggests

So, given the government’s repeated failure to assert that the executive summary was drafted by the JIC assessment staff, it is reasonable to assume that it was not. We must look to contemporaneous evidence for clues as to who actually drafted it. It is very likely that it was originated by John Williams in his "missing" 9 September draft. Although large parts of the dossier can be seen to be a reworking of the pre-September paper, the executive summary as it appeared in the 10 September draft is a complete departure from the equivalent part of the earlier paper. As John Williams’ draft of 9 September was the first full draft of the new dossier, it is likely that it likely contained the first version in the new format, although the Foreign Office has stated that it does not "hold any unpublished drafts that use the same format as the Scarlett draft of 10 September 2002".

As far as the 16 September draft is concerned, it is possible that its executive summary was also drafted by Williams; although he was in New York between 10 and 16 September, this by no means rules him out. In an email of 17 September, Foreign Office special adviser Ed Owen addressed his comments on that section to Williams, something that was concealed from the Hutton Inquiry. But the Foreign Office has stated directly that Williams did not draft any further sections of the dossier after 9 September. By contrast, it has not denied that another of its spin doctors did further drafting, claiming to have "no recorded information" about this.

The executive summary of the 16 September draft was certainly drafted separately from the main text and was supplied separately - and late - to the Hutton Inquiry. Many of its new "judgements", including the 45 minutes claim, were inconsistent with way that the same issues were set out in the main text. Indeed, at the Hutton Inquiry there was a discussion about the sharply differing wordings of the 45 minute claim. In connection with this, Lord Hutton, apparently looking for an explanation of the differences, asked Scarlett: "do I understand that a number of hands might have been involved in the preparation of the draft by the assessment staff?" (Section 72) But, by wrongly assuming that the document was drafted within the assessment staff, Hutton had given Scarlett an opportunity to dodge the question. Neither did it seem to matter to him that Scarlett appeared to rule out the explanation that he had offered him: "the work in assessment staff was being carried out by a small unit, mainly of two people."

And by adding a further qualification, Scarlett effectively confirmed that the assessment staff were only co-ordinating the work of others:

"So this detail was in the hands, in terms of the central drafting process, of assessment staff under the leadership of Julian Miller."

Julian Miller was Scarlett's deputy.

So the question remains how such disparities arose between the different wordings. The obvious explanation, even to Lord Hutton, that the wordings differed so greatly because they came from different "hands", remains open if people outside the assessment staff drafted the executive summary.

It is almost certain that one or more of the government’s spin doctors wrote the executive summary. For this to be admitted would perhaps be the most damaging revelation of all for Blair’s reputation – and not just because he implicitly asserted the contrary. It would be a scandal that the usual assertion that the JIC adopted the dossier’s judgements would only make worse. To make such a claim would mean that the government’s spin doctors were writing the judgements of the JIC.

Next: The Williams Draft