Syria: Britain sets out intelligence case for military action

29 Aug 2013 By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent - telegraph.co.uk

Britain’s case for military intervention in Syria is based on a “limited but growing body of intelligence”, which suggests it is “highly likely” the Syrian regime was responsible for last week’s devastating chemical weapons attack, the government has said. But Mr Cameron, in last night’s debate, admitted the intelligence did not provide a definitive case against Assad.

An intelligence dossier released by the Prime Minister shows the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) - which oversees Britain's spy network - said that the chemical attack, which killed at least 350 civilians, was “probably” delegated by Bashar al-Assad to one of his commanders, rather than overseen by the Syrian President himself.

However the JIC guidance, which forms the basis for David Cameron’s case to attack Syria, says that it cannot establish the motive behind the attack.

In his letter to the Prime Minister, the JIC chairman Jon Day concluded that there are “no plausible alternative scenarios” other than the attack being an act of the Syrian regime.

The letter was released on the same day that American sources admitted there was “no smoking gun” proving President Assad personally ordered his forces to use chemical weapons.

The weight given to the JIC documents was questioned by some MPs. Ben Bradshaw, a former Labour Cabinet minister, said: “‘Intelligence’ published by JIC today is not intelligence but assertion. The Government’s going to have to do much better than that”

David Davis, former shadow home secretary, said: “We must consider, being where we’ve been before in this House, that our intelligence as it stands might just be wrong because it was before and we have got to be very, very hard in testing it.”

But Mr Cameron, in last night’s debate, admitted the intelligence did not provide an definitive case against Assad.

He said: “Of course intelligence is part of this picture, but let’s not pretend there is one smoking piece of intelligence that can solve whole problem. In the end there is no 100 per cent certainty about who is responsible. You have to make a judgment.”

Mr Day’s letter to Mr Cameron, dated yesterday, dispensed with the traditional formal salutations and farewells of letter-writing, and bears the reference “Jp 115”.

It is likely to become one of the most scrutinised government documents since the Labour government’s now notorious Iraq dossier published in 2003.

The two-page letter was accompanied by a short summary of the intelligence case which runs to just 313 words, in six short paragraphs.

Critically, this document said the JIC believes permission to authorise chemical weapons had “probably been delegated” by President Bashar al-Assad to senior regime commanders.

The summary is also dated as the “JIC’s assessment of August 27 on reported chemical weapons use in Damascus” - and it is not known why later intelligence, if it exists, was not included in the document.

Amid claims by the Syrian regime and others that the chemical attack was faked or staged by the Syrian rebels, Mr Day said in his letter: “There is no credible intelligence or other evidence to substantiate the claims or the possession of CW [chemical weapons] by the opposition.

“The JIC has therefore concluded that there are no plausible alternative scenarios to regime responsibility.”

He went on: “We also have a limited but growing body of intelligence which supports the judgement that the regime was responsible for the attacks and that they were conducted to help clear the Opposition from strategic parts of Damascus.

“Against that background, the JIC concluded that it is highly likely that the regime was responsible for the CW attacks on 21 August.

“The JIC had high confidence in all of its assessments except in relation to the regime’s precise motivation for carrying out an attack of this scale at this time - though intelligence may increase our confidence in the future.”

He also pointed out the JIC assessed President Bashar al-Assar’s regime had used chemical weapons on 14 previous occasions since last year.

The intelligence summary said: “Permission to authorise CW has probably been delegated by President Asad to senior regime commanders, such as [redacted], but any deliberate change in the scale and nature of use would require his authorisation.”

United States intelligence sources yesterday indicated that its agencies intercepted communications discussing the chemical attack between officials in Syria’s central command and in the field.

But it is understood these do not clearly implicate President Assad or his entourage in ordering the use of chemicals.

The Americans admitted there was “no smoking gun” proving President Assad personally ordered his forces to use chemical weapons. But it expressed high confidence that Syrian government forces carried out the attack and that Assad’s government therefore bears responsibility.

“This was not a rogue operation,” one US official said.

Evidence that forces loyal to Assad were responsible goes beyond the circumstantial to include electronic intercepts and some tentative scientific samples from the neighborhood which was attacked, US officials said.

John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, and Chuck Hagel, the US Defence Secretary, are due to brief senior members of Congress on the situation on Thursday.