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3.1  |  Development of UK strategy and options, 9/11 to early January 2002
239.  Sir David Manning told the Inquiry that he knew from his conversations with
Dr Rice that the “top players” in the US seemed to have been touched personally
by the attacks and that they were “puzzled and deeply disturbed by the appearance
of the anthrax that seemed to have been targeted against key members of the
Administration”.123
240.  Mr Jonathan Powell told the Inquiry that after 9/11:
“… American policy shifted relatively gradually … By the time you get to December
[2001], you have speeches being made in the Senate calling for action on Iraq.
We started sensing that something was happening.”124
JIC Assessment, 28 November 2001: ‘Iraq after September 11 –
The Terrorist Threat’
241.  The JIC assessed on 28 November that Iraq had no responsibility for,
or foreknowledge of, the attacks against the US on 11 September 2001.
242.  Saddam Hussein had ruled out terrorist attacks for the time being; in
the medium term there was a credible threat against Western interests and
regional states.
243.  Practical co-operation between Iraq and Al Qaida was “unlikely”; and there
was no “credible evidence of covert transfers of WMD-related technology and
expertise to terrorist groups”.
244.  Iraq was “capable of constructing devices to disperse chemical or biological
agent, or radiological material”, but there was “no reliable intelligence of any Iraqi
intent”. If the regime was under serious and imminent threat of collapse, WMD
terrorism was possible but, in other circumstances, the threat would be “slight”.
245.  At the request of the FCO the JIC assessed Iraq’s support for terrorism on
28 November.125
246.  The minutes of the JIC record that the Assessment was “significant” and “it would
be important to get its judgements and nuances right, given the importance of the policy
debate that was going on with and within the US about what might or might not be done
next in the campaign against terrorism”.126
123  Public hearing, 30 November 2009, pages 7-8.
124  Public hearing, 18 January 2010, page 17.
125  JIC Assessment, 28 November 2001, ‘Iraq after September 11 – The Terrorist Threat’.
126  Minutes, 28 November 2001, JIC meeting.
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