The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
agree that
the MOD should be prepared to approach former UNMOVIC,
IAEA
and UNSCOM
inspectors from the UK to reinforce the UK effort.
58.
Mr Peter
Watkins, Mr Hoon’s Principal Private Secretary, wrote to Sir
David Manning
on
11 April:
“As high
intensity military action begins to draw to a close … our strategic
priority
in Iraq
should be the detection and elimination of undeclared WMD and
delivery
59.
Mr Watkins
wrote that the evidence on WMD would “come in a number of
forms
ranging
from WMD materials through research facilities to documentation and
IT
records”.
Interviews of scientists and other Iraqi staff were “likely to be
one of the
most
fruitful source[s] of evidence”. It would also be essential to
minimise the risks of
proliferation
of expertise. US and UK commanders had been given directions to
search
out and
hold “personnel of interest”.
60.
Mr Watkins
reported US proposals to create an organisation called the ISG,
under
the
auspices of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and that the
US was:
“… keen to
integrate UK and Australian expertise into this organisation.
We
intend, in
the first instance, to offer elements of the UK’s WMD expertise
already
deployed in
theatre … The total of our personnel currently deployed … is some
100,
increasing
to 120 later this month.”
61.
Mr Watkins
added that it was important the UK did not limit its work with the
ISG
to “the
UK Area of Responsibility where sites and personnel of interest are
thinner on
the ground”.
62.
A public
handling strategy would be needed, including “to moderate
expectations
of very
early progress”. Mr Watkins warned that the search for WMD and
its eventual
destruction
was “likely to be a long haul … months if not years”.
63.
Mr Watkins
also reiterated concerns about the credibility of the
Coalition’s
verification
process should WMD be found:
“Given
suspicions about Coalition motives, positive results would have
considerably
more force
if they were verified ‘separately’ by a non-US/UK laboratory.
Ultimately,
we would
like to see UNMOVIC or a successor body back in play. But US
aversion
to the UN
means that this is unlikely to be achievable in the short/medium
term.”
64.
Mr Watkins
reported that the FCO was approaching the Netherlands to
explore
whether an
independent laboratory there would be a possible
alternative.
28
Letter
Watkins to Manning, 11 April 2003, ‘Iraq: WMD Detection and
Elimination’.
436