4.2 |
Iraq WMD assessments, July to September 2002
We also …
need more direct argument on why containment is breaking
down
In other
words, putting the emphasis as much (maybe more) on the present
and
future, as
the past
“The key
must be to show that Saddam has the capacity, and is intent on
using it
in ways
that threaten world stability, and that our ability to stop him is
increasingly
376.
Mr Rycroft
responded:
“yes, part
of the answer to ‘why now?’ is that the threat will only get worse
if we
don’t act
now – the threat that Saddam will use WMD, but also the threat that
Iraq’s
WMD will
somehow get into the hands of the terrorists […] This all links
into the illicit
money,
since the more funds he has – and his cash pile is growing all the
time – the
more likely
he is to buy fissile material etc”.178
377.
Mr Godric
Smith, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman, wrote:
“I think
there is material here we can work with but it is a bit of a muddle
and needs
a lot more
clarity in the guts of it in terms of what is new/old In each area
we need
to distinguish
between the two and better source (as much as we can) to
intelligence
It needs to
be more factual if anything, less assertion based, with the
rhetoric
stripped
out as I think this undermines it”.179
378.
Mr Bassett
responded that he agreed with Mr Smith and suggested that
the
language of
the dossier was “too journalistic”, it needed to be written “more
in officialese”
and “much
more weight and detail”:
“-
crucially though, it’s intelligence-lite … All intelligence
material tends to read like
unevidenced
assertion, and we have to find a way to get over this a) by
having
better
intelligence material […], b) by having more material (and better
flagged-up),
and c) more
convincing material …”180
379.
There was a
meeting between Mr Campbell and Mr Scarlett, and others
from
No.10, at
6pm on 11 September.181
380.
In his diaries
Mr Campbell wrote that he:
“… gave
some suggestions later re a different structure. We had the basic
story
and now
had to fill it out. TB looked at it and said it was pretty
compelling stuff.”182
177
Email Kelly
to Campbell, 11 September 2002, ‘Dossier’.
178
Email
Rycroft to Kelly and Campbell, 11 September 2002,
‘Dossier’.
179
Email Smith
to Pruce and Campbell, 11 September 2002, ‘Draft Dossier (J
Scarlett Version of 10 Sept)’.
180
Email
Bassett to Smith, Pruce and Campbell, 11 September 2002, ‘Draft
Dossier (J Scarlett Version
of 10
Sept)’.
181
Emails
Blackshaw to Poston and Mathews, 11 September 2002.
182
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
185