4.3 |
Iraq WMD assessments, October 2002 to March 2003
717.
This might
have been prompted by Dr Blix’s report to the Security
Council
on 14
February 2003, which demonstrated the developing divergence between
the
assessments
presented by the US and the UK. Dr Blix’s report of 7 March,
which
challenged
the view that Iraqi behaviour was preventing UNMOVIC from
carrying
out its
tasks, should certainly have prompted a review.
718.
Mr Scarlett
and Sir David Manning discussed the JIC’s priorities and the need
to
retest the
standing judgements on 3 January 2003.290
They did
not include Iraq’s WMD
programmes
and its intentions to use WMD.
719.
Sir David
Manning rightly sought advice on the strength of the evidence
showing
Saddam
Hussein’s possession of WMD, to which Mr Scarlett responded on
17 March.
720.
But as the
Butler Report stated, after the JIC’s initial assessment of
Iraq’s
declaration
on 18 December:
“Thereafter,
despite its importance to the determination of whether Iraq
was
in further
material breach of its disarmament obligations … the JIC made
no
721.
The Butler
Report added:
“The JIC’s
attitude will have been shaped by intelligence received in
late-November
that Iraq’s
declaration would omit references to its prohibited programmes and
more
generally
would seek to overload the United Nations with information.
Predictions on
the extreme
length and nature of the declaration were subsequently borne out.
Even
so, we find
it odd that … the JIC produced no further
assessment.”292
722.
Mr Tim
Dowse, Head of the FCO Non-Proliferation Department, from January
2001
to November
2003, told the Inquiry:
“… from the
end of 2002 … almost up until the invasion, we were getting a
fairly
steady
stream of quite sort of low level intelligence, operational
reports, reports
coming from
military sources … about Iraqi concealment activities … which …
had
we
subjected them to the JIC analytical process might have been
regarded as not
very
strong. Collectively … every few days getting more of this rather
confirmed us
in our view
that, if the inspections could be pursued with a little more
vigour, a little
more skill,
that things were there and could be found.”293
290
Minute
Scarlett to Miller, 3 January 2003, ‘Iraq: Questions for the
JIC’.
291
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
363.
292
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
364.
293
Public
hearing, 25 November 2009, pages 94-95.
417