4.3 |
Iraq WMD assessments, October 2002 to March 2003
could be
used in a centrifuge enrichment program”, although it acknowledged
that some
did not
believe that this was their intended use.
36.
In July 2004,
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence produced a
Report
…
on the U.S.
Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on
Iraq.8
The
conclusions
of the Committee drew attention to the uncertainties behind the
judgements
in the NIE
(see Section 4.4).
37.
In their
letter to President Bush on 31 March 2005, the members of the
Commission
on the
Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of
Mass
Destruction,
established by President Bush on 6 February 2004, drew attention to
the
failure to
make clear just how much of the analysis was based on assumptions,
rather
38.
Writing in
2012, Mr Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, described the
NIE evidence
as “mostly
circumstantial and inferential”, but “persuasive”.10
39.
In advance of
the votes in Congress to authorise the use of force if it
proved
necessary
to enforce Security Council demands, President Bush used a
speech
in
Cincinnati on 7 October to set out in detail the case for urgent
action to disarm
Iraq.11
President
Bush stated that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical
and
biological
weapons” and “the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting
its nuclear
weapons program”.
40.
Other points
made by President Bush included:
•
There were
concerns that Iraq was “exploring ways of using UAVs for
missions
targeting
the United States”.
•
Iraq and Al
Qaida (AQ) had “high level contacts that go back a
decade”.
•
Some AQ
leaders who had fled Afghanistan were in Iraq, including “one
very
senior …
leader” who had “been associated with planning for chemical
and
biological
attacks”.
•
“[C]onfronting
the threat posed by Iraq” was “crucial to winning the war
against
terror”.
Saddam Hussein was “harboring terrorists and the instruments of
terror,
the
instruments of mass death and destruction”. He could not be trusted
and the
risk that
he would “use them, or provide them to a terror network” was
“simply
too
great”.
8
Select
Committee on Intelligence, 9 July 2004, Report of
the Select Committee on Intelligence on the
U.S.
Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on
Iraq.
9
The
Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
Regarding Weapons of Mass
Destruction,
31 March 2005, Report to
the President of the United States.
10
Powell, C
with Koltz T. It Worked
for Me: In Life and Leadership. Harper
Perennial, 2012.
11 The
White House, 7 October 2002, President
Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat.
297