The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
1055.
Addressing two
questions, Mr Cannon advised that the document:
•
Exposed the
“scale and range” of Iraq’s WMD and the “long-term pattern
of
concealment
and deceit”. It flagged up “recent examples of Iraqi
deception”.
It could be
used as “evidence of Iraq’s failure to co-operate” and its
UN
provenance
“gave it more credibility than products of potential
belligerents”.
•
Could be
used after publication as a quarry for benchmarks, but it
“tended
to focus on
hardware rather than interviews” and the “sheer number
of
outstanding
questions” made it possible for the Iraqis reasonably to ask
for
more time.
Boiling down the list might open the way to suggestions that
Iraq
had partially complied.
1056.
Mr Cannon
concluded:
“But we can
draw on the ‘clusters’ in drawing up our own ‘benchmarks’ … We
need
to ensure
that on balance it is seen as a list of the things that Iraq should
have done,
not a list
of things for Iraq to do in the future.”
1057.
FCO analysis
of the draft “clusters” document sent to No.10 on 5 March
explained
that the
document was “intended to form the basis for UNMOVIC’s
determination of the
‘Key
Disarmament Tasks’”, which the terms of resolution 1284 (1999)
stipulated were to
be
submitted to the Security Council for discussion by 27 March.
A revised draft would
be
submitted to the Council on 7 March.331
1058.
The FCO
suggested that France, Germany and Russia would “try to
use
the document
to draw up a ‘leisurely’ timetable for those issues to be
addressed”.
The UK
position had been that “without full and active Iraqi co-operation,
it is not
possible to
draw up a comprehensive list of disarmament tasks”; and that: “In
any
case, the
requirements of resolution 1441 take precedence.”
1059.
The FCO drew
attention to a number of points in the draft document,
including:
•
Iraq had
“admitted refurbishing some equipment previously destroyed
by
UNSCOM, in
particular some chemical facilities”.
•
There had
been “a modest expansion of biological industries … UNMOVIC
also
acknowledge
that there have been a number of intelligence reports
concerning
bio-weapon
production facilities.”
•
There had
“been ‘a surge of activity’ in missile technology over the
past
four years”.
1060.
The FCO
commented that the draft document was “not exhaustive” but
did
reveal “the
enormous amount of Iraqi non-co-operation over the years; a 167
page-long
catalogue
of Iraqi intransigence”.
331
Fax Owen to
Rycroft to, 5 March 2003, attaching Papers prepared by Patrick
Davies (MED) for
Peter Ricketts,
‘Iraq: Key Papers’.
368