Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-18

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: I apologise for that.
 If you then look at the rest of the document you will see that at the time it was decided to take blind samples of four categories of drums that were destroyed and they were destroyed by flying them out into the southern Atlantic ocean, deactivating them and then throwing them into the ocean and we had attached to this document - or rather, before we get to that, a signature of a Commandant de Bruyn which was the representative of the Chief of Staff Intelligence and a declaration by Doctor Basson which says:
"The samples were later handed over to Commander de Bruyn after they were deactivated.  The samples were taken on the day of the destruction"
In accordance to what the Minister authorised us to do and in accordance to my instruction to Doctor Basson, this was taken to the forensic laboratory of the police and the next attachment to that same document is the declaration by Brigadier Strauss in which he then certifies what he had received as samples or "monsters", paragraph 3:
"During he proceedings of my duties I received the following sealed samples from Colonel Steyn: A holder marked product B, a holder marked product BX, one marked product C and one with no alphabetical identification.
According to my information it was marked product M, it did not remain clearly visible but in his following paragraph he says:
"During the carrying out of my duties I analysed these samples and identified the contents.  Product B was BZ, product BX which I told you was Baxil, product C"
 With all respect, I'm not a chemical person.  We can ask Professor Folb if he can confirm whether this was the same product that I signed for but I was satisfied that this was Baxil.  Product C is the Cocaine Hydrochloride and the fourth is Methaqualone.
 He gave us a further statement, it was excluded.  Paragraph 3:  
"Further to my statement of the 6th of the 9th, I rectify a typing error"
 There's another document attached to this document and that was an exercise that had to be performed at a later stage.  We had to give information to the Auditor General about the value of the substances that had now been destroyed and there is a document which says: "afskryf waardes", which was drawn up by Doctor Basson.
 At a later stage, there's a letter attached here which had to be signed by the Chief of the Defence Force as the Chief Accounting Officer of the Defence Force, that was the letter in January '95 where he repeats the information that Basson gives here and he signs the document to say that that was the value of the substances.
 I just want to add one additional point Mr Chairman.  If you look at each one of these substances: M, BX, C, P and B and you look at the quantities and where the values were estimated, then you will see that those quantities are in agreement with the amounts that I gave to the Minister and I said they were in the  possession of the SADF.  I was satisfied that all the products which had to be destroyed were destroyed.  
 Just to complete the picture I also added the minutes of the meetings, the CMC.  The first one you have there is the 29th of January.  You will see from the certificate of destruction that it took place in the evening of the 27th.  In these minutes which took place on the 29th, in paragraph 5 Brigadier Basson also gives feedback regarding the destruction of all measures and substances which would not be used in future and this includes the incapacitants.   I think that that is all that I want to point out in that particular minute.  
 If you look at the next one dated the 31st of March 1993, paragraph 3:
"Brigadier Basson handed over the destruction certificate, it was given.  The samples were still in possession of the Sectional Commander and Brigadier Basson said that these samples were taken and destroyed and after a long discussion it was said that these samples would be analysed at the forensic laboratory and thereafter destroyed and the certificate would be attached to the destruction certificate"
This is to demonstrate to you that the Co-ordinating Management Committee was kept in the picture as to this process as it developed.  
 Lastly, much later - the document I attached here, because there were questions whether that flight actually took place or not, I have a letter which was written to the Chief of the Airforce by the Office of the Attorney General.  It's addressed to General Hechter and it says:
"During the investigation of Doctor Basson it was it was found that allegedly certain substances were, fell into the sea on the 27th of January.  All flights were scheduled flights.  There was a certain flight, H28 which on the 28th of January was tasked for training via Waterkloof and this flight went over the sea.  It is important to note that the flight plan of this flight used by Wouter Basson should be made known.  The name of the navigator, the name of the pilot and the list of all the passengers should be provided and also what type aeroplane was used and the route it followed and also the contents of the freight.  The declarations are necessary for the legal process"
And the reply to that by the Chief of the Airforce dated the 27th of May 1997, is the next document and he gives the information with regards to the flight, the name of the navigator, the pilot, the passengers:
"Unfortunately no passenger list could be found.  The four or five passengers who were there were not known to them"
He tells the type of flight and then he says:
"...[no English translation] because no reports were made for training and it was not available for this specific flight.  The co-ordinator cannot be determined.  As far as it can be established it was south of the Agulhas plateau about 150 sea miles from the coast.  Regarding the contents of the freight, the crew was not aware of the contents of the freight but it was ensured that it was safe for air travel.  It contained 20 blue plastic drums.  During the flight these bags were filled with some or other substance and when they landed this was taken from the aeroplane"
Mr Chairman, I now come back to my statement, page 5:
"While the above took place I was also fully occupied in supporting the investigation of the Office of Serious Economic Offences and parallel investigations of the Office of the Auditor General into the possible financial abuses of the programme by Brigadier Basson and others.  In this regard Brigadier Basson was encouraged to cooperate with both the Office of Serious Economic Offences and the Auditor General in every respect"
If I can interrupt myself I've provided many letters and documentation in this regard.  I was a State witness for the Office of OSEO.  If it's necessary I can make this available.
