The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

457. Mr McKane’s meeting on 12 April agreed that:

“… in terms of public presentation, it would be desirable to stick with the chemical

weapons numbers used by Ministers in Parliament. If the numbers of tonnes

of declared precursor chemicals was in fact seriously out of line with latest DIS

assessments and US assessments, then we would recommend use of the new

numbers. Jane Hamilton-Eddy agreed to write following receipt of further input from

Sebastian Wood in Washington. Thereafter [junior official] would submit advice to

the Foreign Secretary in the course of next week. The numbers in the paper can

then be finalised …”199

458. The FCO review of the revised DIS estimates for Iraqi holdings of precursor

chemicals and special munitions which were “unaccounted for” was sent to Mr Straw

on 23 April.200

459. Mr Straw was told that the DIS had been asked to ensure that the figures

previously used in public were defensible, given that they were “based on a series of

Iraqi declarations (some of which have altered over time) extrapolated from data in

UNSCOM official records” and it was “inherently difficult to arrive at precise figures

(a point exemplified by the fact that there is no inter-Agency agreement in Washington

on a definitive set of numbers)”. The DIS had “therefore produced revised estimates

which it judges would be readily defensible in public”.

460. The revised estimates were that:

“UNSCOM inspectors were unable to account for:

–– up to 3,000 tonnes (previously 4,000) of precursor chemicals, ‘approximately

300 (previously 610) tonnes of which … were unique to the production of

VX nerve agent’;

–– up to 360 tonnes of bulk CW agent including 1.5 tonnes of VX (new figures);

–– and over 30,000 (previously 31,000) special munitions for delivery of

chemical and biological agents;

–– large quantities of growth media acquired for use in the production of

biological weapons – enough to produce over three times the amount of

anthrax Iraq admits to having manufactured.”

461. Mr Straw was advised to announce the revised figures to Parliament, and

incorporate them into the “JIC public lines document” on Iraqi capabilities, which the

Cabinet Office would be submitting to Mr Blair “by the end of the month”.

462. An alternative to such an announcement would be “to move away from precise

figures and use more general terms … on the grounds that precise figures are inherently

199 Letter McKane to Tanfield, 12 April 2002, ‘Iraq’.

200 Minute FCO [junior official] to Dowse and PS [FCO], 23 April 2002, ‘Iraqi WMD: Public Dossier’.

96