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Crispin Black

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  1. Spin it how you like, the affair of the dodgy dossiers and the Hutton report represent a sharp falling away in standards not only of intelligence analysis but also of the conduct of government in general. For a while, it was almost as if it were back before the great civil service reforms of the late 19th century, where the governing party or faction could do more or less what it liked with the machinery of the state - which was largely composed of its clients, or creatures, in any case. The Butler report is unlikely to satisfy the tricoteuse tendency - those who want to see heads roll in a full sacrificial ritual. But Lord Butler's report will do a great deal to bring about, once again, the high standards of collection and analysis for which the British intelligence community was previously known. It's a slow-burning report, and its television opening had an elegance and lightness of touch and courtesy that were lacking in the US Senate intelligence committee's presentation of its report last week. But Lord Butler goes right to the heart of the matter. He would not dream of using the demotic "sexed up", but the way the evidence is presented allows us to draw our own conclusions. By publishing excerpts of the original joint intelligence committee papers and placing them alongside the dodgy dossier, he and his colleagues demonstrate the great gulf in words and tone and intended meaning between the real JIC assessments and the September dossier. Like a police chief in south-east Asia triumphantly laying out the fake Gucci handbags, the dodgy Rolex watches and pirate DVDs, he compares and contrasts the pirate dossier with the real article. It may not be damning, some people may not care, but it is effective. Even his early defence of John Scarlett, specifically recommending that he not forgo his elevation to MI6, firmly throws the responsibility back on the shoulders of the politicians, which is where it should lie. They are the policy makers. Crucially, they have the power to set the atmosphere and environment in which intelligence is collected and analysed. And this, more than anything else, is clearly what went wrong. Lord Butler makes clear his disdain for the 45-minutes claim. It simply should not have been there - neither in the proper JIC assessment nor in the dossier. This is an important finding, and more than anything else in the report will serve to bring back some analytical sanity to the central assessment machinery. Of course, it should not have been there. To give you an idea of what "strain" must have meant: if I had tried to include such a poorly sourced piece of intelligence while drafting a JIC paper it would have been removed at a subordinate meeting before it got into the final draft - most probably at the insistence of the Secret Intelligence Service representative, who would have understood its flimsiness. Even if no one complained during the exhaustive Whitehall drafting process, the reference would have been dismissed with puzzled disdain by the great men and women of the JIC when I took it before them for approval. They would have made a donnish joke of it perhaps, but their critical teeth would have been bared. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...1261598,00.html
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