These are the most significant quotes from the tenth session of the Iraq Inquiry
And you can watch the videos here
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10th day of public hearingsSubject: Post Invasion Iraq: The planning and the reality after the invasion
8th December 2009: Morning session: Evidence by
- Sir Suma Chakrabarti (Permanent Secretary in the Department for International Development, from 2002 until 2007)
- Dominick Chilcott, (Head of the Iraq Planning Unit within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from February 2002 until June 2003)
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Chakrabarti
“It is very interesting for us that both Clare Short departed the scene, as you know, 12 May and the Chief of Defence Staff changed at the end of May/early June and the relationship became very much easier with the new CDS. Mike Walker came across and saw Valerie Amos, and actually said and there is a quote in the papers, a record of meeting that the best relationship the military had around Whitehall was with DFID. No one I didn’t ask him to say that. So I think this is quite an interesting take on personalities.”
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Important exchanges
LYNE: “Where did the resistance come from that you had to, as it were, penetrate in December in order to get access to the military planning? Was it from within the armed forces or was it from the political leadership? Was it from Number 10 or the Ministry of Defence? Who was stopping you?”
CHAKRABARTI: “Quite clearly the Prime Minister thought we should have access in December when Clare Short raised it on 12 December. I think it was from some in the military, not necessarily everyone. Clearly Tim Cross thought we should have access and I think it may have been from MoD ministers. I don’t know to this day, but”
LYNE: “So the Prime Minister was unaware until December that you were not being involved in the planning for this?”
CHAKRABARTI: “Well, I don’t know if he was aware or unaware, but certainly that was when it was raised with him directly by Clare Short.”
LYNE: “And he then agreed?”
CHAKRABARTI: “Yes.”
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Chilcott
“And I guess that when we supported the Security Council Resolution that authorised the day after operations, that was the point when we realised that we had pushed as hard as we could and we weren’t going to get any more than that. And, indeed, if it was good enough for the other members of the Security Council, there was a certain sense to why should we be perhaps holier than the Pope if the French and Germans and others were prepared to accept it.”
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“I think we were pretty realistic in our own planning about how much influence we were likely to have, and I think the I don’t know whether you count this as influence but maybe I can think of four or five examples of where we may have had some influence. One was influence in the sense of having access to President Bush and having our voice as part of the interagency debate in an unprecedented in a way that no other country matched. So we had a chance to make our points and we did so repeatedly. So to that extent we had access. I think after the Hillsborough summit on 7 and 8 April, when Bush said the UN should have a vital role he said this publicly although he didn’t quite mean everything that we meant by it, that was definitely a step forward. When Jay Garner told Jeremy Greenstock in March that a substantial UN involvement in post conflict Iraq was increasingly accepted in Washington, I think that was again a sign that our arguments were beginning to have some effect in Washington. Our embassy reported about the same time that there had been a principals meeting in Washington that had accepted the need for a United Nations Security Council mandate for the Phase 4 operations and a Brahimitype UN special coordinator to bring on the political process in Iraq. Now, both of those things were quite important for us and they were both achievements as a result of our lobbying. I mean, not just us, there were other voices in the interagency debate that had the same views, but I think our voice I think undoubtedly contributed to it. And there was a later stage, where President Bush seems to have told the Department of Defence that the new Iraqi Government could not be dominated by their choice of exiled Iraqi politicians, and again that’s almost certainly as a result of points we were making, or the Prime Minister was making, to President Bush, based on the work that we were doing about the dangers of appearing to, you know, put in place a certain section of Iraqi exiled politicians.”
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Important exchanges
CHILCOTT: “I think the then Prime Minister did in his discussions with President Bush. After the Hillsborough meeting and I have got the date of it was, indeed, the 7 and 8 April. After the Hillsborough summit where we briefed the Prime Minister strongly about the importance of a UN role in the day after, President Bush in his press conference talked about the vital role for the UN.
LYNE:”Didn’t that have to be rung out of him a bit?”
CHILCOTT: “I don’t know whether it was rung out of him at the meeting, but I think without the
Prime Minister asking him to do it, he probably wouldn’t have done it. So I think that was a direct consequence of our lobbying.”
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LYNE: “So you reported that. How did your leadership react to this emerging rather worrying picture of what was going on on the other side of the pond?”
