The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
Airfield
facilities housing the L-29 remotely piloted aircraft;
•
Sites used
by regime security organisations also involved in
WMD.” 283
718.
The Assessment
added: “Other WMD-related facilities were not
targeted.”
719.
In February
1999, the MOD assessed that the effect of Operation Desert
Fox
on Iraq’s
military programmes had been:
•
to set back
the ballistic missile programme by between one and two years;
and
•
to disrupt
for several months WMD related work of the Iraqi Ministry of
Industry
and
Military Industrialisation Headquarters in Baghdad.284
720.
The bombing
had “badly damaged, possibly destroyed outright” the
L-29
unmanned
aerial vehicle programme. The rebuilding of the Republican
Guard
infrastructure
was estimated to take up to a year.
721.
Following the
1998 Strategic
Defence Review, which had
identified the importance
of
preparations to overcome the possible threat from biological and
chemical weapons
particularly
in the Gulf, the MOD published a paper in July 1999 setting out the
results
of a
further review.285
In his
foreword to the paper, Mr Robertson stated that
knowing
what the
threat was, how to reduce it, and how to protect against it, was “a
constantly
developing
process” which he regarded as one of his “highest
priorities”.
722.
The paper
stated that many countries of concern had biological or
chemical
weapons
capabilities, or both; and several were in areas in which the UK
was most likely
to face
challenges to its interests, including in the Gulf. The potential
threat from those
weapons was
“now greater than that from nuclear weapons”. Iraq had already
used
chemical
weapons. No country of concern had ballistic missiles which could
threaten the
UK with
chemical or biological warheads, but capabilities continued to
improve and the
ballistic
missiles being developed could threaten British forces deployed
overseas.
723.
The UK’s
policy rested “on four inter-related pillars”:
•
Arms
control. Since the First World War, the UK had been at the
forefront of
international
efforts to control and eliminate biological and chemical
weapons
through
arms control agreements.
•
Preventing
supply. Export controls at national and international levels
were
“effective
in preventing a significant number of undesirable
transfers”.
•
Deterring
use. Potential aggressors should be assured that: the use of
biological
and
chemical weapons would “not be allowed to secure political or
military
advantage”;
it would “on the contrary, invite a proportionately serious
response”
283
JIC
Assessment, 10 May 2001, ‘Iraqi WMD Programmes: Status and
Vulnerability’.
284
House of
Commons, Iraq:
‘Desert Fox’ and Policy Developments,
10 February 1999, Research
Paper 99/13.
285
Ministry of
Defence, Defending
Against the Threat from Biological and Chemical Weapons,
July
1999.
158