The discussion then moves on to when the Government first learnt that George W Bush decided that the UK should be in charge of Basra. This was, it seems, very late in the day and SIS has a lot of trouble supplying the military with intelligence.
SIS1: Yes. Absolutely. We were galloping to keep up with events and to do what we are not often required to do, which is to produce intelligence of military value that will help win a campaign.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Yes. I would like to take for granted the fact that there were real and very valuable successes. They come out of your report and in the comments of military commanders. But at the same time there were shortcomings, and we're a lessons learned Inquiry. Looking ahead, keys to the success, but also keys to a future better level of success in this kind of engagement, with the green army as well as with special forces.
SIS1: The sort of core SIS intelligence activity is not well suited to a fast-moving military situation. By that stage they are not interested in the broad intentions of the regime and so on. They want to know where the tanks are, when they are going to move.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: But you got the “fast food intelligence” effort running.
The transcript goes into Reacted territory again.
There’s some talk about technology that I don’t understand and over-commitment.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Sure. You are also imposing on people, and indeed on their families, as you've acknowledged, very considerable 24/7 strains, without much time for recovery whatever. So I'm left with wondering what lesson there is to learn from that, that expectations should be limited -- expectation of SIS, not by SIS.
SIS1: We tend to say yes and sometimes overcommit. I think there that can-do, want-to-help attitude may have given people the impression that we were capable of doing more than we were.
…before we slip back into redacted territory again.
There is some talk about SIS’s role in supplying intelligence in a real time operation and how this differs from its usual role of whisper collecting and sifting over long periods of time and whether one role absorbed resources from the other.
SIS1: It was not just about tactical intelligence for the war fighters. It was about understanding the environment, using their language skills and what we knew of the power structures in the areas that the military were moving through, to assist an intelligent conduct of the campaign.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Any last comment on the future of the relationship between SIS and the regular army? Issues such as training familiarisation, just keeping up a level of acquaintance with military personnel, with doctrines, et cetera. Is this an effort that SIS will and can continue to make and should make?
SIS1: Again [redacted] but I think yes. I think as long as we are engaged in this kind of activity, as we have been in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, it has to be one of the clubs in our golf bag. We have got to be able to do that. It doesn't suit everybody, and it's not what people joining, say, 20 years would have thought they were going to do, but we have to do it.
There’s some talk about technology that I don’t understand and over-commitment.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Sure. You are also imposing on people, and indeed on their families, as you've acknowledged, very considerable 24/7 strains, without much time for recovery whatever. So I'm left with wondering what lesson there is to learn from that, that expectations should be limited -- expectation of SIS, not by SIS.
SIS1: We tend to say yes and sometimes overcommit. I think there that can-do, want-to-help attitude may have given people the impression that we were capable of doing more than we were.
…before we slip back into redacted territory again.
There is some talk about SIS’s role in supplying intelligence in a real time operation and how this differs from its usual role of whisper collecting and sifting over long periods of time and whether one role absorbed resources from the other.
SIS1: It was not just about tactical intelligence for the war fighters. It was about understanding the environment, using their language skills and what we knew of the power structures in the areas that the military were moving through, to assist an intelligent conduct of the campaign.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Any last comment on the future of the relationship between SIS and the regular army? Issues such as training familiarisation, just keeping up a level of acquaintance with military personnel, with doctrines, et cetera. Is this an effort that SIS will and can continue to make and should make?
SIS1: Again [redacted] but I think yes. I think as long as we are engaged in this kind of activity, as we have been in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, it has to be one of the clubs in our golf bag. We have got to be able to do that. It doesn't suit everybody, and it's not what people joining, say, 20 years would have thought they were going to do, but we have to do it.
A large redacted section then covers what I think is what they expected to find and how long they were expecting to be in Iraq before they could pull out. It seems some people actually thought it would be like the Normady invasion. When the reader is allowed to read the text again something is being discussed to to with El Baradei and the IAEA.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Again, was it a surprise, the definite pronouncement made by El-Baradei about the Iraqi nuclear programme?
SIS1: No, I think everyone accepted that there wasn't a nuclear programme. I think there was a belief that if Saddam was given a free hand, he would buy, beg, steal or borrow a nuclear capability as soon as he could.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Does that go on to issues like the aluminium tubes and all that sort of thing?
SIS1: Yes. That was again a small piece of a bigger jigsaw. It seemed to be consistent with an interest in resuscitating or developing that programme if conditions allowed.
They then move onto the painful question of actually discovering there were no WMD.
Which is not a simple process
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