4.3 |
Iraq WMD assessments, October 2002 to March 2003
652.
In its
consideration of the reasons why “such a high proportion of the
human
intelligence
reports should have been withdrawn or subsequently be subject to
doubt”,
the
Report’s conclusions included:
“…
the length
of the reporting chains. Even when
there were sources who were
shown to be
reliable in some areas of reporting … in other areas … where they
did
not have
direct knowledge [they had] to draw on sub-sources or
sub-sub-sources.
This was
the case with the first of the two dominant sources [in the
previous
paragraph].
“…
agents who
were known to be reliable were asked to report on
issues
going well
beyond their usual territory, leading to
intelligence reports which were
more
speculative than they would have provided on their own specialisms.
We
believe
this to have been the case with some aspects of the reporting of
the second
of the two
dominant sources.
“… because
of the scarcity of sources and the urgent requirement for
intelligence,
more
credence was given to untried agents than would normally be the
case. This
was the
case with the report received between the JIC assessment of 9
September
2002 and
the publication of the Government’s dossier in September
2002.”266
653.
Asked about
the difficulty of obtaining intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of
mass
destruction
programmes and capabilities, Sir John Scarlett told the
Inquiry:
“… when we
are talking about the nuclear or chemical or biological or
missile
programmes,
we are talking about the most secret parts of what is already a
highly
secretive
state. We are talking about secret parts which are highly
compartmented.
So you
might achieve access to somebody who knows a lot about a particular
…
programme,
but by definition they are not going to have a broader
picture.
“So you
need a lot of such sources at a ground level to really get
detailed
information
about the programme. And, of course, with WMD you have …
dual-use,
where it is
very difficult to interpret any information or intelligence that
you acquire as
to whether
it is relevant to the programmes …”267
654.
Asked about
intelligence on the thinking of the leadership and
military
commanders,
Sir John stated:
“They were
both very difficult … [W]e did have … some insight, we believed
into the
thinking of
the leadership and the work done subsequently in Iraq after the
conflict
by the Iraq
Survey Group would suggest that some of those insights were not
far
off reality.
266
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraphs
440-442.
267
Public
hearing, 8 December 2009, page 31.
407