"With the appointment of Mr Coetzee as Minister of Defence in April '93, I was again instructed to brief the Minister with respect to Project Coast  although a full briefing only took place on the 10th of August 1993.  The Minister was given a copy of the 7th of January 1993 briefing to Minister Louw, as well as the confirmatory notes dated the 8th of January '93 on the 30th of April '93"
If you look at the next Appendix, I'm not going to read it again, you've seen the document already, it's simply to show you, that is the actual document or a copy thereof of which I handed over to the Minister with my signature there.  We were getting so many Ministers following one another that it was becoming very difficult to keep them in the picture Mr Chairman, and all that we had chance to do at that stage was to give him this and say: "Read it, you will get an idea what's been going on.  It's a whole description of the programme and it's a description of instructions given by Mr Louw in accordance with the State President's guidelines and at a later stage we will brief you fully about the project".  I did at that time discuss with General Liebenberg, the need to bring the Minister up to date with the problems around Basson.  I'm coming back to my statement:
"Although I recommended that the position of Doctor Basson, with special reference to the Creation problem as well as the Auditor General and Office of Serious Economic Offences investigation should be discussed in detail with the Minister by the Chief of the South African Defence Force, General Liebenberg indicated that he did not think that this was necessary until after the Minister had been briefed fully on Project Coast.
 The Minister did however indicated to the Chief of the Defence Force, that the research on the water soluble, CR, should be reinvestigated and that he wanted to be briefed about that separately"
Mr Chairman, he was referring to what he had read in the briefing that we had given to Mr Louw and the remarks that he made with regard to CR.
"Such a briefing did take place on the 22nd of June 1993 where Mr Coetzee approved that a demonstration model of the CR containing water cannon could be manufactured but that the Foam Project of CR, Foam Project, could be terminated.
 After the return of Brigadier Basson from Switzerland on the 2nd of July '93, a briefing was given to him to myself, Colonel Steyn, Mr Pierre Theron and Mr van Heerden of the Office of the Auditor General on the 6th of July '93, which outlined the events in Switzerland, the nature of the problem in Croatia and the fact that no funds had been recovered.  At this I insisted that the Minister be informed about all the above events immediately.
 At a discussion that followed on the 8th of July and later also on the 15th of July '93, the Minister was fully briefed by the Chief of the South African Defence Force, the Chief of Staff Finance and myself and handed a document drawn up by Brigadier Basson about the events in Croatia.  There documents as well as related documents obtained later are contained in Appendix G?
Mr Chairman, I don't propose to spend a lot of time on this document but basically Doctor Basson gives here the whole chronology of what had taken place in Croatia, how the transaction went wrong and how the money was lost, what efforts he did to try and obtain the money and also two documents that I'd received.  One by way of a letter from the agent that was involved here.  The letter I'd already received in May and secondly, an affidavit by the agent which was drawn up in Bonn in Germany and sent through to my by our Military Attache and that was the 13th of August, quiet a lot later, the next year.
 The point that I want to or the items that I want to draw your attention to is that a lot of what is being said here by Basson confirms the process that had taken place before, it confirms the fact that the Chief of the Defence Force said: "You could go back and try and recover the funds".  But the fact that I wanted to bring to the Minister's attention was, here were serious problems with regard to the financial management of the project.
