The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
374.
Major General
Tim Tyler, British Deputy Commander of the ISG from early
January
to late
March 2004, told the Inquiry that Maj Gen Dayton explained this
arrangement by
describing
himself as the “taxi driver” for Special Advisors Dr Kay and
Mr Duelfer, who
375.
Maj Gen Tyler
described how the separate chains of military and
intelligence
oversight
worked from a British perspective:
“As senior
UK rep, I had two lines of reporting, formal ones … I reported
directly
back to the
ROCKINGHAM cell for the intelligence aspects … and then to PJHQ
on
all
military aspects.”
376.
Maj Gen Tyler
added: “From my point of view it was straightforward and
therefore
did
work.”
377.
Mr Howard
told the Inquiry that, although he had been concerned that the
ISG
would end
up with a split command, the arrangement had worked quite
well:
“Keith
Dayton got on, ran the ISG, did the tasking, sent people out, made
sure
they were
properly protected and, as it were, managed the administration,
and
David
really concentrated on the analytical effort and targeting the
analysis, saying
this is
where we need to concentrate our efforts, and I think that actually
worked
reasonably
well.
“I thought
that the industrial handling of documents and other sources by the
ISG
was very
good. I think there were problems, nevertheless, of
record-keeping,
and
problems of actually really bringing a vast amount of material into
a single
cohesive report.
“So it was
a mixed picture, but the general approach, I think, was
right.”183
378.
Mr Blair
discussed WMD with President Bush on 26 June.184
He
informed
President Bush
that he hoped to set out publicly what the UK knew about WMD and
the
Iraqi
regime’s human rights abuses in the next few weeks. The UK would
co-ordinate
with the US
in doing so.
379.
In a video
conference with President Bush and others on 3 July,
Mr Blair stated
that there
was a need to redouble the search for WMD.185
Ambassador
L Paul Bremer,
CPA
Administrator, reported that the work of the ISG had improved over
the last week;
and that
the ISG had shifted from examination of declared sites and the
interrogation of
uncommunicative
top regime figures to targeting lower level scientists and
officials.
182
Private
hearing, 3 June 2010, pages 2-4.
183
Private
hearing, 18 June 2010, pages 12-13.
184
Letter
Rycroft to McDonald, 26 June 2003, ‘Prime Minister’s
Conversation with President Bush,
26 June’.
185
Letter
Cannon to McDonald, 3 July 2003, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s
Video-conference with President Bush,
3 July’.
494