4.2 | Iraq WMD assessments, July to September 2002

799. Mr Blair told the Hutton Inquiry:

“… the most important thing was I was very careful in my statement [to Parliament]

to make it clear what we were and were not saying.”438

800. Asked if there was anything in his statement to Parliament he wanted to

emphasise, Mr Blair told the Hutton Inquiry:

“I think the only thing … is just to emphasise the fact that I make it clear what

I perceived the threat to be.”439

801. Mr Blair also said:

“… it was essential that anything we said in the course of my statement … we could

hand on heart say: this is the assessment of the Joint Intelligence Committee.”440

802. The Iraq Inquiry asked Mr Blair for a statement on who had been involved in the

preparation of his statement, and who had cleared the intelligence it contained.441

803. Mr Blair wrote:

“In respect of my statement of 24 September 2002 to the House of Commons

I would have relied principally on the dossier and JIC Assessments and written

and oral intelligence briefing, some of which came in just before the statement, in

particular the [9] September JIC Assessment which referred to mobile facilities.”442

804. Mr Blair added:

“I have gone back, in the course of compiling this statement, to the vast number of

different documents that refer to Saddam and WMD. I simply make the point that

the assumptions in all of them was that Saddam was committed in both the intent

and the action in developing WMD. Of course, the Iraq Survey Group shows that

the intent indeed remained and there were multiple breaches of UN resolutions.”

805. In his statement to the House of Commons on 24 September, Mr Blair began

by thanking the Speaker for recalling Parliament “to debate the best way to deal with

the issue of the present leadership of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction” and

described the dossier as “detailing the history of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction

programme, its breach of United Nations resolutions and its attempts to rebuild that

illegal programme”.443

438 The Hutton Inquiry, public hearing, 28 August 2003, page 10.

439 The Hutton Inquiry, public hearing, 28 August 2003, page 14.

440 The Hutton Inquiry, public hearing, 28 August 2003, pages 18-19.

441 Inquiry request for a witness statement, 13 December 2010, Q3(a) and 3(b) page 2.

442 Statement, 14 January 2011, page 5.

443 House of Commons, Official Report, 24 September 2002, columns 1-23.

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