 Now, back to my statement on page 6:
"All these events were obviously also brought to the attention of the Office of Serious Economic Offences by myself.  I now took the further initiative on insisting that the Minister be briefed fully about the past history and the status of Project Coast by myself and Colonel Ben Steyn as soon as possible and the briefing was finally given on the 10th of August.  This document is contained in Appendix H"
 Again Mr Chairman, the document you will see looks very much like the document that we presented to Mr Louw, in terms of the background history and the phases and the development and where we stood, but basically I want to draw your attention to paragraph 31 which discusses again with the Minister the whole history about the incapacitating agents.  Paragraph 42, which again points out to Minister Coetzee as Minister, what had happened in the process of destruction of all the substances, including the incapacitating agents. 
 And lastly paragraph 44:
"As soon as the last two projects, the water cannon and the data capture processes were completed, the final closure will be continued with"
 If I may use this opportunity, you will see there's an Annexure.  The Annexure refers to all the front companies that was in existence and were established with the approval of the Minister and also deals with other companies.  And I just want to underline here what I testified last week:  Protechnic was not a front company.  As far as my knowledge was concerned, it was a private company and that is why it is mentioned like that on page 2, also to this Minister.
 If I may go back to my statement:
"After this briefing I privately requested the Minister to allow me to begin direct liaison with the National Intelligence Service, with regard to the Offices of Serious Economic Offences Investigation in general and the situation of Brigadier Basson in particular.  This I did because of the fact that I developed the distinct impression that my efforts to deal with the situation solely within the South African Defence Force was not clarifying issues adequately and I had been approached by Mr Mike Kennedy from National Intelligence Service with the request that this should be arranged if possible, as the National Intelligence Service was also busy with an investigation into the CBW programme, with special reference to the role of Doctor Basson emanating from the Steyn Report.  I also learnt later that National Intelligence Service had also approached the Minister in this regard"
Mr Chairman, at that time the Minister of Defence was also the Minister responsible for National Intelligence.  "With the approval of the Minister of Defence the Chief of Military Counter Intelligence, Major General Nieuwoudt and I briefed the Director General of National Intelligence Service, Mr Mike Louw and the Director of Counter Espionage, Mr Mike Kennedy on the 24th of September 1993.  At the briefing which took place in Cape Town I gave the full background on Project Coast and Doctor Basson's role in it and again emphasised the situation with respect to direct control over the operational activities of Doctor Basson.
 I also dealt briefly with the fact that there had been a number of Military Counter Intelligence investigations into Doctor Basson's activities to establish where he had abused the project for personal enrichment and indicated what had emerged in the Office of Serious Economic Offences investigation up to date.  This document is contained in Appendix I.
You will notice on the front page in my own handwriting on the top:
"Purpose to divide the research into Basson's activities from the objectives of the project.  This would give him the opportunity to provide answers himself as requested"
 That I think is an important aspect.  If you look at the document, the document deals again with the entire background, the phases, the developments, the processes that were followed, the decisions by the State President and the Cabinet Committee, the development of incapacitating agents, the destruction thereof, the development of CR, where we stood with that.  And then finally, all of this is really what we said before Mr Chairman, finally, if I take you to page 11, we then spoke about the position of Doctor Basson.  I wrote the following:
"Brigadier Basson was appointed in the South African Defence Force on the 2nd of January 1979 as a Medical Officer and he was a Lieutenant.  He was used at Military Hospital from the 2nd of January till the 28th of February 1981.  During this time he followed various medical services and became a first specialist in internal medicine.  He had this rank since 1980.  His military rank was a substantive Commander.  As from March 1981, he served as a specialist advisor at headquarters and as Project Officer for the Special Projects for the Surgeon General and was added to the Special Forces headquarters under the operational command of the Commanding Officer Special Forces of the Defence Force.  As from the 1st of January 1985, he had the rank of Colonel and he became head of a new division, the 7th Medical Battalion.  It provided medical support to Special Forces and the paratroopers and the South African Police and the NIS.  In this capacity he undergoes various courses and became a Brigadier in 1988 and became the head of Medical Staff Operations.  In this post he remained for nine months till I appointed him as the Director General responsible for Research and Development in the South African Medical Services.  Based on an instruction by the State President in December '92, he was placed on compulsory leave and he was placed on pension as from the 31st of March 1993"
And then a little lower down, in terms of his involvement with the project:
"49, the CMC was the controlling body of Project Coast.  Decisions regarding the type of activities and products was taken by the CMC"
 Pointing out again that at that level it was a broad guideline, the detailed research development was done at the level of the technical work group of which Basson was the chairperson.
