4.1 |
Iraq WMD assessments, pre-July 2002
been
recalled to work on the programme in 1998 and other reports on
Iraq’s attempts to
procure
aluminium tubes and magnets.36
81.
The Butler
Report stated that the judgements on Iraq’s CW
programme:
“appear to
have been based on three main pieces of evidence:
•
A single
report from a new source who reported details of a
project
three years
ago to integrate … VX into rocket artillery warheads and
the
subsequent
filling of 60 warheads.
•
A further
single report from a new source, passing on the comments of
a
subsource
that he had been part of a project to produce the nerve agent
VX
in the
period to 1998, again three years earlier.
•
Intelligence
pointing to the restoration of a facility formerly used
for
production
of chemical agent precursors and on shipments to the
plant,
although
there was no positive evidence that precursors had been
produced.
“A further
report from a liaison service on the establishment of a group of
chemical
experts to
work on the production of chemical agent using mobile facilities
appears
to have
been discounted by the JIC.”37
82.
The Butler
Report concluded that the Assessment “reflected these reports
fairly”; the
intelligence
“applied mainly to historical (as opposed to current) activity and,
even so,
was by no
means conclusive”.38
83.
Mr Miller
told the Inquiry:
•
There was a
new, UK human source at that time, “giving an account
of
weaponisation
of … VX in the mid- to late 1990s”.
•
There was
“another new source, with older reporting, about production in
the
earlier
1990s”.
•
The
reporting on VX “seemed to be reports to which we should pay
serious
attention”
from “people who would have been in a position to know”,
although
one of them
was “a new source”.
•
Chemical
production had been mentioned in the reporting “through liaison
on
mobile
laboratories … The view at the time by the technical experts was
that
if there
were mobile facilities … they were more likely to have a role in
filling
chemical
munitions than the production of chemical agents.”39
36
Private
hearing, 5 May 2010, page 2.
37
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraphs
233-234.
38
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
235.
39
Private
hearing, 5 May 2010, pages 7-8.
29