The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
845.
On
21 September, Mr Ehrman informed Sir Nigel Sheinwald that
the UK had
received
the final, BW, chapter of the draft Comprehensive
Report.472
He
explained
that the
JIC had also been able to look at the detail of the section on
illicit finance and
procurement.
846.
Mr Ehrman
wrote that, on BW:
•
The ISG
judged that Iraq appeared “to have destroyed its undeclared stocks
of
BW agent”,
but it lacked “evidence to document complete
destruction”.
•
“Iraq
retained some BW-related seedstocks until their discovery after
Operation
Iraqi
Freedom.”
•
After
Operation Desert Storm, in 1991, Iraq “sought to save what it could
of
its BW
infrastructure and covertly to continue BW research, as well as to
hide
evidence of
that and earlier efforts”.
•
The ISG
judged that Iraq “abandoned its existing BW programme, destroying
the
facility at
al Hakam” when the Iraq economy was “at rock bottom in
1995”.
•
The ISG had
“found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a
new
BW
programme or was conducting BW-specific work for military
purposes”.
•
The ISG
judged that BW applicable research since 1996 “was not conducted
in
connection
with the development of a BW programme”.
•
“The Iraqi
intelligence service had a series of laboratories that
conducted
biological
work including research into BW agents for assassination
purposes
until the
mid-1990s.” Experiments had been conducted on human
beings,
who died,
but there was “no evidence to link these tests with the
development
of BW”.
•
“In spite
of exhaustive investigation”, the ISG had “found no evidence that
Iraq
possessed
or was developing, BW agent production systems mounted on
road
vehicles or
railway wagons”.
•
The ISG
judged that “the two trailers captured in 2003” were “almost
certainly
designed
and built exclusively for the generation of hydrogen”.
•
The ISG
judged that “Iraq could have re-established an elementary
BW
programme
within a few weeks to a few months of a decision to do so, but it
has
discovered
no indications that the regime was pursuing such a
course”.
847.
On illicit
finance and procurement, Mr Ehrman reported that the findings
included:
•
Private
companies from Jordan, India, France, Italy, Romania and
Turkey
appeared to
have engaged in possible WMD-related trade with Iraq.
•
The
Governments of Russia, Syria, Belarus, North Korea, the Federal
Republic
of
Yugoslavia and Yemen directly supported or endorsed private
companies’
472
Minute
Ehrman to Sheinwald, 21 September 2004, ‘Iraq Survey Group
(ISG) Report’.
592