 Now page 13:
"Particulars regarding control over Brigadier Basson.  Brigadier Basson, since his appointment in the South African Defence Force, was under the functional control of the Surgeon General and had to report to the Surgeon General, but as I've indicated previously he was under the operational control of the Commanding Officer Special Forces and all his military activities were controlled by this instance.  Since the 1st of March 1988 I had personal control over Brigadier Basson and confirmed this with his appointment as the Director for Research and Development at headquarters on the 1st of October 1988.  Regarding this project, Brigadier Basson was responsible to the CMC for the operation and management of this project and his activities were authorised by this body.  The situation regarding the operational application of the product delivered by this project was different and his activities were authorised by the person who gave the instructions.  These people were the Minister of Defence, the Head of the South African Defence Force, the Commanding Officer Special Tasks, the Head of Staff Intelligence, the Commissioner of the South African Police, the Commanding General of the South African Police and the Director General National Intelligence Services"
In other words Mr Chairman, I have repeated here to National Intelligence, exactly what I had said earlier on to the Office of Serious Economic Offences.  I say again:
"The abovementioned state of affairs was not acceptable for me and I lodged my complaint to General Geldenhuys.  They took cognisance of this but it continued, this practice.  In the cases were Brigadier Basson was tasked operationally by the abovementioned people, they took notice of Project Coast.  The last was then regarded by CMC as part of the total programme and it was approved"
Then I have a short paragraph on:
"Research into Basson's activities:  During the past two years, because of various allegations and questions and Counter Intelligence reports, the investigations were conducted into Basson.  It usually had to do with suspicions that Basson enriched himself to the detriment of the State.  In-depth investigations by the staff of various of senior people, in conjunction with the Auditor General was done without any proof being found.   During December '92 an investigation concerning Section 5 of Act into Serious Economic Offences was undertaken by OSEO.  On the 8th of December I was asked to comment on certain questions regarding the person of Doctor Basson and written answers were given to OSEO"
This is the document that I referred to earlier in one of my Appendices where you saw the answer that I gave to OSEO.  And then under final comments, if you will allow me, at page 15, paragraph 59:
"I want to indicate once again that the present State President said on the 26th of March ...[indistinct] in the presence of General Malan, Geldenhuys, Liebenberg and myself ...[indistinct]"
I'm not going to read it all, you've heard it before Mr Chairman.  I repeat exactly what I said before, not only to the Defence Command Council but also to the Minister, I have now repeated to National Intelligence.  And finally I say in 62:
"I propose that Brigadier Basson in the future must be given the opportunity to answer any questions regarding his person to personally answer to NIS.  If possible or where necessary I will assist him in that regard"
And I also add the same Appendix with the front companies and the other companies.  That brings me to page 7:
"Because I believed that it would help me to finalise the Office of Serious Economic Offences investigation and moreover give Doctor Basson the opportunity to clarify his position in terms of the decision of the State President, that he should be put on early pension, I recommended that Doctor Basson be given the opportunity to cooperate fully with National Intelligence Service"
And then I say in brackets:
"(it must be borne in mind that he had consistently indicated to me that he was not guilty of any misconduct, either within the project or in any other capacity.  He further said that he was being confused with other persons also known as W Basson.
 At this stage I had no concrete reason to doubt his word).  Mr Mike Kennedy then indicated to me that National Intelligence Service was in fact investigating issues far beyond the scope of the Office of Serious Economic Offences investigation and that they also believed that Doctor Basson would able to clarify some of the outstanding issued in their investigation.  After the briefing"
...[intervention]  May I interrupt myself Mr Chairman? You must understand that at this stage Doctor Basson is on the Citizen Force Reserve, he's in a voluntary position helping us to conclude issues around the project and I had to deal with him fairly delicately at the time.
"After the briefing I persuaded Doctor Basson to cooperate fully with Mr Mike Kennedy personally as I believed that this would finally give him the opportunity to clear his name"
It took quite a bit of time to persuade him to cooperate but he did.
"To the best of my knowledge a number of discussions did take place between Doctor Basson and Mr Mike Kennedy, the results of which only became known to me in February '94"
I will came back to that point just now.
