The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
525.
In October,
UK officials identified Iraq’s CW and BW programmes as
the
issues
needing most work. The ISG had opened up several lines of
investigation
on BW.
There had been little progress on CW.
526.
On
9 October, Mr Howard sent Mr Scarlett a paper on the
future direction of the
ISG, agreed
with members of his WMD Task Force, suggesting that the ISG focus
its
effort on
areas where knowledge was “most incomplete”.287
527.
Although work
remained to be done on every subject, BW and CW were the
most
challenging.
The most comprehensive areas of the Interim Report were: nuclear
and
long-range
missile programmes; denial, deception and destruction; and
procurement
networks.
528.
The ISG’s
findings on BW had opened up several lines of investigation
which
“should
continue to be pursued with vigour”. Efforts to find evidence of CW
research
and
production had yielded little. Mr Howard suggested that it
might be better “to focus
on the
other end of the food chain and concentrate on amassing evidence of
possible
deployment,
or plans for deployment of CW”.
529.
Further work
would be needed in two important supporting areas:
•
encouraging
sources to come forward; and
•
ensuring
that relevant information on Iraqi WMD generated outside Iraq was
fed
into the
ISG.
530.
Mr Howard
reported that Dr Kay was hinting that “the final reckoning may
not
happen for
another six to nine months”, which was “probably realistic”. He
recommended
striking a
balance between producing further interim reports with something
substantive
to say and
allowing the ISG to continue its work out of the public gaze. A
number of
“external
drivers”, including the Panorama
programme
on WMD, the outcome of the
Hutton
Inquiry and the need to make the case to Congress for additional
funding for the
ISG could
have an impact.
531.
Mr Howard
also wrote that the probability that force protection and
counter-
terrorism
would soon be given equal status with the search for WMD in the
ISG’s work
was a
“potential complicating factor”. His major concern was that the ISG
should be
given
sufficient security and logistical support to carry out the
investigative work needed.
532.
The JIC
Sub-Committee on Iraq/WMD discussed Mr Howard’s paper
on
10 October.288
It was
agreed that he should produce a version for the US and that
the
importance
of offering immunity or amnesty to witnesses should be emphasised
at the
287
Letter
Howard to Scarlett, 9 October 2003, ‘Iraq Survey Group: The
Way Forward’ attaching Paper
DCDI,
[undated], ‘Iraq Survey Group: Next Steps: A note by
DCDI’.
288
Minutes,
10 October 2003, JIC Sub-Committee on Iraq/WMD
meeting.
530