CHILCOTT: “We doubled our efforts in our bilaterals with the Americans to try and swing them back into a sort concept of operations that we felt was more likely to bring success. So the ORHA rock drill was on 21 and 22 February, the Prime Minister chaired a ministerial meeting on day after issues on 6 March, which, you know, raised the high level of ministerial engagement on these issues, and Mike O’Brien who was then minister of state in the Foreign Office led discussions on day after issues on 13 March, which I attended as well, and then there was the 16 March Azores Summit. So there were a series of high level events where we were making our points to the Americans.”
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THE CHAIRMAN: The objectives in Phase 4, for the aftermath. Was it clearly understood by military, by political, diplomatic quarters what we were supposed to do?
CHILCOTT: Yes, I think the UK view of it was well understood within the UK government, and I have no reason to think it wasn’t well understood in the UK military as well, which was that we were working on broadly this threephase model in our minds that we would have a period of occupation, where we would be governed by, as I said, the Geneva Convention and The Hague regulation, where we would be responsible for the welfare of the people. And our main concern at that stage would be establishing a secure environment and ensuring that humanitarian relief was able to get through to those that needed it. But we wanted that period to be as short as possible, after which we would move to some interim administration authorised by the UN Security Council. It was clear, I think, on the eve of the invasion that we weren’t going to have a UN run interim administration, but an interim administration was authorised by the Security Council was going to be good enough for us. And that would begin the process of reform and reconstruction in Iraq and, at the same time, we would have the UN involved in a political process in parallel that would lead to some kind of convention or conference that would enable a new constitution to emerge and elections on the basis of the new constitution, whereupon with a new Iraqi Government, we could; hand over power completely to the new Iraqi government. And that coalition security forces would be needed for as long as the new Iraqi government wanted them. So I think that broad threestage conflict was well understood, and I think with we quite a good core script which we modified as we went along. This had been in existence for quite a while.”
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10th day of public hearingsSubject: Intelligence
8th December 2009: Afternoon session: Evidence by
- Sir John Scralett (Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee from 2001 until 2004, former head of the MI6)
- Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge (Deputy Commander in Chief at Strike Command of the Royal Air Force)
- Lieutenant General Robin Brims (General officer commanding the First (UK) Armoured Division)
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Scarlett:
“We certainly had to consider the possibility that chemical and biological weapons would be used by the regime in the event of a conflict.”
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“That said, there was some there was heightened concern, certainly by May 2001, about possible nuclear related procurement and longer-term plans to enrich uranium.”
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(May 2001) “On biological weapons, at that point it was stated that there was clear evidence of continuing biological warfare activity. That was at a time when the intelligence about mobile production laboratories first came into play, and that was taken seriously. And as with chemical, there was a lot of emphasis on the capability of Iraq’s biological sort of industry to start production of agents very quickly if a decision was taken to do that. And then on the question of missiles, both extending to an illegal extent the range of the permitted missiles that they were permitted to have under the Security Council Resolutions, beyond 150 kilometres, if they were to extend that and then in fact to design longer range missiles, that was given a lot of prominence in the assessment as a step change in the progress that they were making. So that was a sort of baseline. “
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“The next big assessment was done in March 2002, which was essentially and I won’t go over the detail again, but essentially confirmed many of those judgments with certain nuances. Significant progress on the missile programme was noted, that the most important change at that point was there was a stronger judgment about the capability to produce and plans to produce biological warfare agent, and that reflected a better understanding of the mobile facilities what was thought to be a better understanding of the mobile facilities and the refurbishment of a former production facility.”
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(March 2002) “The judgment at the end of that paper was: “It is clear that Iraq continues to pursue a policy of acquiring WMD and their delivery means.”
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“Now, there was a paper, an assessment, on 9 September 2002, which reaffirmed and that was on Saddam’s options for using chemical and biological weapons. But it was in fact a separate judgment on capabilities which existed. I know that it has been described as a possibly a worst case scenario paper, but it wasn’t intended to be that. That paper reaffirmed existing judgments on the ability, if so decided to produce agent the availability of a range of delivery permitted limits. The change was in the judgment on current possession, which now became firm: “Iraq has currently available a number of CW and BW agents and weapons from prewar stocks or recent production.” And the paper referred to recent intelligence on the production of weapons now taking place, the development of a mobile systems and then, importantly, on the regime and Saddam’s intent: The great importance that he attached to the possession of chemical and biological weapons and his readiness to use them if necessary, including to defend the regime from attack: “He saw possession as a central feature of his regional power position and continuing ability to project influence.”
