4.4 | The
search for WMD
223.
In late
May, UK and US media comment on the implications of the failure
to
find WMD
intensified.
224.
On
29 May, the BBC
broadcast
allegations by the journalist Mr Andrew
Gilligan
that the September 2002 intelligence dossier had been “sexed
up”.
225.
On
27 May, after delivering a speech on Iraq to the US Council on
Foreign
Relations,
Secretary Rumsfeld was asked why Iraqi forces had not used
chemical
weapons
during the invasion.121
He
speculated that one reason might have been that it
had been
decided to destroy the weapons before the conflict. More
information would
emerge as
people were interrogated and there were still hundreds of suspect
sites that
had not
been investigated. Secretary Rumsfeld concluded: “It will take
time”.
226.
An interview
with Mr Paul Wolfowitz, US Deputy Secretary of Defense,
published
in
Vanity
Fair magazine in
late May, was widely reported to have suggested that the
US
had settled
on WMD as the justification for the invasion of Iraq for
“bureaucratic reasons”
and as the
only issue that all parts of the Administration could agree on
given the
disputes
over whether there was a link between the Iraq regime and
terrorists.122
227.
On
31 May, the DoD challenged Vanity
Fair’s account of
Mr Wolfowitz’s
comments.123
It
explained that the full transcript showed that Mr Wolfowitz
had gone
on to say
that WMD had always been one of “three fundamental concerns”,
including
support for
terrorism and Saddam Hussein’s criminal treatment of the Iraqi
people.124
228.
On
29 May, the Today
programme
on BBC Radio
4 broadcast
allegations by the
journalist
Mr Andrew Gilligan that No.10 had called for the September
2002 intelligence
dossier to
be “sexed up”.125
229.
Mr Alastair
Campbell, Mr Blair’s Director of Communications and Strategy,
wrote in
his diaries
on 30 May that the “WMD firestorm was getting worse” and that
Mr Blair was
“a bit
jumpy” about the September dossier.126
Mr Campbell
wrote that he had spoken to
Mr Miller
and Mr Scarlett. Mr Scarlett had said that he
was:
121
US
Department of Defense, 27 May 2003, Council
on Foreign Relations (Transcript): Remarks as
Delivered by
Secretary of Defense Donald H Rumsfeld, New York, NY, Tuesday May
27, 2003.
122
BBC
News,
29 May 2003, WMD
emphasis was ‘bureaucratic’.
123
CNN
International,
31 May 2003, Pentagon
challenges Vanity Fair Report.
124
US
Department of Defense, 9 May 2003, Deputy
Secretary Wolfowitz interview with Sam Tannenhaus,
Vanity
Fair.
125
Report of the
Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David
Kelly C.M.G.
by Lord
Hutton,
28 January 2004, HC 247, paragraph 32.
126
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
469