The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
current ISG
lines of enquiry”. The DIS had not been able immediately to
substantiate the
areas
highlighted by Dr Kay. They should be treated with
caution.
554.
At its meeting
on 28 November, the JIC Sub-Committee on Iraq/WMD
concluded
that
the BBC
Panorama programme,
broadcast on 23 November, “had presented a
fairly
balanced view of the current state of ISG investigations. It
suggested that some
progress
had been made, but concluded that the jury was still out on the
question of
555.
In November
2003, the FCO sent its initial response to the FAC report
The
Decision to go
to War in Iraq, which had
been published on 7 July and is described
earlier in
this Section.305
556.
The FCO stated
that several judgements in the September 2002 dossier had
been
borne out
by subsequent UNMOVIC inspections and the work of the ISG. They
included:
•
Iraq’s
programme to extend the range of the Al Samoud
missile;
•
Iraq’s
programme to produce even longer-range missiles;
•
concealment
of documents at the homes of personnel associated with
WMD
programmes;
•
undeclared
UAV capabilities;
•
a dual-use
capability, “to a greater or lesser extent”, at most of the sites
listed in
the dossier
and visited by UNMOVIC;
•
evidence
presented in the ISG Interim Report of viable seed stocks
of
clostridium
botulinum organisms and covert laboratories working on
assassination
techniques using WMD-related materials; and
•
ISG
reporting of systematic Iraqi concealment of nuclear
weapons-related
materials,
personnel and capabilities.
557.
Separately, in
September 2003, the FCO had sent an initial response to the
FAC’s
15 July
2003 report Foreign
Policy Aspects of the War Against Terrorism, in
which it
listed key
lessons from weapons inspections in Iraq and the UK’s own BW
practice
challenge
inspection programme.306
Those
included “the critical importance of interviews
for
effective inspections” and “the need to keep in mind … sites that
could be misused to
produce,
modify, test and store BW delivery systems”.
304
Minutes, 28
November 2003, JIC Sub-Committee on Iraq/WMD meeting.
305
Ninth
Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session
2002-2003, The
Decision to go to War in
Iraq, Response
of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs,
Cm6062.
306
Tenth
Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session
2002-2003, Foreign
Policy Aspects of
the War
Against Terrorism, Response of the Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs,
Cm5968.
534