The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
damaged the
aircraft shelters associated with the L-29 trainer, but no aircraft
had
been
destroyed; and
•
disrupted
security organisations involved in Iraq’s WMD, but those connected
with
concealment
were unlikely to have been damaged.97
The CIG
Assessment of 15 March 2002 stated that a “few high profile sites”
associated
with Iraq’s
ballistic missile programme had been targeted in the
operation.98
The DIS
advised in April 2002 that the “direct
impact” of
Operation Desert Fox on Iraq’s
CBW
capabilities was “very limited, being confined to an attack on a
single facility with BW
potential,
with no attacks at all on CW-related facilities”.99
The DIS
understood:
•
“Desert Fox
was not intended to eliminate Iraq’s ability to regenerate
its
biological,
chemical or nuclear weapons programmes and
had minimal effect
on this
ability.”
•
Even if the BW
facility had been destroyed, “this would not greatly affect
Iraq’s
capability
to regenerate its BW programme”.
•
The Ministry
of Industry and Military Industrialisation building, which
was
presumed
among other things to have been “the administrative centre for
Iraq’s
WMD
programmes”, had “sustained moderate damage”.
•
The value of
the operation “from a WMD perspective” had been the damage
to
“Iraq’s
means of delivery”. The DIS’s internal assessment was that the
“ballistic
missile
programme had been set back by a year, and that damage to
some
facilities
could take up to another year to repair”.
Mr Webb
told the Inquiry that, after Operation Desert Fox, it had been
concluded it was
“not
effective” and the MOD was “not able to offer any assurance that
you would have
been able
to deal with the WMD problem solely by air power”.100
Subsequently
Mr Webb stated that the operation had “a very useful effect on
reducing the
capacity of
the Iraqi integrated air defence system” which was “posing a
threat” to aircraft
enforcing
the No-Fly Zones.101
210.
The
Assessments Staff produced a revised draft of the dossier
on
28 February.
211.
Ms
Hamilton-Eddy circulated a revised draft paper, ‘WMD Programmes
of
Concern’,
on 28 February. She wrote that it:
“… seems to
be coming along well. But there are a few areas where …
statements
need to be
backed up with evidence. Iraq continues to look a bit
thin.”102
97
JIC
Assessment, 10 May 2001, ‘Iraqi WMD Programmes: Status and
Vulnerability’.
98
CIG
Assessment, 15 March 2002, ‘The Status of Iraqi WMD
Programmes’.
99
Letter
Barker to Hamilton-Eddy, 8 April 2002, ‘Iraq: WMD’.
100
Public
hearing, 24 November 2009, page 76.
101
Public
hearing, 24 November 2009, page 136.
102
Letter
Hamilton-Eddy to [JIC Proliferation (CIG) members], 28 February
2002, ‘WMD Programmes
of Concern’.
52