4.3 |
Iraq WMD assessments, October 2002 to March 2003
{{allow
the inspectors immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access
to
relevant
sites, documents and persons; and
•
the
material for which UNSCOM had been unable to account.
20.
The press
lines did not acknowledge or address Iraq’s explicit denials of
possession
of
prohibited weapons, materials and programmes.
21.
Mr Miller
concluded: “I do not think we need to offer a fuller reply to any
of
Iraq’s claims.”
22.
There was no
consideration of the risks which Iraq would have faced by
issuing
a detailed
rebuttal which inspections might show to be untrue.
23.
The JIC
assessed on 11 October that Saddam Hussein was determined
to
retain
Iraq’s proscribed weapons programme and that he was confident he
could
prevent the
UN inspectors, operating under existing UN resolutions, from
finding
any
evidence before military options started to close in spring
2003.
24.
Without
specific intelligence, the inspectors would not know where to
look.
25.
As military
pressure increased, Iraq’s concealment policy could be
undermined
by the requirement to prepare hidden “chemical and
biological
missile
systems for military deployment”.
26.
At the request
of OD Sec, the JIC assessed Iraq’s attitude and approach to
dealing
with the
return of UN weapons inspectors.3
It also
assessed Iraq’s concealment policy.
27.
The minutes of
the JIC discussion of the draft Assessment on 9
October
recorded that:
•
Iraq was
“very confident” about its concealment policy and “had put a lot of
effort
into
ensuring that inspectors would not find anything”.
•
“UNMOVIC
[UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission] still
had
no
information about suspect sites and without specific intelligence,
it would be
impossible
for them to know where to start looking.”
•
“A tougher,
penetrative [inspections] regime backed by a good intelligence
flow
from inside
Iraq, would therefore be absolutely central to
success”.
•
“… [A]s
military pressure increased, the point would come when
concealment
would make
it impossible” for Iraq to “prepare for
weaponisation”.4
3
JIC
Assessment, 11 October 2002, ‘Iraq: The Return of UN
Inspectors’.
4
Minutes, 9
October 2002, JIC meeting.
293