The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
Saddam Hussein
“might pursue an extreme course of action at an earlier
stage”
if he
judged it to be “worth the risk of providing the US with overt
justification to
attack”.
•
Unorthodox
options might include “the early or pre‑emptive use of
CBW”;
“CBW
terrorism: although
Saddam probably lacks the capability to deploy a
sophisticated
device, he could cause widespread panic”.
•
“Should he
feel his fate is sealed, Saddam’s judgement might change to
‘bring
the temple
down’ on his enemies no matter what the cost …” At that
stage,
“Saddam
would order the unrestrained use of CBW against coalition
forces,
supporting
regional states and Israel, although he would face practical
problems
of command
and control, the loyalty of his commanders, logistics problems
and
the
availability of chemical and biological agents in sufficient
quantities to be
effective
and the means to deliver them.”
“Iraq would
probably try to ride out air strikes while conserving its ground
forces.
Iraq’s
likely strategy for a ground war would be to make any coalition
advance as
slow and
costly as possible, trying to force the coalition to fight in urban
areas.”
•
The JIC had
“little insight into how the Iraqi military might plan to fight
any
ground
war … At present we have little evidence to judge whether Iraq
sees
urban or
guerrilla warfare as feasible options. Iraqi effectiveness would
be
mitigated
by problems of command and control, inadequate training and
poor
morale. We
doubt that guerrilla activity would be very effective; urban
warfare is
more
plausible …”
“There is a
significant potential for Saddam to miscalculate, either by
escalating
a crisis at
an early stage, or by making concessions too late in the day to
avert an
attack.”
143.
In an
interview on NBC’s
Meet the
Press programme on
25 August, Dr Hans Blix,
Executive
Chairman of UNMOVIC, stated that there had been “discussion and
dialogue
under the
auspices of the [UN] Secretary‑General” since the early part of
2002, in which
Iraq had
“shown a greater interest in inspections”; but he could not say
that they had
“moved
closer to an invitation to the inspectors”.50
144.
Dr Blix
added that Iraq did not see inspections as an isolated issue, it
should be
addressed
in conjunction with and concurrently with other outstanding
issues.
145.
Asked whether
Iraq possessed biological, chemical or nuclear weapons,
Dr Blix
responded
that there were “many open questions” but the inspectors did not
have proof
that Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction.
50
NBC,
25 August
2002, Meet the
Press.
120