Dr Brian Jones, a former senior intelligence official, has today raised fresh doubts over the way that the Government's dossier on Iraqi weapons was put together. Michael Evans, Defence Editor, left, reports on his claims.

Who is Dr Jones and how senior was he?

Dr Jones is now retired but when he worked at the MoD he was in the scientific and technical directorate of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) and was responsible for analysing all intelligence on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. He was the most senior official and this branch has long experience in this field.

What are his claims?

He is now claiming that the whole of the DIS was unhappy with the claims made in the Government's dossier on Iraq. In the Hutton inquiry he said that he and a colleague had written to the deputy chief of defence intelligence voicing reservations about the wording of the dossier in relation to the alleged stockpiles of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons, and the claimed 45-minutes timeframe for deploying such weapons.

Are they damaging?

The claims from Dr Jones are damaging because the timing of his article in The Independent today comes so soon after the setting up of the Butler inquiry into the quality of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq.

But although Dr Jones claims that the whole of the DIS was unhappy with the dossier, the chief and deputy chief of the DIS at the time were both on the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which approved the wording of the dossier before it was published in September 2002.

Downing Street will be able say that his complaints and reservations were all dealt with by Lord Hutton.

Why has Dr Jones made this claim now?

I think that Dr Jones has written his article because he does not want his old employers, the DIS, to get the blame for any mistakes uncovered by the Butler inquiry.

He appears to feel that he and his former colleagues were ignored when they raised concern over the dossier and wants everyone to know that he was not alone, and is now acting as an unofficial spokesman for the whole department.

Lord Butler of Brockwell will have the job of deciding whether he had a genuine grievance or whether his superiors at DIS acted with proper judgment in downplaying the reservations expressed by their staff.

What is the DIS? What part did it play in the dossier?

The DIS has a large staff, about 800, which receives all intelligence, secret and open-sourced, which relates to defence matters; in other words anything that will have relevance to Britain's Armed Forces.

The DIS, therefore, sees secret material from MI6, MI5, GCHQ and from foreign intelligence agencies. It does not have its own spies operating abroad. It played an important part in the dossier because of its analysis expertise and because of its large body of experts in chemical and biological weapons.

What is the intelligence hierarchy and how does it work?

There is no intelligence hierarchy as such. All the agencies are supposed to work together and share everything, except sources, and their product is then assessed finally by the JIC. The heads of each of the agencies have similar "rank" as members of the JIC.

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