"It was at about this time that I was requested by Mr Meyer to see Doctor Jan Lourens in connection with some concerns that he had had in relation to the project.  As he testified to the Commission, he did to the best of my recollection, mention the fact that he had been requested by Doctor Basson to manufacture various instruments or gadgets during the time that he was working at SRD, later to become Protechnic.  It is further true that I  indicated that I had not known about this and did in fact not want to know about this as I believed that it had nothing to do with Project Coast"
And if I may just explain Mr Chairman.  SRD was founded early in the '80's when I wasn't even the Surgeon General and I was really not aware whether it had gone on there and I was convinced that these activities were outside the project.  However, I didn't leave it there.  May I just read what I said further?
"It is further true that I indicated that I had not known about this and did not"
Sorry, I've read that already:
"He then indicated to me that he had in fact been confronted at a social function of the special forces of the South African Defence Force by General Liebenberg with a remark to the effect that he, Lourens should look after his, Liebenberg's toys carefully"
I believe he testified that as well last week.
"I then advised him to bring this to the attention of the authorities that were investigating such allegations and to give the facts as he knew it"
What I meant by that is that he should go to the d'Oliveira Commission and give them the information.
"I informed General Liebenberg"
As I testified last week.
"I informed General Liebenberg about the incident without disclosing to him that Doctor Lourens had in fact referred to him directly, to which he gave what was now his standard answer, namely that the d'Oliveira investigation had dealt with these types of allegations and had up to date not acted against any person on the basis of information contained in the Steyn Report"
This was in the middle of October to the best of my recollection.
"General Liebenberg retired as Chief of South African Defence Force on the 31st of October 1993 and was succeeded by General Meiring as Chief of the Army.  From 28th of February 1990 up to the 31st of October '93, General Meiring was a member of the Co-ordinating Management Committee and familiar with the major developments in the project.  Certainly I did not have to brief him extensively about the programme and the process of privatisation and commercialisation as approved by the relevant Ministers and the State President before and in any case he had available the Chief of Staff Finance, Vice Admiral Murray and later Lieutenant General Raubenheimer, Chief of Staff Intelligence, Lieutenant General van der Westhuizen, later Lieutenant General Verbeuk and Chief of Staff Logistics, Vice Admiral Malherbe, to bring him up to date in details in this regard"
 You must remember Mr Chairman, the Chief of the Defence Force is the Chief Accounting Officer and is accountable to Parliament with regard to all funds, also funds that are coming out of the special defence account and this is why I mention this specifically, that he as the new Chief of the Defence Force appointed in November, would have to prepare himself to appear in front of the Parliamentary Committee in February of the following year.
"Furthermore, his main role in the Co-ordinating Management Committee was to help me finalise a number of issues before the final termination of a project.  These issues are clearly documented in the last four Co-ordinating Management Committee meetings which he chaired on the 24th of January 1994, 29th of March '94, 2nd December '94 and the 9th of January '95.  These documents and other relevant documents are contained in Appendix J"
 Mr Chairman, I'm almost through but they are important.  In this document I use not only the minutes of the Co-ordinating Management Committee but also two other documents which have relevance and which appear in the minutes as well.  You will see that on the 22nd of March 1994, this is quite a bit later, I received a letter from Viljoen, French and Couter on behalf of Mr Brand from Organochem, with regard to the fact that this client of theirs had not been paid for the support he'd given the Defence Force with regard to the Baxil Project.  There's details about the sum of money that he was supposed to have been paid for it.  
 If we now go to the minutes of the Management Committees that was cheered by General Meiring, the first one on the 29th of March and we just scan it Mr Chairman.  It indicates that the destruction was completed, that the data process was going on, the water cannon process was going on.  It is really confirmation of everything that I said before.  It ...[indistinct] a section where I'd recommended that Protechnic as the private company should be taken over by Armscor and where we stand with that and there's nothing really much to be concerned of.
 If you look the next one over, on the 2nd of December 1994 under:
"Outstanding claims"
Paragraph 2:
"G Brand, Brigadier Basson gives the background of this claim regarding R350 000.  It's decided that this claim should be paid but that R250 000 would be a reasonable amount"
 What had happened there Mr Chairman is that Brigadier Basson was called to this specific meeting to come and explain why we have now received a letter from an attorney about a claim that should have been paid more than two years before.  