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“On 4 September, it was noted that the fact that Saddam possessed this capability and was prepared to use them was significant and needed to be brought to the attention of ministers. Close attention was paid at the meeting to the recent important and valuable intelligence, which was described as reliable and authoritative, and the assessments staff were instructed to firm up the judgment on possession in particular in the light of that intelligence, and that happened in the paper which was produced on 9 September: “It was also noted that further intelligence might be forthcoming in the near future.” And, indeed, further intelligence did come in September, which reported on the acceleration on theproduction of chemical and biological agent. And that too was regarded as significant.”
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(Report 19th of March 2003) “The reports were assessed in the context of the policy of dispersal and concealment. They were not understood to be an indication that chemical and biological weapons did not exist. Indeed, they didn’t say that but, of course, it was clear from the reports that they might be difficult to find.”
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“I had referred earlier on to the importance that was attached to his intent and his awareness of the possession of chemical and biological weaponry as an integral part of his power structure and his influence and his ability to influence neighbours. And that, I think, is correct and that, of course, is one of the things that we saw.”
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Important exchanges:
LYNE: “So your assumption is that on 10 and 19 March respectively, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Chiefs of Staff, would have actually seen the update and then the JIC note of 19 March?”
SCARLETT: “They would also have seen – assumption, that’s a slightly loose word. I was certainly working absolutely on the basis that these updates by this stage, that they were being read carefully.”
LYNE: “Did you get any feedback, any questions about them?”
SCARLETT: “About that particular point?”
LYNE: “Yes, did somebody after 10 March ring you up and want to ask you about it?”
SCARLETT: ”No.”
LYNE: “There was no visible reaction to it?”
SCARLETT: “Of course, as I have said, it wasn’t new information and the disassembly was a longstanding item.”
LYNE: “So it was presented as confirming a existing?”
SCARLETT: “It wasn’t actually presented as that at the time. It was just reported in the update as being intelligence which had been received. But the intelligence reports themselves, as I have said, went through independently to the Prime Minister and, I’m sure, to senior ministers, because that’s the way the system worked.”
LYNE: “So did the JIC consider revising its assessment in the light of these reports or not?”
SCARLETT: “Well, the JIC looked again at the issue and recorded its view in the minute of 19 March and judged then that Iraq had a usable chemical and biological warfare capability, deliverable by artillery shells and possibly by unmanned aerial vehicles. It also said that missiles might be available to deliver CBW, but Iraq might lack the necessary warheads, which was a reference to the difficulty I have just referred to. What did not happen was that the JIC said, right, we have received these reports; this requires a review of our assessment on possession because that’s not what the reports said. The reports referred to disassembly and, in one case, of equipment which we had assessed to be disassembled for a very long time. So that wasn’t, in fact, new. And disassembly of the chemical weapons, the report which came in on 17 March, so quite a few days later, was saying that they didn’t have it. They were saying that they were concealing it and, of course, the consequence of concealing it was that it would be difficult to use. And, of course, it was highly relevant because that meant they would be difficult to use against US military forces or UK military forces. So I am quite sure that it was taken on board in that context.”
LYNE: “Just to be absolutely clear about this, these two reports were not a game changing moment?”
SCARLETT: “No, they were not..-
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LYNE: “Now, some of the intelligence on which the judgments about WMD were made in the dossier, you yourself had described earlier as patchy or unclear. You said the stuff on missiles was good. Sir William Ehrman last week again used the term patchy, sporadic, poor limited. Did you come under pressure in preparing this publicly to firm up the language in the dossier? For example, there has been released under the Freedom of Information Act a minute from Desmond Bowen in the Cabinet Office, from whom we have already heard, to you of 11 September that refers to the use that will be made by the: “… opponents of action who will add up the number of judgments on which we do not have absolutely clarity.” So was there more clarity than you had confidence in in the way the document eventually came out?”
