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How the 45 minutes claim became a judgement
A Judgement made by the JIC alone
In the published dossier, the notorious 45 minutes claim was one of many set out under a heading "we judge", implicitly presented as "judgements" of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). Tony Blair told the House of Commons on 4 June 2003, that it was:
"a judgement made by the Joint Intelligence Committee and by that committee alone". (Column 148)
Like the "judgement" itself, Blair's claim was a fabrication. Not only did the claim did not have the status of judgement in the formal JIC paper issued in parallel with the dossier, but the dossier's drafters did not have JIC authority to produce new judgements.
From an indication to a judgement
In the formal JIC paper of 9 September 2002, the 45 minutes claim was expressed as "recent intelligence indicates" (p167). JIC chairman John Scarlett told Hutton, that this construction had reflected "a decision by the assessment staff and the [Current Intelligence Group that oversaw its drafting] as to how [the] intelligence was to be described" (Section 116). He agreed that "it describes it as amounting to an indication rather than a certainty" and agreed that Blair "who no doubt is alert to these nuances... would have so read it".
Scarlett told the Hutton Inquiry that the claim "became a judgement of the JIC" (Section 122) through its appearance of the dossier. But this directly contradicted what he had already told the Hutton Inquiry, that the dossier:
"was designed to bring together existing standing JIC assessments. It was not planning to formulate new ones." (Section 76).
In any case, the government's spin doctors were as involved in this upgrading as they were in its inclusion in the dossier. The claim acquired the status of judgment in a redraft of the executive summary whose author is not known but was almost certainly one of the government's spin doctors. It retained this status in spite of bitter opposition from within the intelligence community. The Cabinet Office has now failed to assert that that redraft was produced within the JIC machinery. In doing so, it has shot Blair’s feet from underneath him.
A crass presentational change
The first published draft to contain the claim was the draft of 10 September 2002, where it was not expressed as a "judgement". Both in the body of the document and the executive summary, it was presented as something that "recent intelligence" indicated. By the time of the 16 September draft, the reference in the executive summary was one of many that now fell under the heading of "we judge" as a result of a crass presentational change where the heading of "recent intelligence...indicates" was simply deleted.
Inconsistent wording
If it were not self-evident that this change did not result from a change in the views of the JIC and its assessments staff, the inconsistency of this judgement with the uncertain wording of the claim elsewhere in the same draft make this very clear.
In the main text of the 16 September draft, which is likely to have been drafted by the same assessment staff, it was said that the Iraqi military "may" be able to deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes (DOS/2/0070). This suggests that the assessments staff did not necessarily believe the claim. But the expression of the claim as a judgement in that draft's executive summary was an explicit statement that the report was believed.
At the Hutton Inquiry, Scarlett was unable to explain this disparity, although it did occur to Lord Hutton that "different hands" had produced the two sections (Section 72).
When the draft of 16 September was circulated, the upgrading of the 45 minute claim to a judgement and the consequent inconsistency prompted sharply different comments. The Defence Intelligence Staff objected to such a weakly evidenced claim being expressed as a judgement and suggested that "intelligence suggests" would be a better wording. Meanwhile, Alastair Campbell had noted that the "may" in the body of the dossier was "weaker" (point 10).
The drafting group decides
Scarlett’s evidence to Hutton makes clear that it was a drafting group that had been packed with spin doctors that insisted on maintaining that status. He told Hutton (Section 126), that the issue of whether the claim should be expressed as a judgement was decided at the meeting of the drafting group on 17 September and indeed Scarlett's note of 16 September makes clear that "suggested additions/deletions/amendments" to the dossier would "be decided at that meeting". Attending that meeting were Daniel Pruce, John Williams and possibly other "representatives from the News Department of the FCO" (Section 83). According to Scarlett, the group had already noticed the inconsistency before Campbell pointed it out. It dismissed the DIS suggestion on the quite circular grounds that it was not possible to qualify a judgement with "intelligence suggests". The body text was in Scarlett’s words – "tightened" (point 10) to again say "intelligence indicates". This was not entirely consistent with the expression of the claim as a judgement but neither was it obviously inconsistent.
JIC member Tony Cragg, confirmed that it was the drafting group, not the JIC who took the decision. He told the Hutton Inquiry that when the DIS continued to complain about the expression of the claim as a judgement, he
"took the view that …this had already been considered at length with the Cabinet Office in their meeting of 17th September and that I was satisfied with the decisions reached and consequently with the wording of the dossier at that point." (Section 39)
In fact, when the JIC met on 18 September it did not itself discuss the issue or discuss the text in great detail. Scarlett told Hutton that at the meeting he informed the JIC in general terms of "the state of play on the draft" and it raised "no particular point". (Section 87)
Scarlett claimed that the dossier's upgrading of the claim to a judgement did not represent a change in the weight given to the intelligence but resulted from looking at it in a wider context, which the formal assessment had not done: "The sentence in the assessment was referring to the intelligence report as such. It was not looking at it in the wider context." But for a chairman of the JIC to claim that a formal JIC assessment looks at a piece of intelligence in isolation and not in a wider context shows how desperately he was clutching at straws. Assessing intelligence in context is the whole point of the assessment process.
The Key Lie
The inescapable truth is that the upgrading of the 45 minutes claim to the status of judgement did represent a step-change in the weight given to it. Scarlett's key lie was that this was justified by the instructions given to the dossier's drafters by the JIC: "The JIC had instructed the drafters to incorporate and take account and assess recent intelligence which was coming in, the 45 minutes report clearly fell into that category and under that rubric" (Section 130/1). But the claim had already been assessed by the JIC, in a formal assessment seven days earlier which had not picked it out as a "key judgement" (p163). And Scarlett had already told the Hutton Inquiry, that the dossier:
"was designed to bring together existing standing JIC assessments. It was not planning to formulate new ones." (Section 76)
The story of how the 45 minutes claim became a judgement shows just how farcical the process of drafting the dossier was and how farcical - if ultimately successful - were the government's attempts to claim that the dossier was the considered "work of the JIC". The truth about the claim is that far from being a judgement made by the JIC alone as Blair asserted, it acquired this status through a crass presentational change – almost certainly by one of the government’s spin doctors – and maintained it in spite of objections from within "the intelligence community" through a decision taken at a meeting attended by the same or other spin doctors.