3.8 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 8 to 20 March
2003
57.
Mr Tim
Dowse, Head of the FCO Non-Proliferation Department, wrote to
Mr Peter
Ricketts,
FCO Political Director, on 10 March, commenting that the No.10
benchmarks
“more or
less” overlapped with a version he had produced, but cautioning
against setting
a figure on
the number of scientists to be interviewed outside
Iraq.19
In
Mr Dowse’s view
there was
“no magic in 150”; UNMOVIC could not handle
that number.
58.
Mr Dowse
also commented that:
•
The tests
on biological programmes might include growth media as well
as
anthrax.
Iraq had admitted possessing material “as recently as 1999” and it
was
“simply not
credible that all documentation has disappeared in such a
short
space of
time”.
•
He had
“included the mobile bio-labs mainly because they’ve had so
much
publicity”,
and there was “fairly firm intelligence about them”; but if Iraq
refused
to admit
their existence, the UK was “in a bind, because we are unlikely to
be
able to
prove they do exist. So perhaps we should drop them.”
•
He had
included bombs and shells because they were “concrete things,
more
easily
visualised than VX”, and there was “less room for argument over
whether
they have
been destroyed or not” in the light of the “scope for Iraqi
obfuscation
over
destruction of VX”.
•
The problem
with “almost any benchmark relating to SCUD-type missiles”
was
that Iraq
had claimed they were destroyed and “we can’t prove the
contrary”.
Demands for
the 50 SCUD warheads which were “unaccounted-for” faced
the
same
problem.
•
He thought
accelerated destruction of the Al Samoud 2 missiles and
the
associated
production equipment, including “the test stand [at al-Rafah] if
Blix
agrees”,
would be a better test.
•
The No.10
benchmark on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) was “a poor
one”
referring
to a programme in the 1990s. It would be better “to use the ‘drone
with
a wingspan
of 7.45 metres’ which UNMOVIC have just discovered” which
had
not been
declared by Iraq and which the US was “pretty confident” was an
illegal
system
which they thought they had tracked “flying over
500km”.
•
His
preference was to pitch the test more widely for the destruction of
“all UAVs
with CBW
applications”.
59.
Mr Ricketts
sent the comments to Mr Rycroft, observing that there were
some good
comments
and Mr Dowse was available to be used for further
drafting.20
60.
In his
discussion with Mr Blair, Dr Blix appears to have been
ambivalent about
the
specifics of the UK’s proposed tests.
19
Email Dowse
to Ricketts, 10 March 2003, ‘Benchmarks – No 10
Version’.
20
Manuscript
comment Ricketts to Rycroft on Email Dowse [NPD FCO] to Ricketts,
10 March 2003,
‘Benchmarks
– No 10 Version’.
411