THE Ministry of Defence wanted to stop two senior members of its intelligence staff who had expressed concerns about the government dossier on Iraq from appearing as witnesses before a parliamentary committee, according to written evidence at the Hutton inquiry.

An internal MoD memo, written by Martin Howard, deputy chief of Defence Intelligence, recommended that “we should resist any calls from the ISC (Intelligence and Security Committee) to disclose the identities of the individuals concerned, call them as witnesses or have access to their written comments to line management”.

The memo, sent to the private office of Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, and copied to some of the most senior officials in Whitehall, was written on July 18, the same day as the body of David Kelly was found.

The ISC, chaired by Ann Taylor, former Labour Leader of the Commons, is still investigating the background to the intelligence dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The committee, which meets in private, works within the so-called “ring of secrecy” and has unique access to intelligence personnel and to top secret documents. Mr Howard’s memo, headed “Iraq and weapons of mass destruction: ISC hearing”, highlights what it describes as an “issue”:

“The ISC is likely to probe the Secretary of State and the former CDI (Chief of Defence Intelligence) about the process through which members of the DIS (Defence Intelligence Staff) can express concerns about the misuse of intelligence; and on whether it was used at the time of the September dossier. How should we respond?” He wrote: “In the course of the extensive debate across the intelligence community at the time of the dossier, two members of DIS expressed concern to their immediate line management about the precise wording of some parts of it.”

He pointed out that the individuals concerned “acknowledge that they did not have access to some particularly sensitive intelligence which had also been taken into account in reaching final decisions on the wording of the dossier”.

Mr Howard recommended to Mr Hoon on July 18 that if the ISC asked to see the two DIS members, this should be resisted on the ground that the concerns had been “aired” in the context of the Whitehall discussions leading up to the publication of the dossier.

Day four

Main Points

Witness List

Yesterday: Bryan Wells, director of the MoD’s counter-proliferation and arms control secretariat Patrick Lamb, deputy head of the counter-proliferation department at the Foreign Office Martin Howard, deputy head of Defence Intelligence at the MoD John Williams, press secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The inquiry is not sitting today

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