3.6 |
Development of UK strategy and options, November 2002 to January
2003
•
There had
been “No serious attempt” to answer any of the
unresolved
questions
highlighted by UNSCOM or to refute any of the points
made
in the
UK dossier on Iraq’s WMD programme.
313.
The JIC
Assessment addressed the substance of the issues, but
the
judgement
that Iraq had made no attempt to deal with the points in the
dossier
made the
dossier a test for Iraq.
314.
That was
not its purpose. It was for the UN not the UK to define the
bar
for Iraq.
315.
An ‘Initial
DIS Assessment’ of Iraq’s declaration, based on an analysis of the
text
provided in
English and a partial but continuing translation of the key
sections written
in Arabic,
was produced on 16 December.107
316.
On 18
December, the JIC discussed a draft Assessment, supported by the
DIS
analysis of
16 December.108
317.
Comments
recorded in the minutes of the discussion included:
•
There had
been “no significant disagreements of perception or
judgement
between the
UK and the US”.
•
The
declaration was “surprisingly bad”; virtually none of the issues
arising from
the 1999
UNSCOM report had been answered.
•
Further
analysis of the annexes “would be an enormous job”, and the UK
“would
have to
rely upon seeing the UN translation of much of the Arabic
material”.
That text
was “unlikely to contain the missing information”.
•
There would
be “a fuller assessment in due course”.
318.
The JIC
Assessment, ‘An Initial Assessment of Iraq’s WMD Declaration’,
was
issued on
18 December, with the DIS Assessment of 16 December as an
Annex.109
319.
The Key
Judgements were:
•
The
declaration failed “to address the issues outstanding from UNSCOM’s
report
to the UN
Security Council in 1999”.
•
Iraq
maintained that it currently had “no proscribed WMD
programmes”.
•
“The
majority of information in the declaration” had “already been
passed to the
UN in some
form”.
•
“The new
material so far found” did “not alter UK assessments of Iraq’s
WMD
programmes”.
107
Paper
[DIS], 16 December 2002, ‘Iraq: Initial DIS Assessment of the
“Currently Accurate, Full and
Complete
Declaration”’.
108
Minutes, 18
December 2002, JIC meeting.
109
JIC
Assessment, 18 December 2002, ‘An Initial Assessment of Iraq’s WMD
Declaration’.
57