4.4 | The
search for WMD
Lieutenant
General Andrew Ridgway, Chief of Defence Intelligence, told the
Chiefs of Staff
on
20 August:
“Further
attacks were expected. The bombing would affect coalition building,
NGO
confidence,
and the reconstruction of utilities, which if not expedited could
lead to a
significant
loss of consent.”236
On
26 August, the DIS reported the disruption of an ISG
deployment following an attack
on a nearby
US military convoy.237
As security
deteriorated, the US sought to transfer some of the ISG’s analysis
capabilities
to
counter-terrorism activities.
The Op
ROCKINGHAM weekly update for 21-28 August reported that
Secretary Rumsfeld
and US
General John Abizaid, Commander CENTCOM, had indicated that they
wanted
some of the
ISG’s HUMINT and analysis capability dedicated to counter-terrorism
tasks.238
In early
September, the JIC judged that:
“The
security environment will remain poor, and will probably worsen
over the next
year,
unless the Coalition, in conjunction with Iraqis, can reverse
current trends.
There are
likely to be more spectacular attacks.”239
In October,
the DIS reported two direct attacks on ISG convoys.240
In his
memoir, Mr George Tenet, the US Director of Central
Intelligence (DCI), wrote:
“A senior
military officer later told me he … was ‘flabbergasted’ … when [in
November
2003] Kay
refused to lend some of the ISG’s experienced intelligence analysts
to help
him find
insurgents ‘that are
killing us’… Had he been
a regular CIA officer, I would
have
relieved Kay of his command and ordered him home.”241
Major
General Tim Tyler, British Deputy Commander of the ISG from early
January to late
March 2004,
told the Inquiry “there were lots of … constraints on the
operations and the
most
predominant one was the security situation”.242
444.
On
21 August, the ISG was reported to be “firmly established” in
Baghdad.243
The Survey
Operations Centre (SOC) and Survey Analysis Centre (SAC) had
completed
moves to
their permanent location in Baghdad. Locations of the various
operational
elements of
the ISG included:
•
Combined
Media Processing Centre (CMPC): headquarters in Qatar
with
satellite
operations conducted out of Baghdad and Erbil;
•
Joint
Interrogation and Debriefing Centre (JIDC): Baghdad;
236
Minutes,
20 August 2003, Chiefs of Staff meeting.
237
Op
ROCKINGHAM Daily, 26 August 2003.
238
Op
ROCKINGHAM Weekly No.11, 21-28 August 2003.
239
JIC
Assessment, 3 September 2003, ‘Iraq: Threats to
Security’.
240
Op
ROCKINGHAM Daily, 21 October 2003. Op ROCKINGHAM Daily, 30 October
2003.
241
Tenet G
& Harlow B. At the
Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA.
HarperPress, 2007.
242
Private
hearing, 3 June 2010, page 12.
243
Op
ROCKINGHAM Weekly No.10, 14-21 August 2003.
513