The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
413.
The report
stated that the SIS source had commented that:
•
“Saddam
Hussein was determined to maintain his CBW capability. If the
major
production
centres near Baghdad were attacked and damaged, the
regime
would order
staff to relocate to an alternative undamaged site.”
•
Iraq “was
concentrating its efforts on the production of anthrax and that
Iraq had
received a
lot of help from neighbouring and friendly countries”.
•
The action
was “in preparation for the admission of weapons
inspectors”.
•
“New
accommodation for senior scientists and their colleagues was being
built
near to the
major BW and CW production sites. The families of those
scientists
would, in
effect, be held hostage. They would be discouraged from deserting
or
from
leaking information about activities at their facilities that might
lead to the
sites being
targeted for bombing by allied forces.”
414.
An SIS comment
informed readers that:
•
Chlorine
was “one of the base chemicals for the production of CW agents
such
as mustard
and the nerve agent sarin”.
•
Chlorine
was also used in the production of uranium trichloride “which in
turn
may be used
as a feed material for the electromagnetic isotope
separation
process
(EMIS) to enrich uranium for weapons production”. Iraq had
previously
admitted,
in its declarations to UNSCOM, “attempting to pursue this route
to
produce
weapon grade highly enriched uranium” before 1991; and,
“Although
Iraq
encountered problems in scaling up the production capability, it
had
succeeded
in producing a small quantity of lower enrichments and
was
continuing
to resolve the problems before the EMIS programme was
halted
by Coalition
air strikes.”
415.
The report was
described as “high impact” and the source was described
as:
“A new
source on trial with direct access.” SIS advised that readers would
“receive
relevant
briefing as soon as can be arranged”.
416.
The report was
sent to Mr Simon McDonald (Mr Straw’s Principal
Private
Secretary),
Sir Michael Jay, Mr Wright, Mr Chaplin, Mr Ehrman,
Sir David Manning,
Mr Scarlett,
Mr Bowen, Mr Miller, Mr Peter Watkins
(Mr Hoon’s Principal Private
Secretary),
Sir Kevin Tebbit (MOD Permanent Under Secretary) and
Mr Webb.
417.
It was not
sent to Sir David Omand, AM French, Mr Tony Cragg, MOD
Deputy
Chief of
Defence Intelligence (DCDI), or the Heads of GCHQ or
MI5.
418.
Documents seen
by the Inquiry state that the distribution was approved
personally
by Sir
Richard Dearlove.
192