Iraq dossier censored

Iraq dossier censored

The leader in the Guardian:

"The line between freedom of information and censorship is a narrow one. This week the information tribunal ordered the publication of an early draft of what would become the dodgy dossier making the case for war. That was openness. But one word was suppressed - the word "Israel". That, on the arguments advanced for its suppression, was craven and in any other context would resemble an act of censorship. We can only guess as to the reasons why the tribunal decided the word should be suppressed. It deliberated in secret and delivered a confidential judgment in respect of the excision. This was the opposite of openness.

The word "Israel" was written in the margins of the draft document by an unknown - but presumably senior - hand. It referred to a sentence which said of Saddam's Iraq: "No other country has flouted the UN's authority so brazenly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction." The implied meaning of the margin note was well articulated by a senior Foreign Office official, Neil Wigan, in trying to argue for its suppression - that "the person who wrote it believes that Israel has flouted the UN authority similar to that of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein".

It may well be embarrassing to have it revealed to the world that well-placed figures in Whitehall held such views in 2002, but it is a large step from that to ordering such a serious an act of concealment. The Foreign Office succeeded by exploiting one of the numerous loopholes that riddle the Freedom of Information Act. Mr Wigan argued in a statement that Israel would take a dim view of the Foreign Office; that the affair would attract a huge amount of embarrassing press coverage; and that bilateral relations between the UK and Israel would suffer. The statement paints a pained picture of the way in which Israel regularly kicks up a fuss with Britain over "far more minor matters".

The enfeebled FOI legislation does, indeed, allow for an exemption for material that could prejudice relations between the UK and other states. But it is dismaying that material which is merely embarrassing can so easily trigger the blue pencil. And it is doubly dismaying that the process by which such decisions are reached - and the reasons for reaching them - are secret.
There is thus a double benefit in publishing the banned word. It reveals that senior Foreign Office figures were aware of the double standards implicit in the softening up of British public opinion in favour of war. And it shows how easily - and secretly - the information tribunal can be influenced into concealing from the public material which, however irksome, should be public."

Freedom of information: Hidden words (The Guardian, 21 February 2008)

Closed hearing and a secret ruling: how the word Israel was deleted (The Guardian 21 February 2008)