4.2 |
Iraq WMD assessments, July to September 2002
is a grave
and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against
the
evidence.
To assume … good faith is … a reckless gamble … [T]his is a risk we
must
not
take.
“We have
been more than patient … Saddam Hussein has defied all these
efforts
and
continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we
may be
completely
certain he has … nuclear weapons is when … he uses one. We owe it
to
all our
citizens to prevent that day from coming.”
397.
Mr Scarlett
discussed the draft dossier with US Administration
officials
on 12 September.
398.
Sir
Christopher Meyer, British Ambassador to the US, reported that, in
meetings
on 12
September, US Administration officials had welcomed
Mr Scarlett’s briefing on the
UK plan to
publish a dossier on Iraqi WMD on 24 September.195
399.
Mr Scarlett
had “stressed the importance of co-ordinating UK and US
public
presentation
strategies”. The issues discussed included:
•
recent
Iraqi attempts to procure aluminium tubes; and
•
the
differences between US and UK assessments of the timelines for Iraq
to
acquire a
nuclear weapons capability. President Bush had said publicly,
notably
in his
speech to the UN General Assembly, that, if it obtained fissile
material,
Iraq could
build a nuclear weapon within a year.
400.
Sir
Christopher Meyer also wrote:
“US
interlocutors all pointed more generally to the need not to get
trapped into
juridical
standards of proof. The bulk of the case should rest on history
and
common‑sense
argument, rather than specific new intelligence. When it came
to
Saddam’s
WMD, absence of evidence was not the same as evidence of
absence.
We should
not be afraid to argue that, just as in 1991, Iraq’s programmes
were
probably
much further advanced than we knew.”
401.
One official
in the National Security Council suggested:
“… setting
out convincing arguments as to why Saddam continued his costly
pursuit
of WMD.
Deterring attacks on the regime was not a full explanation. For
Saddam,
WMD were
weapons of choice, not of last resort. In particular … [he]
believed,
Saddam
wanted nuclear weapons so that he could threaten or use CW or BW in
the
region, and
use his nuclear capability to deter nuclear retaliation … we should
not be
afraid to
make this argument publicly.”
195
Telegram
Misc 2 Washington to FCO London, 12 September 2002, ‘Personal
Public Dossiers on
Iraqi WMD’.
189