4.4 | The
search for WMD
661.
A revised
version of the Note Mr Blair had sent to President Bush,
with
Mr Scarlett’s
amendments underlined, was passed to Mr Blair as part of the
brief for his
appearance
before the House of Commons Liaison Committee.364
The
amendments
included:
•
“… The UN
when it left in 1998 noted that large stockpiles of weapons
and
agents were
unaccounted for. They are still unaccounted for. That is why
UN
resolution
1441 unanimously recognised the threat posed to international
peace
and
security by Iraq’s proliferation of WMD and long range
missiles.”
•
“… Look at
what we know about Libya’s CW weapons, now that they are
co-
operating
compared with what we could obtain through
intelligence.”
•
“… [T]hough
the ISG has not found evidence of actual weapons, they
have
found
substantial evidence of prohibited activities”.
•
Three
additions to the list of points made by Dr Kay:
{{“Iraq
was in clear violation of the terms of UNSCR 1441”.
{{“Iraq
deliberately waged a policy of destruction and
looting”.
{{“[T]he
ISG has learned things about Iraq’s WMD programmes that no
UN
inspector
could have learned”.
662.
On
2 February, UK news media reported the imminent announcement
of a decision
to set up a
UK inquiry into intelligence on WMD.365
663.
The
Guardian described the
forthcoming announcement as “a major u-turn”
which had
been “forced upon” Mr Blair by President Bush’s decision to
hold an inquiry
664.
In his
evidence to the Liaison Committee on 3 February, Mr Blair
stated:
“The whole
reason why we took this action in Iraq was because of the risk
posed by
an unstable
state with weapons of mass destruction capability and the risk that
at
some point,
not necessarily immediately, but at some point in the future, that
then
gets into
the hands of those who are terrorists with terrorist
intent.”367
665.
Mr Straw
announced Mr Blair’s decision to establish a committee to
review
intelligence
on WMD in the House of Commons on 3 February.368
The Terms
of
Reference
of the committee, to be chaired by Lord Butler, would
be:
“… to
investigate the intelligence coverage available in respect of WMD
programmes
in
countries of concern and on the global trade in WMD, taking into
account what
364
Manuscript
comment Powell, 2 February 2004 on Paper [unattributed],
[undated], ‘Note on WMD’.
365
BBC
News,
2 February 2004, Iraq
inquiry set to be launched.
366
The
Guardian,
3 February 2004, Iraq’s
missing weapons: an inquiry is forced upon Blair.
367
Liaison
Committee of the House of Commons, Session 2003-2004,
Oral
evidence taken before the
Liaison
Committee on Tuesday 3 February 2004, Q
16.
368
House of
Commons, Official
Report,
3 February 2004, column 625.
555