The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
288.
Sir John
Scarlett added:
“… at that
time none of us in the Assessment Staff, including me, knew the
details of
this
sourcing. Nor were we clear how many lines of reporting there were,
and I know
that
because just before the conflict I was asking … how many lines of
reporting are
we actually
talking about? …”141
289.
The
withdrawal, in September 2004, of reporting on Iraq intentions for
the use
of CBW and
earlier reporting on mobile biological production facilities, is
addressed
in Section
4.3.
The
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) published a
dossier, Iraq’s
Weapons
of Mass
Destruction: A Net Assessment, on 9
September.142
In his
press statement, the Director of the IISS, Dr John Chipman, said
that the IISS
objective
had been “to assess,
as accurately and dispassionately as possible,
Iraq’s current
WMD capabilities”.143
The task was
challenging: “Iraq made
every
effort to
obscure its past, obstruct dismantlement of its present assets, and
retain
capabilities
for the future.”
Other
comments made by Dr Chipman included:
•
UNSCOM’s
experience showed that no on-site inspections could
succeed
“unless
inspectors develop an imaginative and carefully
co-ordinated
counter-concealment
strategy”.
•
UNMOVIC would
need “time to develop and refine the unique inspection
techniques
required” and to develop “considerable field experience to
develop
the
necessary tradecraft to deal with Iraqi obfuscation
efforts”.
•
The “strength
of Baghdad’s commitment to possess WMD” was “measurable
in
part by its
efforts to resist unfettered UN inspections”.
The IISS
dossier identified the differences in view amongst experts as to
whether Iraq was
focused on
reconstituting its biological and chemical warfare capabilities or
was “prepared
to risk
detection and re-invest massive resources in pursuit of nuclear
weapons”.144
There
was,
however, “general agreement” that it was “very unlikely to have
achieved the ability
to produce
sufficient fissile material for nuclear weapons”. But if
Iraq:
“… were
able to acquire sufficient fissile material from foreign sources,
it could
probably
produce nuclear weapons on short order, perhaps in a matter of
months.
This is
based on the plausible assumption that Iraqi designers, working
from
the 1991 baseline,
have been able to complete the preparations for
building
a nuclear weapon …”
141
Private
hearing, 5 June 2010, pages 30-31.
142
IISS
Dossier, 9 September 2002, Iraq’s
Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment.
143
IISS Press
Statement Dr John Chipman, 9 September 2002, Iraq’s
Weapons of Mass Destruction:
A Net
Assessment.
144
IISS
Dossier, 9 September 2002, Iraq’s
Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment.
168