The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
evidence …
We have heard again and again that there is a dossier of evidence
about
Saddam
Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Why haven’t we got it up to
now and
when are we
going to see it?” Would there be any evidence in the dossier which
had
been
“gleaned in the last four years” that Saddam Hussein had “moved any
further down
the route
to nuclear weapons”? There were suggestions that there was “not
going to be
much new”;
and that, in terms of public opinion, there was “a mountain to
climb”.
253.
In response to
the first question Mr Blair replied:
“Originally
I had the intention that we wouldn’t get round to publishing the
dossier
until we’d
actually taken the key decisions. I think it is probably a better
idea to bring
that
forward.”
254.
Mr Blair
added: “A lot of the work has already been done, there needs to be
some
more work
and some more checking” but “the best thing to do is to publish …
within the
next few
weeks”. When that happened:
“… people
will see that there is no doubt at all the United Nations
resolutions that
Saddam is
in breach of are there for a purpose. He [Saddam Hussein] is
without any
question,
still trying to develop that chemical, biological, potentially
nuclear capability
and to
allow him to do so without any let or hindrance, just to say, we
[sic] can carry
on and do
it, I think would be irresponsible.”
255.
In terms of
the specifics of Iraq’s WMD Mr Blair made a number of
comments
including:
•
“… there is
no doubt that at some point the Iraqi regime were trying to
develop
nuclear
weapons … I believe that there is evidence that they will acquire
nuclear
weapons
capability if they possibly can.”
•
“Now we
will provide what support we can for that, although of course
the
absence of
inspectors … means there is necessarily a limit. But I don’t
think
we should
be in any doubt about the nature of this regime, they will
acquire
whatever
weapons they possibly can.”
•
“Certainly
they were trying to obtain a nuclear weapons capability. I think
there is
some
evidence that they continued to do so.”
•
“… we don’t
really know what is happening now, there are huge amounts
of
stocks of
chemical, biological weapons unaccounted for.”
•
“… we can’t
be quite sure what is happening on the nuclear side … but on
the
biological
and chemical weapons side there is no doubt about it, there are
vast
stocks of
these weapons unaccounted for by the previous weapons
inspectors.”
•
“And in
addition there is real concern that there is ballistic missile
technology.”
256.
Mr Blair
suggested that the reason Iraq might not be letting inspections
take place
was because
“the last time the inspectors were in there, they uncovered so much
that
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