4.3 |
Iraq WMD assessments, October 2002 to March 2003
declarations.
In the absence of site inspections, UNMOVIC had “relied on
intelligence
material
supplied by Member States”. Areas of activity reported to UNMOVIC
included:
•
“mobile BW
agent production facilities”;
•
“underground
facilities for research and production of CBW”;
•
“development
of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), including those fitted
with
sprays for
BW agents”; and
•
“movements
of proscribed materials and documents”.
445.
UNMOVIC had
“reported a ‘surge of activity’ in the missile technology field
over
446.
A note setting
out Iraqi tactics in dealing with UN weapons inspectors
rehearsed
problems
encountered between 1991 and 1998 and concluded that:
“Iraq’s
approach to the UN has therefore consisted of:
–
concealment and destruction of evidence
–
commitment to co-operate alternating with harassment of
inspectors
– as new
facts become available to UNSCOM, Iraq changes its story
to
incorporate
those facts. There is no genuine effort at openness or
honesty.
“The Blix
‘clusters’ paper underlines the inspectors’ very limited
information on the
details of,
for example, Iraq’s BW programme. This is after 12 years of
operations
and five
purportedly full, final and complete declarations by the
Iraqis.”166
447.
In his
resignation statement of 17 March, Mr Cook set out his doubts
about
the degree
to which Saddam Hussein posed a “clear and present
danger”.
448.
In his
statement to the House of Commons on the evening of 17 March,
Mr Cook
set out the
reasons why he could not “support a war without international
agreement
or domestic
support” and why, in order to vote against military action in the
House of
Commons the
following day, he had resigned from the Government (see Section
3.8).167
“Nor is it
fair to accuse those of us who want longer for inspections of not
having
an
alternative strategy … Over the past decade that strategy [of
containment] had
destroyed
more weapons than in the Gulf War, dismantled Iraq’s nuclear
weapons
programme
and halted Saddam’s medium and long range missile
programmes.”
165
Minute
Cannon to Prime Minister, 15 March 2003, ‘Iraq: UNMOVIC Operations,
1998-2002’.
166
Minute
Cannon to Prime Minister, 16 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Iraqi Approach to
UNSCOM/UNMOVIC’.
167
House of
Commons, Official
Report, 17 March
2003, columns 726-728.
371