Executive
Summary
837.
The nature of
the two functions is fundamentally different. As can be seen
from
the JIC
Assessments quoted in, and published with, this report, they
contain careful
language
intended to ensure that no more weight is put on the evidence than
it can bear.
Organising
the evidence in order to present an argument in the language of
Ministerial
statements
produces a quite different type of document.
838.
The widespread
perception that the September 2002 dossier overstated
the
firmness of
the evidence about Iraq’s capabilities and intentions in order to
influence
opinion and
“make the case” for action to disarm Iraq has produced a damaging
legacy,
including
undermining trust and confidence in Government statements,
particularly those
which rely
on intelligence which cannot be independently
verified.
839.
As a result,
in situations where the policy response may involve military action
and
the
evidence, at least in part, depends on inferential judgements drawn
from necessarily
incomplete
intelligence, it may be more difficult to secure support for the
Government’s
position
and agreement to action.
840.
The explicit
and public use of material from JIC Assessments to underpin
policy
decisions
will be infrequent. But, from the evidence on the compilation of
the September
dossier,
the lessons for any similar exercise in future would
be:
•
The need
for clear separation of the responsibility for analysis and
assessment
of
intelligence from the responsibility for making the argument for a
policy.
•
The
importance of precision in describing the position. In the case of
the
September
dossier, for instance, the term “programme” was used to
describe
disparate
activities at very different stages of maturity. There was a
“programme”
to extend
the range of the Al Samoud missile. There was no
“programme”
in any
meaningful sense to develop and produce nuclear weapons. Use
of
the
shorthand CW or BW in relation to Iraq’s capability obscured
whether the
reference
was to weapons or warfare. Constant use of the term “weapons
of
mass
destruction” without further clarification obscured the differences
between
the
potential impact of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and
the
ability to
deliver them effectively. For example, there would be a
considerable
difference
between the effects of an artillery shell filled with mustard gas,
which
is a
battlefield weapon, and a long‑range ballistic missile with a
chemical or
biological
warhead, which is a weapon of terror.
•
The need to
identify and accurately describe the confidence and robustness
of
the
evidence base. There may be evidence which is “authoritative” or
which puts
an issue
“beyond doubt”; but there are unlikely to be many circumstances
when
those
descriptions could properly be applied to inferential judgements
relying on
intelligence.
•
The need to
be explicit about the likelihood of events. The possibility of
Iraq
producing
and using an improvised nuclear device was, rightly, omitted from
the
dossier.
But the claim that Iraq could build a nuclear weapon within one to
two
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