4.2 |
Iraq WMD assessments, July to September 2002
746.
The CIG judged
that the Ababil-100, a 150km range solid propellant missile,
was
likely to
become operational within two years, and intelligence indicated
that Iraq had
plans to
extend its range.
747.
The JIC
Assessment of 9 September 2002 stated that Iraq was
developing
Al Samoud
and Ababil-100 missiles with a range of “150km plus”, which were
being
deployed to
military units and could have “an emergency operational capability
with
conventional
warheads”, not a capability to deliver chemical or biological
warheads.416
748.
Mr Blair’s
statement that he believed that the “assessed intelligence
has
established
beyond doubt” that “Saddam has continued to produce
chemical
and
biological weapons” and that “he continues in his efforts to
develop nuclear
weapons”,
went further than the assessments of the JIC.
749.
The JIC
should have advised Mr Blair that he could not make
that
statement.
750.
Asked about
Mr Blair’s statement that he believed “the assessed
intelligence has
established
beyond doubt” that Iraq has continued to produce chemical and
biological
weapons,
continues in its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and had been
able to
extend the
range of its ballistic missile programme, Sir John Scarlett told
the Inquiry
that he:
“… saw the
… Foreword as something quite separate from the text of the
dossier
itself. The
text of the dossier itself I was clearly responsible for
drafting.
“The
Foreword was overtly a political statement signed by the Prime
Minister. So it
was his
wording and his comments that were there throughout, although I did
make
one or two,
three maybe, small changes on the text of the Foreword, basically
to
correct one
or two small points, which I thought were – or actually add at one
point
in
particular about who received intelligence assessments in the first
paragraph, and
also to
bring it into line with the text of the dossier
itself.
“There was
a particular point on concealment. I didn’t see it as something
that I
would
change. That’s all I can recall now … it is quite difficult now to
reconstruct the
actual sort
of process of how this happened several years later … [B]ut my
memory
at the time
quite clearly was this was something which was the Prime Minister’s
and
it was
going out under his signature. So it was different from the
attention that I paid
to the
wording of the dossier.”417
416
JIC
Assessment, 9 September 2002, ‘Iraqi Use of Chemical and Biological
Weapons –
Possible Scenarios’.
417
Public
hearing, 8 December 2009, pages 62-63.
259