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
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
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
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.
353