1.1 | UK
Iraq strategy 1990 to 2000
•
Saddam
Hussein might have authorised a development project on those
lines
but its
conclusion remained that “the technical difficulties would be so
great as
to be
virtually insurmountable in the short time available”.
92.
An IAEA
inspection of Iraq’s civil nuclear programme on 22 November
1990 showed
that no
fissile material had been diverted.
93.
In December
1990, the JIC dismissed the option of an outside supplier
providing
the
necessary material or a complete weapon on the grounds that only a
few countries
might have
the motivation to supply the necessary material or weapons, and the
JIC did
not
consider such supply likely.
94.
A JIC
Assessment of 20 September 1990, which cautioned that there
were
“considerable
uncertainties about Iraq’s current ballistic missile capability
and
deployments”,
estimated that Iraq:
•
had a
stockpile of “about 700” ballistic missiles;
•
could have
“about 300 SCUD-B” short range (300km) missiles;
•
“may have
converted some 250 SCUD-B missiles to the longer range
[650km]
Al Hussein
variant”; and
•
could have
“up to 150” (900km) Al Abbas missiles.25
95.
The Butler
Report found that a single intelligence report, received in
November
1990, had
had a significant impact on the JIC’s Assessments of Iraq’s
biological and
chemical
weapons capabilities.26
96.
On
9 November 1990, the JIC reported:
“According
to the new intelligence, Iraq possesses the BW agents
pneumonic
plague and
anthrax and has weaponised them … Weapons are available
for
immediate
use …
“The report
that Iraq has weaponised anthrax is consistent with our
earlier
assessment
that it might have done so. But we have no collateral for the claim
that
it has
developed plague to a similar extent. Plague was, however, one of
the agents
included in
the list of those that Iraq had studied or on which it had
information
… We
believe that Iraq has the facilities to produce plague in
sufficient quantities
97.
Later that
November, the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) said that
plague
seedstock
was now probably available to Iraq.
25
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
page
49.
26
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
page
45.
27
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
page
134.
41