4.2 |
Iraq WMD assessments, July to September 2002
•
The need to
identify and accurately describe the confidence and
robustness
of the evidence base. There may be evidence which is
“authoritative”
or which puts an issue “beyond doubt”; but there are
unlikely to
be many circumstances when those descriptions could
properly be
applied to inferential judgements relying on
intelligence.
•
The need to
be explicit about the likelihood of events. The
possibility
of Iraq
producing and using an improvised nuclear device was,
rightly,
omitted
from the dossier. But the claim that Iraq could build a
nuclear
weapon
within one to two years if it obtained fissile material and
other
essential
components from foreign sources was included without
addressing
how feasible and likely that would be. In addition,
the
Executive
Summary gave prominence to the IISS suggestion that
Iraq
would be
able to assemble nuclear weapons within months if it
could
obtain
fissile material, without reference to the material in the main
text
of the
dossier which made clear that the UK took a very different
view.
•
The need to
be scrupulous in discriminating between facts and
knowledge
on the one
hand and opinion, judgement or belief on the other.
•
The need
for vigilance to avoid unwittingly crossing the
line from
supposition
to certainty, including by constant repetition of
received wisdom.
901.
When
assessed intelligence is explicitly and publicly used to support
a
policy
decision, there would be benefit in subjecting that assessment and
the
underpinning
intelligence to subsequent scrutiny, by a suitable,
independent
body, such
as the Intelligence and Security Committee, with a view to
identifying
lessons for
the future.
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