SCARLETT: “Well, the answer I mean, there were two questions there: was there more clarity and did we come under pressure. The answer to both is no and no.”
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LYNE: “Obviously a lot of attention has centred on the 45minute claim. The dossier said on page 19 that Iraq could: “… deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so.” But it left it unclear what kind of weapons were meant. Should you, as the person with overall responsibility for the dossier, have corrected the misconception that this might have been held to refer to, say, ballistic missiles?”
SCARLETT: “Well, of course, this was as you say, had been the subject of great debate and it was considered in detail in the Inquiry by Lord Hutton and it was looked into also by the ISC and also in the Butler Report. And the conclusion has been that it would have been much clearer and better as it were, the matter wouldn’t have been lost in translation if it had spelled out in the dossier that the word was “munitions”, not “weapons”. I think that’s essentially the point. Of course, that’s all the report said. It didn’t say more than munitions, and it didn’t give further context to it. So anything else would have been assessment or speculation. Now, you know, those comments have been accepted. I would only say that there was absolutely no conscious intention to manipulate the language or to obfuscate or to create a misunderstanding as to what they might refer to.”
LYNE: “Were you aware at the time of the serious concerns about this that had been expressed by Dr Brian Jones of the Defence Intelligence Staff?”
SCARLETT: “I was not.”
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FREEDMAN: Just another issue on the nuclear side. As I understand it, the British view and I think this is in published material certainly the British view is in published material that nuclear weapons were only an issue if sanctions ended, whereas the American view was that they could be a serious issue even with the continuation of the sanctions regime. Is that fair?
SCARLETT: Yes. And, of course, there is a nuance there, because you could have the sanctions regime continuing but being successfully evaded. And certainly our view was the British view was that if fissile material was obtained illicitly from outside Iraq, then that would make potentially a significant difference to the capability of that programme.”
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Important exchanges
BURRIDGE: “So we wanted to be sure that we made it clear both that the Iraqi people were not the subject of our intent, but the regime; that we would be extremely careful with our targeting so as to avoid making reconstruction and the capacity building of the country more difficult; It is as simple as that. So that was the test case for analysing the exercise.”
GILBERT: “Is that what you had in mind when you told the House of Commons Defence Select Committee in June 2003 that many of General Franks’ staff the words you used were:”… would regard us as their conscience”? What did that mean? Is that essentially what you have just been saying?”
BURRIDGE: “Yes, essentially that. There are two aspects in that we use a different approach to targeting. We are absolutely doctrinally rigid. We use a template called strategy to task to target. So that we can show an audit trail, and are required to show an audit trail, from any target back to the strategy, thereby passing through all the aspects of the law of armed conflict such as discrimination, military necessity, et cetera. We are required to do that for our law officers in this country and we go through that process with every target. US colleagues were new to that as a discipline and they did recognise the value of it because it made it made the dialogue with the international community a little easier. Secondly, in being the conscience, as it were, quite often there will be nuances even amongst the same operational team on the front bench at CentCom. So someone who is able to say actually, to me, it looks a bit like this and I do remember on a couple of occasions saying, “General, that may look okay in Washington, but let me just tell you how it might look in London or, more so, Berlin or Paris or wherever”. It is not to say they needed reining in, it is just to get these nuances right they needed the input from someone perhaps whose perspective was a little different.”
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GILBERT: “What were the respective American and British perspectives with regard to the exercise?”
BURRIDGE: “Sorry, what was the?”
GILBERT: “Our different perspectives.”
BURRIDGE: “Right. If we were going to participate, our end state would have been was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. The strategic end state for the US was to effect regime change. That may sound a neat point, but it is significant in gaining strategic alignment between two capitals.”
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GILBERT: “Finally, before I pass on to Sir Lawrence, how did you describe the readiness of your force at the moment the action was to begin?”
BRIMS: “We were ready. Readiness was described prior to the any date being given.”
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GILBERT: “Was there discussion between you and the Americans about the possibility that Britain might not, at the last moment, be able to participate?”
BURRIDGE: “Yes, I made it absolutely clear that the way things will be in the UK is this and there will be a House of Commons vote, the outcome of that will depend on whether the Prime Minister agrees that we should participate. And I have to say all I had in return was, “Yes, we understand your system, we absolutely understand your system”.”
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