Brian Jones: What weapons dossier should have said, and what that would have meant for war
Dr Brian Jones, a retired official with the Defence Intelligence Service who says that he "couldn't relate" to Mr Blair's evidence to the Hutton inquiry.
I told Panorama last night that I was confused when Mr Blair told Lord Hutton about the "tremendous amount" of related information and evidence that had been crossing his desk in the period before the dossier was written. We had no sight of large qualities of significant intelligence of that sort.
Most of our concerns were raised in comments made by DIS expert analysts over the three weeks in which the dossier was drafted. I recounted some to Lord Hutton's inquiry but was constrained by the specific questions of counsel.
To offer a fuller explanation. I have revisited the executive summary of the September dossier, John Scarlett's two-page précis of the 40-odd pages of the main text. The latter is so dense and complex that the summary would inevitably achieve much greater impact. Unfortunately, it did not paint quite the same picture. What was uncertain and poorly defined suddenly became clearer and "presentationally" more acceptable. Intelligence no longer indicated what might be and suddenly, without substantiation, showed what was.
I have tried to illustrate below what I would have preferred some important parts of it to have said. This is not a case of being wise after the event or of using hindsight. It is what the dossier should have said based on the state of intelligence at that time. My revisions do not represent a wholly accurate assessment in the light of what we know now, which makes the case for war even weaker. The original or "actual" paragraphs of the dossier are also shown for ease of comparison. The words shown in italics in the "preferred" version mark my additions or changes to the words approved by the JIC.
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