4.3 |
Iraq WMD assessments, October 2002 to March 2003
166.
In his memoir,
Mr Blair wrote that, at Chequers over Christmas 2002, he
had
asked himself:
“What did I
truly believe? That Saddam was about to attack Britain or the US?
No.
That he was
a bigger WMD threat than Iran or North Korea or Libya? Not
really,
though he
was the only leader to have used them. That left alone now, with
these
inspections
ending the same way as the last, he would threaten the stability
of
the region?
Very possibly. That he would leach WMD material or provide help
to
167.
In a meeting
overseas in early January, SIS1 told Mr Blair that the body
of
available
evidence was “highly damning” but “none of the reports could yet be
termed
a silver
bullet”.67
SIS1 told
the Inquiry that Mr Blair had been “surprised and
pleased”
that so
much had been accumulated, but he needed some more evidence that
Saddam
Hussein was
in breach (of resolution 1441), which he (Mr Blair) could use
as the basis
for
personal assurances to Cabinet, the Parliamentary Labour Party
(PLP), and to
key allies
such as Mr Jacques Chirac, the French President, and President
Bush and
regional
leaders. SIS1 recorded that, as a result, Mr Blair had asked
for a “stocktake”,
including
an assessment of the likelihood that the UNMOVIC process would
produce
that kind
of evidence.
168.
Asked whether
that illustrated the pressure on SIS to produce something
that
Mr Blair
could use to justify supporting President Bush without necessarily
having
a second
Security Council resolution, SIS1 told the Inquiry that SIS was not
under
“unusual
pressure”.68
The meeting
had taken place before the real diplomatic push to
secure a
second resolution and the “evidence that would win that second
resolution,
even over
French scepticism and Russian obduracy … was in the
balance”.
169.
Asked whether
SIS was being asked to find facts that would fit a policy that
had
already
been determined, SIS1 replied: “No”. In early 2003, he was “in no
doubt … at
all” that
the Americans were going to go in. The “dilemma for [the] British
Government”
was whether
to stand with the US and “intelligence could play a very
significant part in
arriving at
those decisions”.69
170.
Asked if
Mr Blair would have got something significantly different from
the
stocktake
to what he was getting from the JIC, SIS1 replied:
“No.”
171.
In his minute
to Mr Blair on 3 January 2003 about the way ahead (see Section
3.6),
Mr Straw
wrote:
“… a lot of
effort is being made by the … agencies to provide Blix and
ElBaradei
[with leads
drawing on intelligence reports] … to enable them to upgrade
their
66
Blair
T. A
Journey.
Hutchinson, 2010.
67
Private
hearing, SIS1, pages 60-61.
68
Private
hearing, SIS1, pages 61-62.
69
Private
hearing, SIS1, page 62.
321