The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

compartmented intelligence [the SIS report of 11 September]”, which had not been

seen by the DIS, “which was underpinning the judgement”.330 He had been told that

arrangements had been made to brief “DIS management” on the intelligence. Mr Scarlett

added that, in the absence of comment on that point in the DIS comments on the draft

dossier on 19 September, silence had been taken as assent.

605. Sir John Scarlett told the Iraq Inquiry that he “was aware that there had been

questioning from within the DIS about the fact that they hadn’t seen the compartmented

[11 September] report”. He and Mr Miller had “agreed that it would be necessary” for the

DIS to be shown the report and, as far as he was concerned, “that happened” and there

was “no further awareness” on his part.331

606. In a minute on 19 September to Dr Roper, Dr Brian Jones, the branch head of the

nuclear, biological and chemical section in the Scientific and Technical Directorate of the

Defence Intelligence Staff, wrote:

“1. … the generation of the Iraqi dossier which, in the last two weeks has

involved a number of iterations which have incorporated new intelligence. It is my

understanding that some of the intelligence has not been made available to my

branch. Because of this they have had to express their reservations on several

aspects of the dossier. Most of these have been resolved. However a number

remain … and it is important that I note for you at this stage the remaining areas

where we are unable to confirm the statements made on the basis of the information

available to my branch.

“2. Although we have no problem with a judgement based on intelligence that

Saddam attaches great importance to possessing WMD we have not seen the

intelligence that ‘shows’ this to be the case. Nor have we seen intelligence that

‘shows’ he does not regard them only as a weapon of last resort, although our

judgement is that it would be sensible to assume that he might use them in a

number of other scenarios. The intelligence we have seen indicates rather than

‘shows’ that Iraq has been planning to conceal its WMD capabilities, and it would

be … reasonable to assume that he would do this.

“3. We have a number of questions in our minds relating to the intelligence on

military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, particularly about the

times mentioned and the failure to differentiate between the two types of weapon.

“4. We have not seen intelligence which we believe ‘shows’ that Iraq has continued

to produce CW agent in 1998-2002, although our judgement is that it has probably

done so. Whilst we are even more convinced that Iraq has continued to produce

BW agent (on the basis of mobile production intelligence) we would not go so far

as to say that we ‘know’ this to be the case.

330 The Hutton Inquiry, public hearing, 23 September 2003, pages 110-111.

331 Private hearing, 5 May 2010, page 47.

230