4.4 | The
search for WMD
295.
The Liberal
Democrat motion was defeated by 301 votes to 203 and
the
Government
amendment was agreed without a further vote.
296.
Demands for
an independent judge-led inquiry persisted through the
summer.
297.
Responding to
a question from Mr Kennedy at PMQs on 18 June about
whether
the
Government had been told by SIS that Iraq did not possess WMD
“capable of posing
a direct
threat to British security”, Mr Blair stated:
“The
intelligence that we put out in the dossier last September
described absolutely
accurately
the position of the Government … that Saddam was indeed a threat to
his
region and
the wider world. I always made it clear that the issue was not
whether he
was about
to launch an immediate strike on Britain: the issue was whether he
posed
a threat to
his region and to the wider world.”148
298.
Asked by
Mr Kennedy whether he thought the issue could be
“adequately
investigated
by a Foreign Affairs Committee to which he refuses to give evidence
and
a Joint
Intelligence Committee which he controls”, and whether there could
not be “a
proper
independent judicial inquiry”, Mr Blair stated that the ISC
was “entirely capable of
investigating
all the facts and getting to the truth”.
299.
The House of
Commons’ second debate on setting up an independent inquiry
took
place on
15 July and is described later in this Section.
300.
Dr Blix
submitted UNMOVIC’s 13th quarterly report to the Security
Council
301.
In presenting
the report to the Council on 5 June, Dr Blix highlighted a
number of
points,
including:
•
The
Commission had not at any time “found evidence of the continuation
or
resumption
of programmes of weapons of mass destruction or
significant
quantities
of proscribed items”, whether from pre-1991 or later.
•
That did
“not necessarily mean that such items could not exist. They
might”.
Long lists
of items remained “unaccounted for”, but it was “not justified to
jump
to the
conclusion that something exists just because it is unaccounted
for”.
•
The list of
unaccounted for items had “not been shortened by inspections or
Iraqi
declarations,
explanations or documentation”; and it was Iraq’s task to
convince
the
inspectors that the items did not exist. Without that, the
international
148
House of
Commons, Official
Report,
18 June 2003, columns 349-350.
149
UN Security
Council, ‘Note by Secretary-General’ attaching ‘Thirteenth
quarterly report of the Executive
Chairman of
the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission in accordance with
paragraph
12 of Security Council resolution 1284 (1999)’
(S/2003/580).
481