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The questions Butler must ask (7 February 2004) Published in the Independent on Sunday (8 February 2004) The Government has set up an inquiry under Lord Butler to look into the accuracy of the intelligence that led us into war in Iraq, but it needs to go much wider than simply examining the claims made in the September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Between the issue of the dossier and the start of the war in March last year, United Nations weapons inspectors returned to Iraq, then left again amid public claims from Britain and the US that they were not proving effective in uncovering Saddam Hussein's WMD activities. Was there intelligence to this effect? The Intelligence and Security Committee, appointed by the Prime Minister, commented last September that the presence of UN inspectors must have inhibited production and storage of chemical and biological agents and munitions, and complained that this was not fully reflected in the intelligence it had seen. But last week the Government said that the Joint Intelligence Committee, the clearing body for all the agencies, had specifically pointed out in December 2002 that "Iraq's ability to use CBW might be constrained by the difficulty of producing more while UN inspectors were present." Which view of the intelligence agencies is correct? Was the Government told the inspectors were unable to contain Iraq, and is that why they were pulled out? The inquiry needs to find out. Lord Butler and his colleagues must also examine the sources of intelligence, on which there were very widely contrasting views, particularly in the US. Some say the intelligence assessments relied mainly on previous UN inspection reports, while others, including the former head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), David Kay, placed far more emphasis on the claims of Iraqi defectors. The inquiry should examine the extent to which the British Government relied on "human intelligence", much of it from people with political ambitions, including people now given positions of power in Iraq by the occupation authorities. Although Britain did not place the same emphasis as the US on alleging links between Saddam and al-Qa'ida, the Prime Minister frequently invoked the dangers of a future alliance between Iraq and terrorists. Since the ISG began its work, it has become clear that Baghdad was highly suspicious of Islamist groups, and denied them access to its territory and to its work on sophisticated weapons. What was British intelligence on this point at the time? We need to know to what extent Mr Blair's comments were based on the assessments put forward by the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Butler inquiry has to examine the discrepancy between what intelligence told us at the time about Iraq's WMD and what the ISG is now discovering. But as it begins its work, it should bear in mind that the ISG is far from being a neutral body. The group has reported, for example, that Iraq's work on missile technology was in breach of UN Security Council resolutions, but it is by no means clear that the ISG's interpretation of the resolutions is correct. The ISG's members, including Mr Kay himself, were appointed by the CIA and the Pentagon, which were themselves responsible for many of the disputed claims about Iraq. The ISG went into Iraq assuming that weapons would be found, and the Butler inquiry must examine the group's work as critically as that of the intelligence agencies. |
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Author: Glen Rangwala Back to the Index
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