In his explosive evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, former security and intelligence coordinator Sir David Omand fingers MI6 for failing to correctly interpret intelligence over weapons of mass destruction.
Be honest – would you think any less of me if said I’m really rather into terrorism? A bit of a sucker for global Salafi jihadism? I’ve been mistaken for an MI5 officer at Bow Street Magistrates Court – may it rest in peace – and an Anti-Terrorist Branch detective at the Old Bailey – although both probably say more about my questionable choice in suits than anything else.
But pre-Chilcot terrorism and security was very much my thing, often working with C4 News’s excellent home affairs correspondent Simon Israel, so I went to watch Sir David Omand’s evidence with high hopes.
And we weren’t disappointed. As permanent secretary for security and intelligence coordinator Omand sat at the top table of the government’s information gathering and analysis committees. Earlier still that he was director of the “listening doughnut” GCHQ.
A consummate man-in-the-shadows, he looked pained as he described how the September 2002 dossier required his spooks to work together with No 10’s presentation people – even though he initially backed the idea of a dossier in principle.
He’d already described countless occasions on which ministers were briefed on carefully calibrated, measured and qualified intelligence one day, only to see them present it to the Commons the next as absolute fact.
And Omand joined Geoff Hoon in accusing Brown’s Treasury for keeping his office on a tight leash – it was hard enough getting the latest version of Microsoft Office, let alone enough of the right sort of staff.
Some humility – inevitably. The intelligence community was “determined” that Alastair Campbell and the press teams shouldn’t write the main body of the 2002 dossier, but Omand admitted to “totally failing” to spot the maelstrom set in chain by Tony Blair’s foreword use of “beyond doubt”. “If we’d had more time,” he mused: “But there we are.”
One felt a point was being driven home when Omand listed a series of JIC reports that assessed war in Iraq would increase the threat of terrorism in the west; it took Blair rather longer to accept such a nexus after the 7/7 attacks in London. Although, in fairness, Omand added that al-Qaida-related plots were already taking place in the UK as early as 2000.
Omand’s four key lessons learned were gently tendered but no less explosive for it. JIC failed to take a deep breath in early 2003 as interim inspection reports came in and ask: “Actually – what do we know about Iraqi WMD? Let’s re-examine all our evidence and compare it with what’s being reported on the ground.” JIC assumed war was inevitable and stayed on-side.
We failed to realise that using the threat of military action to back up diplomacy might end up backing the west, not Saddam, into a window – the US military-logistical time-window. “The biter bit.” We failed to identify and manage risk.
Above all – and for Omand to single out the agency was electric – MI6 ignored or mis-assessed intelligence and stuck with the chosen hypotheses, i.e. that Saddam had WMD. When information called that into question, MI6’s mindset was to “turn up the volume control” and insist it merely proved he was even better at hiding them than had been thought.
MI6 “over-promised and under-delivered”. Their tradecraft had abandoned them. As I walked to C4 News’s parliamentary newsroom after the session, I fancied I heard low mutterings from further down the Thames at Vauxhall Cross.
Straw tomorrow up from 14h00. Live Tweets from then.