 If we then go to the next meeting on the 24th of January '94 - no, I beg your pardon, I've got them in the wrong order now, I've read that one.  On the 9th of January '95, again a short description of what had happened.  If you look at page 2, paragraph 10:
"Brand gives a motivation why he thinks the full claim should be paid and it should be paid according to standards, all his costs and R60 per hour seeing that it was an accepted formula.  Brigadier Basson should calculate all these"
Now I want to refer you to the other document which is also a document in the possession of the TRC.
"At the discussion of the previous meeting when it was suggested that he should be paid only R250 000 although the agreement was R350 000, I questioned it and the discussion led us to ask Brigadier Basson to obtain for us a detailed description of what Brand had in fact given the Defence Force, what formula did he give us, was it of any value"
The document that you have in front of you is dated the 24th of November '94:
"Claim by Mr Branch for Technical Aid"
There is a description of the dealings with Mr Brand, what he had given to us, what the agreed sum of money was that we would have to pay him and added to it is a document signed by Doctor Koekemoer who testified here last week, and he then does an analysis of the scientific synthetic process that was followed.  And this certainly I will not be able to read as clearly to you as Professor Folb would, but again to help the Co-ordinating Management Committee to decide whether this was really in fact a valuable contribution made by Mr Brand.  And you will see if you look at the first document dated 24 November, Doctor Basson writes the following in paragraph 4:
"According to Doctor Koekemoer's calculations, the raw materials costs for the "safrool" part was R1,927.00 against the R326.34 for "die glediese ester part", a savings of R1.600.00 per kilogram was achieved.  It should be taken into consideration that there was an amount of 1000 kilogram's end product delivered, the total savings in raw material for the clycerium provided by Mr Brand is 1.6 million rand"
This was then presented at this meeting of the CMC on the 9th of January and it was then decided to pay him according to what is recorded here in the minutes.  But it also confirms the production process that was followed with Baxil, as testified to by Doctor Koekemoer and as delivered according to his testimony, early in January '93.
 Now I want to come back to my statement.  I had just been telling you what General Meiring's role was and how he chaired the meetings and the decisions he had to take there and how he had to help me with the privatisation and commercialisation and final termination of the project.  What I now say is the following:
"What is important however is that I shared my alarm about the position of Doctor Basson with him and brought him fully into the picture with regard to my co-operation with Mr Mike Kennedy of the National Intelligence Service.  In this regard I arranged for a number of meetings between myself or rather between himself, myself and Mr Mike Kennedy during the following year to ensure that he would be fully informed of any new developments with respect to Doctor Basson"
This brings us towards the end of 1993.
"Towards the end of 1993, the National Intelligence Service received information that the United States of America and the United Kingdom Governments were preparing to challenge South Africa's confidence building declaration, so-called CBM declaration, in terms of the Biological Weapons Convention at the United Nations and that the USA and UK ambassadors were being prepared by their respective governments to deliver a joint demarche to State President de Klerk.
 At the time the Department of Foreign Affairs who dealt with the CBM declaration at the United Nations on behalf of the SADF and the South African Government, indicated that they were going to submit a similar declaration to the 1993 declaration.  In essence the 1993 declaration referred to a defensive biological weapons programme which according to USA/UK submission to Mr de Klerk, was incorrect or incomplete.
 During February '94, the State President was briefed by Mr Louw, Doctor Scholtz and Mr Kennedy of the National Intelligence Service, on South Africa's CBW Programme and alleged abuses, with particular reference to the so-called: "unofficial programme".  
This is their terminology.
"A week later the briefing was repeated to the Minister of Defence and myself.  I again confirmed that I was totally unaware of any so-called: "unofficial programme" or alleged third force abuses.  I further indicated that if there had in fact been abuse of the programme in the form of third force activities by Brigadier Basson and/or members of 7th Medical Battalion group, it was either on their own initiative or through a second channel of command and control"
Now if I may interrupt myself Mr Chairman, I think with the wisdom of hindsight, at this point I was finally convinced that there was a serious problem, not only on the financial abusive side but certainly also on other activities. 
"The process that followed hereafter is described in great detail in the Project Cloud Report of the National Intelligence Agency and will not be outlined here"
Mr Chairman, I am prepared to take you through 211 pages of this report, however I don't think we have the time and I think the members of the Commission have read it and I would seriously ask them to read it very carefully to see exactly what the process was and the chronology.