Missing and withheld

"Missing" refers to identifiable drafts that were circulated for comment so that, although the dossier was constantly changing, its state at a particular point in time was captured and could have been made available to the various inquiries. The government has sought to play down the extent to which its spin doctors were invited to comment on the drafts dossier, particularly because this shows the extent to which, as Andrew Gilligan alleged, it was "sent back to be sexed-up".

The first identifiable draft, which has of course passed from the "missing" category into "definitely withheld" is John Williams’ draft of 9 September.

11 to 16 September

The Cabinet Office has stated that the dossier was "revised continuously between 11 and 16 September inclusive" but there are at least two occasions between these two disclosed drafts when identifiable drafts existed.

The first of these, which may not necessarily have been retained, was shown by Julian Miller to Alastair Campbell at a meeting on 13 September (Section 40). This was probably the draft to which Campbell referred four days later as "the last draft(.) Julian showed me".

But, more significantly, a further draft was produced on 15 September and it is likely that it was this draft – not the document identified by the government as the 16 September draft – that was circulated to JIC members on 16 September. There are a number of pieces of evidence pointing to a draft on 15 September, including a memorandum from the Defence Intelligence Staff and testimony from Julian Miller to the Hutton Inquiry (Section 154).

But the clearest evidence that the draft dated 16 September was not the one circulated to JIC members on that day comes in John Scarlett’s covering memorandum. Scarlett told JIC members that the attached draft "includes (in Part 2 Chapter 2) the references to JIC assessments". In the draft labelled 16 September there is no Part 2 Chapter 2; in fact, by that time the sections on "the current position" had become Part 1 of the dossier.

The Cabinet Office has stated that the reference to Part 2, Chapter 2 was a "mistake" but this seems unlikely for the then Chairman the JIC and current head MI6. But it has also insisted that "the draft referred to as being dated 15 September is the draft of 16 September i.e. the same document". But it is self-evident that if the dossier was revised continuously between 11 and 16 September inclusive, it cannot have been the same on 16 September as it was on 15 September.

The 17 September draft

There is also indisputable evidence that a further draft was circulated on the evening of 17 September or the morning of the 18th, i.e. a further missing draft between the disclosed drafts of 16 and 19 September. It is also clear that this was intended to be the final draft.

When circulating the 16 September draft, Scarlett asked for final comments by 1pm the following day. In an email sent at 12.01 on the 17th, Daniel Pruce confirmed that this was still the plan: "Julian Miller will take in a further round of comments this afternoon and send over a final draft to us this evening". At 16.35 Jonathan Powell emailed Campbell asking, "Can I see the latest version of the dossier? or will there be a further revise tonight?" Within minutes, Campbell’s office had replied, "should be another one coming tonight".

When Scarlett replied on the morning of 18 September to Campbell’s 17 point memo, he used paragraph numbers references, as if Campbell could relate these to his comments. These paragraph numbers do not relate to either the 16 September draft or the 19 September draft.

In spite of all this, the Cabinet Office has stated that it has no record of whether a draft was circulated at this time but neither has it denied that such a draft did exist.

Next: Campbell's Lies