The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
have been
possible for the JIC to ask the agencies to make an effort in that
direction.
He had
no recollection of any such request.
48.
Mr Miller
added that departments had shown interest in the internal politics
of Iraq
and the
relationship between the Shia and the Kurds, but only very limited
intelligence
had been
available on those subjects.
49.
The majority
of JIC assessments relevant to Iraq between 2002 and the start of
the
invasion on
19 March 2003 dealt with Saddam Hussein’s military and diplomatic
options,
WMD, or
regional attitudes to Iraq.32
50.
The weekly
Intelligence Updates issued by the Assessments Staff from
November
2002 and
more frequently from February 2003, concentrated on the same three
themes.
51.
The principal
task of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS)33
was the
provision of
intelligence
to inform MOD policy formulation and procurement decisions, and to
support
52.
The DIS worked
closely with other UK intelligence organisations and with
overseas
allies.35
Its sources
included human, signals and imagery intelligence, as well as
open
sources.
The DIS produced a number of reports on the state of
Iraq.
53.
In late
February 2003, the DIS established a Red Team to give key planners
in
Whitehall
an independent view of intelligence assumptions and key judgements,
to
challenge
those assumptions and judgements if appropriate and to identify
areas where
more work
was needed (see Section 6.5).36
Papers were
copied to the Chiefs of Staff,
the
Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), the MOD, FCO, IPU and the
JIC.
54.
Mr Martin
Howard, Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence from February 2003
to
May 2004,
the senior civilian in the DIS, told the Inquiry:
“… at the
strategic level the lead agency was the JIC. They are the ones
who
produced,
as it were, the capstone intelligence assessments.
“What the
DIS tried to do was do things at a level a little below that, to
produce
products
which would be of interest to high level policy makers, but also
extremely
useful to
planners, to commanders and so on and so forth. So I’m not sure we
were
necessarily
the lead, but we probably did the bulk of the analytical
work.”37
32
JIC
Assessments on Iraq, 1 January 2002 to 18 March 2003.
33
Now known
as Defence Intelligence (DI).
34
Letter
Ministry of Defence to Iraq Inquiry, 29 April 2010, ‘MOD Evidence –
Submission on Defence
Intelligence
Staff (DIS)’.
35
Ministry of
Defence Website, ‘Defence Intelligence’.
36
Minute
PS/CDI to APS2/SofS [MOD], 25 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Red Teaming in
the DIS’.
37
Private
hearing, 18 June 2010, page 20.
122