The Hutton inquiry: week three (29 August 2003)

Partly published as "Witnesses shine light in Downing Street's dark corners, but hard questions remain", by Ray Whitaker and Glen Rangwala, The Independent on Sunday (31 August 2003)

The third week of the Hutton inquiry has led to the further discrediting of two key claims about Iraq's weapons and programmes that were made in the Prime Minister's dossier of 24 September 2002. Quite apart from the debate relating to any pressure exerted by Alastair Campbell, new material has come to light that demonstrates how limited intelligence material was on Iraq's nuclear programmes and its capacity to deliver chemical and biological weapons.

Early drafts of the dossier's executive summary contain only two clear items as evidence for an ongoing nuclear programme in Iraq, both of which came under high-level criticism prior to the document's release.

The version produced on 10 September claims that Iraq "has purchased large quantities of uranium ore". Jack Straw acknowledged to the Foreign Affairs Committee in July that the CIA had warned the British government against including this claim, now widely believed to be false, when its representative to the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was supplied with a draft of the dossier. Although no witness to the Hutton inquiry has directly addressed this point, the warning from the CIA does appear to provide a credible explanation for why the language in the dossier on this point was toned down subsequently. The published version of the dossier used more cautious language, that Iraq "has sought significant quantities of uranium".

The only other clear allegation relating to a nuclear programme in the 10 September draft was that Iraq was "covertly attempting to acquire technology and materials for use in nuclear weapons, including specialised aluminium". The reference to Iraq's attempted import of aluminium tubes was dropped from the executive summary of the published version of dossier, and a subsequent reference in the main text was qualified by a reference to the absence of information connecting the tubes with a nuclear programme.

A note released this week from John Scarlett, chair of JIC, but written five days prior to the release of the dossier provided the explanation for this: "you should note that we have toned down the reference to aluminium tubes in paragraph 22 on page 28, and removed it from the Executive Summary. This reflects some very recent exchanges on intelligence channels". The "intelligence channels" in question were most likely reporting Iraq's use of the tubes not for uranium enrichment but for the production of conventional artillery rockets, the same conclusion that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors in Iraq subsequently came to.

Whilst the remainder of the dossier's language was being strengthened, the allegations about a nuclear programme in Iraq were falling away. This seems to have provoked concern in Downing Street. On 11 September, an individual identified by Mr Scarlett as a member of his assessment staff reported that Downing Street wanted in the dossier more details of any items that Iraq had procured that could be used in a nuclear programme. Subsequent drafts of the dossier incorporate a list of items, including vacuum pumps, fluorine products and a magnet production line, that Iraq had purchased. All these items were found to be in use in permitted facilities in Iraq by IAEA inspectors.

More significantly, Alastair Campbell wrote to Mr Scarlett on 17 September to suggest the reintroduction of a section on "nuclear timelines", the length of time it would take Iraq to build a nuclear bomb. With Mr Scarlett's compliance, the published dossier included the assertion that "Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon in between one and two years" if it managed to acquire fissile material from abroad. This was an essential meaningless claim, as producing fissile material forms the main technological puzzle in creating a nuclear bomb. As Manhattan Project physicist Luis Alvarez wrote in 1987, "With modern weapons-grade uranium even a high school kid could make a bomb in short order".

Despite these changes, the concern within Downing Street at the low level of information to make a case for a nuclear threat from Iraq was noticeable. As Daniel Pruce, a member of the Downing Street communications team, wrote pithily on 17 September after a Cabinet Office meeting on the dossier, "the facts remain thin on nuclear".

The concerns relating to the delivery of chemical and biological weapons were better concealed in the dossier. The low level of knowledge held by the intelligence services was demonstrated by a message from the biological weapons branch of the Defence Intelligence Staff on 6 September, released by the Inquiry: "There is specific intelligence that Iraq plans to use [chemical and biological weapons], it is just that there is no specific intelligence of their plans as to how/when/with what they would do so".

The only reference in the Prime Minister's foreword to the dossier to how chemical and biological weapons could be used was the claim that some weapons could be ready within 45 minutes. That reference is after a sentence on how the regime was developing weapons with the particular "goal of regional domination". The text of the foreword appears to have been structured in order to imply that the potential for Iraq to use its weapons within 45 minutes was linked to this goal.

However, the absence of such a link was revealed by Mr Scarlett in his evidence to the inquiry. According to him, the 45 minutes claim related to "battlefield mortar shells or small calibre weaponry". These weapons have a range of no more than a few miles, and would be able to carry only small quantities of warfare agent. Although they would have the effect of creating fear if used against a civilian uprising, their potential for large-scale destruction or a direct threat to regional and international security is highly limited.

Author: Glen Rangwala

Back to the Index of Writings
To contact, email from here