The search for WMD
571. Section 4.4 considers the impact of the failure to find stockpiles of WMD in Iraq in the months immediately after the invasion, and of the emerging conclusions of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), on:
• the Government’s response to demands for an independent judge‑led inquiry into pre‑conflict intelligence on Iraq; and
• the Government’s public presentation of the nature of the threat from Saddam Hussein’s regime and the decision to go to war.
572. The Inquiry has not sought to comment in detail on the specific conclusions of the ISC, FAC, Hutton and Butler Reports, all of which were published before the withdrawal by SIS in September 2004 of a significant proportion of the intelligence underpinning the JIC Assessments and September 2002 dossier on which UK policy had rested.
573. In addition to the conclusions of those reports, the Inquiry notes the forthright statement in March 2005 of the US Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Reporting to President Bush, the Commission stated that “the [US] Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre‑war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure.”
574. The evidence in Section 4.4 shows that, after the invasion, the UK Government, including the intelligence community, was reluctant to admit, and to recognise publicly, the mounting evidence that there had been failings in the UK’s pre‑conflict collection, validation, analysis and presentation of intelligence on Iraq’s WMD.
575. Despite the failure to identify any evidence of WMD programmes during pre‑conflict inspections, the UK Government remained confident that evidence would be found after the Iraqi regime had been removed.
576. Almost immediately after the start of the invasion, UK Ministers and officials sought to lower public expectations of immediate or significant finds of WMD in Iraq.
577. The lack of evidence to support pre‑conflict claims about Iraq’s WMD challenged the credibility of the Government and the intelligence community, and the legitimacy of the war.
578. The Government and the intelligence community were both concerned about the consequences of the presentational aspects of their pre‑war assessments being discredited.
579. By June, the Government had acknowledged the need for a review of the UK’s pre‑conflict intelligence on Iraq. It responded to demands for an independent, judge‑led inquiry by expressing support for the reviews initiated by the ISC and the FAC.
