The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
622.
The Butler
Report also stated:
•
“We
consider that it was reasonable for the JIC to include in
its
Assessments
of March and September 2002 a reference to
intelligence
reports on
Iraq’s seeking mobile biological production facilities. But
it
has emerged
that the intelligence from the source, if it had been
correctly
reported,
would not have been consistent with a judgement that Iraq
had,
on the
basis of recent production, stocks of biological agent. If SIS
had
had direct
access to the source from 2000 onwards, and hence
correct
intelligence
reporting, the main evidence for JIC judgements on
Iraq’s
stocks of
recently produced biological agent, as opposed to a break
out
capacity,
would not have existed.”246
•
All JIC
Assessments about the production of biological warfare agents
were
based on
intelligence about mobile facilities.247
623.
The Butler
Report stated that reports from two further sources continued to
be
regarded as
reliable, although it was “notable that their reports were less
worrying than
the rest
about Iraqi chemical and biological weapons
capability”.248
624.
The Butler
Report also stated that it had subsequently emerged that one
of
the sources
on which US assessments of Iraqi ownership of mobile biological
agent
production
facilities, including Secretary Powell’s presentation to the
Security Council
on 5
February 2003, had been based, a defector associated with the Iraqi
National
Congress,
had already been retracted before the US National Intelligence
Estimate was
issued in
October 2002.249
That report
was not relied on by the UK.
625.
On 30 January
2004, Mr Scarlett informed Sir Nigel Sheinwald of US
concern
about a
“Notification to Congress that one piece of intelligence
underpinning” Secretary
Powell’s
presentation to the UN on 5 February 2003 “came from an unreliable
source”.250
626.
Mr Scarlett
commented:
“This
discredited report was sent to SIS but not issued by them so it
was not
reflected
in our classified assessments or in the dossier. There is one
reference in
the dossier
(the Executive Summary) to mobile ‘laboratories’. This was a
general
term to
cover mobile facilities and was not meant to be distinct from
‘production’
units. In
terms of any press lines it will be sufficient to say that the
discredited report
was not
issued by SIS.”
246
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
530.
247
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
523.
248
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
410.
249
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
521.
250
Minute
Scarlett to Sheinwald, 30 January 2004, ‘Iraqi WMD: Update from
CIA’.
398