The rest of this conversation is redacted and is followed by a discussion on the uselessness of some SIS subsources. Here's a picture of what I think they're talking about...
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: What about [redacted], the less happy story?
SIS1: Yes, I think we did get to the bottom of that. I wasn't personally involved. [redacted]. But I think we came to the conclusion that he wasn't as reliable as we thought and his subsources were very much less reliable.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Did his subsources actually exist?
SIS1: Yes, they did.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: But there was fabrication?
SIS1: There was fabrication. There was fabrication.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So it was alerted, I think, in early June 2003 that this might not be wholly reliable. Might it have been withdrawn earlier, do you think?
SIS1: I don't know. I don't know.
After more redaction we’re left with the blunt admission that
SIS1: Yes, I think the handling of the source, and the marketing, if I can use that word, of the intelligence was awful.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Generally, are there any other lessons you can think of on this story?
SIS1: On what?
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: On the WMD story, I guess, including the role of the technical expertise, for example. The evaluation of the evidence that you were given or examining.
SIS1: It's not so much a lesson. It's an observation that we based a lot on not enough.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: I don't think I can sum it up any better myself.
This is followed by a huge redacted section relating to Iran and active sources within the Shia population.
SIS1: [redacted] I think again, if they could cause trouble for the coalition, they would. It was not in Iran's interests for Iraq to be pacified, a government to be formed, and a secular Shia-dominated state, as it were, arising on their border. I think they would have thought that that was -- that would have been a challenge to their own world picture.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Because it showed an alternative Shia vision?
SIS1: An alternative Shia vision. At least that was our assumption. I don't know that we could read Iranian perceptions to that degree.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Do you have a sense of when they started to use the Sunni insurgency as a way of -
SIS1: Again, any methods. I think they began to do it as soon as they could. Iran, after the fall of Saddam, had so many ways into Iraq, from the pilgrims to the exiles who had come across the border, and I think it was a very complicated melting pot of interests and capabilities.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: So on a scale of 1 to 10, how important do you think the Iranians were as a factor in the Sunni insurgency?
SIS1: No more than 4.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: That's quite high.
SIS1: Okay. Again, lack of knowledge. I mean, frankly, the Sunni insurgency was doing fine by itself.
SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: Quite.
Jerry Bremer ( Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq )
who he accuses of being a bully and also of being very rude to
Sir Jeremy Greenstock
(United Kingdom Ambassador to the United Nations for five years, from 1998 to July 2003)
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Can you make a judgment about whether our influence was sufficient, proportionate, effective?
SIS1: As a partner in this enterprise, we were disregarded by the CPA. Our advice was not taken into account. Bremer
had in Jeremy Greenstock an extraordinary partner if he chose to use him, and he treated him disgracefully. He would rebuke him in meetings and tell him that he didn't expect to be contradicted, when Jeremy was offering, you know, a correcting or modifying view.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Yes.
SIS1: And I think that says a lot about Bremer's arrogance. He was under clear political orders, and he didn't know a lot about the country, and that's quite a lethal combination.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Arrogance and insecurity sometimes go together.
SIS1: Arrogance and ignorance and insecurity, and I think, you know, if he had embraced Jeremy Greenstock and they had -
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Just a last point on that, because we have got a lot of other evidence to take. Bremer was definitely acting under political direction on those key decisions about de-Ba'athification and disbandment?
SIS1: Yes, but I think people were desperate for someone on the ground to tell them what to do. I don't think there was an ideological sense that this had to happen. In fact it's quite the reverse. Initially you're talking about decapitating the regime and leaving the structures in place. He went a lot further, and frankly, to this day, I don't really know why.
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: Okay, thanks.
After some more redaction SIS1’s evidence session draws to its close
SIR JOHN CHILCOT: [SIS1], thank you very much indeed for your evidence. It's been helpful and illuminating. Can I just remind that there is a transcript which will need to be reviewed in this building, I'm afraid, when it's convenient to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment