Having been out of action for the past ten days, I have only just caught up with both the US Senate and the Butler reports on the intelligence effort on Iraq. These reports have caused foaming hysteria on both sides of the Atlantic, with daily headlines screaming that Bush lied, Blair lied, we were taken to war on a lie, there were no WMD, the intelligence had no integrity and was garbage, politicians misrepresented the intelligence which was full of integrity, and Saddam was never any threat to the west. After ploughing through both reports, I am astonished, even by the degraded standards of the anti-war press, by the monstrous distortion and malevolence of this reaction.

The reports undoubtedly paint a disturbing picture of faults in both the CIA and SIS, errors in intelligence (par for the course in such a world of shadows) and the utterly unwise and wrong-headed use of that intelligence — with all its inherent frailties — in an attempt to gain public support, an exercise which inevitably did not admit to such frailties in any of the source material. These are grave faults. Nevertheless, these reports do not in any sense justify the claims that Bush and Blair lied and that all their claimed evidence against Saddam has crumbled into dust.

The first and most obvious point is that we were not taken to war on a lie because we were not taken to war on the basis of these intelligence reports, let alone the infamous British dossier of September 2002 (which, incidentally, Butler says in terms did not make the case for war or for any course of action but was merely a source of information to the public). The casus belli was the fact that Saddam was in breach of the UN resolutions requiring him to prove he had dismantled his WMD programmes, because these combined with his record and strategic threat to the region made him a danger that could not be tolerated.

Let’s not forget that what is being now argued is no longer merely that the war was the wrong way to deal with Saddam — the original anti-war position — but that Saddam posed no threat to the west at all, that he had no WMD, was not involved in terrorism and that all these things were exaggerated by Bush and Blair.

But on the contrary, despite the reports’ strictures against wrong intelligence they both provide evidence of a grave threat from Saddam that no responsible government could possibly have ignored.

Both committees confirm that Saddam had connections with al Qaeda. The Senate says the CIA was right to believe that Saddam was up to his neck in terrorism against the US throughout the 1990s and was planning further outrages against it in 2002.

Even more striking, both committees say Saddam was indeed trying to buy uranium from Niger, the claim the anti-war mob has repeatedly said was a lie. It was not a lie. It was true. And unlike all the dual-use ambiguities elsewhere, there is no dual use for uranium. Saddam wanted it because he was trying to make a nuclear bomb. Put that with his links with al Qaeda and his history of terrorism against the US, and you have a risk which no responsible political leader could possibly countenance — and once 9/ll changed the whole calculus of risk, Bush and Blair knew they could no longer countenance it as they had previously done.

Okay, these committees say there was no evidence of any co-operative relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. But the anti-war mob insists there could be no connection between the two at all because of their religious differences. Yet Butler tells us:

‘Contacts between Al Qaida and the Iraqi Directorate General of Intelligence had dated back over four years. “Fragmentary and uncorroborated” intelligence reports suggested that in 1998 there were contacts between Al Qaida and Iraqi intelligence. Those reports described Al Qaida seeking toxic chemicals as well as other conventional terrorist equipment. Some accounts suggested that Iraqi chemical experts may have been in Afghanistan during 2000.’

British intelligence concluded nevertheless that there was ‘too much mistrust’ for practical co-operation between Saddam and al Qaeda. But this was merely a judgment; and if there’s one thing that leaps out from this whole saga, it is that time and again the spooks made misjudgment after misjudgment about the raw intelligence they were processing. These were the people who, as Butler makes clear, were slow to grasp the threat posed by Bin Laden and WMD and who were caught napping by 9/11. They were ignorant of the nature and extent of the Islamic jihad, ignorant of the alliances of convenience being made across sectarian divides in the broader cause of the jihad against the west. As is devastatingly clear from the forensic investigative work done by the terrorism expert Laurie Mylroie, the CIA refused to accept the overwhelmingly strong circumstantial — if not conclusive — evidence of a serious ongoing relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. As the Senate committee reported, one (anonymous) analyst told it that the CIA had provided a great deal of evidence about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda but had attempted ‘to discredit, dismiss or downgrade much of this reporting, resulting in inconsistent conclusions in many cases. Therefore the CIA’s report should be read for content only and the CIA’s conclusions should be ignored’.

Yet these facts have scarcely been remarked upon. Instead, there has been a hue and cry over the conclusion that the assessment that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD was wrong. But leave aside whether such stockpiles were moved to Syria, buried in the sand or destroyed immediately after the war ended (all of which are entirely possible). Stockpiles were not the reason we went to war. It was the UN resolutions, stupid. And since a single bag of anthrax can cause thousands of deaths, this fixation with non-existent stockpiles is demonstrably absurd and simply a handy stick with which to beat Blair and Bush.

The Butler report, meanwhile, has been presented by the malign hysterics in the British media as principally an attack on the way the intelligence was politicised by removing all the caveats normally found in intelligence assessments. But while it is true that this intelligence was so caveated, and that these caveats were reprehensibly removed, it is also clear from Butler that despite all the caveats there was a consistent bottom line for British intelligence —that Iraq possessed WMD, about which the spooks were consistently warning long before the 2002 dossier, and that no chemical or biological stockpiles were needed as Iraq could make such weapons within weeks.

In 1996, the JIC said: ‘We do not believe Iraqi statements that the BW programme has been destroyed. Possibly substantial elements, including some production equipment and weaponised agent, continue to be concealed.’ In 1998 it believed that ‘some CW agents, munitions, precursor chemicals and production equipment remain hidden’. This assessment was based on ‘Hussein Kamil’s defection, UNSCOM’s inability to reconcile Iraqi claims for production and destruction, unaccounted-for growth media and a total lack of cooperation from the Iraqis.’

In April 2000, the JIC warned of continuing chemical agent production in Iraq. It also said: ‘There is clear evidence of continuing Iraqi biological warfare activity, including BW related research and the production of BW agent. Iraq seems to be exploring the use of mobile facilities to give its BW activities greater security. But we have no evidence for Iraq filling weapons with biological agent since the Gulf War…We continue to assess that, even without procurement from abroad, Iraq has retained sufficient expertise, equipment and materials to produce BW agents within weeks using its legitimate biotechnology facilities.'

In May 2001, it reported increasing concern about Saddam’s nuclear capability: ‘There is evidence of increased activity at Iraq’s only remaining nuclear facility and a growing number of reports on possible nuclear related procurement. We judge but cannot confirm that Iraq is conducting nuclear related research and development into the enrichment of uranium and could have longer term plans to produce enriched uranium for a weapon. If successful, this could reduce the time needed to develop a nuclear warhead once sanctions were lifted.’

In March 2002, it said: ‘Intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programmes is sporadic and patchy. Iraq is also well practised in the art of deception, such as concealment and exaggeration. A complete picture of the various programmes is therefore difficult. But it is clear that Iraq continues to pursue a policy of acquiring WMD and their delivery means. Intelligence indicates that planning to reconstitute some of its programmes began in 1995. WMD programmes were then given a further boost in 1998 with the withdrawal of UNSCOM inspectors…Although there is very little intelligence we continue to judge that Iraq is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme...We continue to judge that Iraq has an offensive chemical warfare (CW) programme, although there is very little intelligence relating to it… Iraq currently has available, either from pre Gulf War stocks or more recent production, a number of biological agents. Iraq could produce more of these biological agents within days.’

In what Butler says was a fair and balanced assessment of the intelligence, officials said in March 2002: ‘Iraq continues to develop weapons of mass destruction, although our intelligence is poor. Iraq has up to 20 650km range missiles left over from the Gulf War. These are capable of hitting Israel and the Gulf states. Design work for other ballistic missiles over the UN limit of 150km continues. Iraq continues with its BW and CW programmes and, if it has not already done so, could produce significant quantities of BW agents within days and CW agent within weeks of a decision to do so. We believe it could deliver CBW by a variety of means, including in ballistic missile warheads. There are also some indications of a continuing nuclear programme. Saddam has used WMD in the past and could do so again if his regime were threatened.’

So Butler concludes: ‘By early 2002, therefore, readers of JIC assessments will have had an impression of:
a. The continuing clear strategic intent on the part of the Iraqi regime to pursue its nuclear, biological, chemical and ballistic missile programmes.
b. Continuing efforts by the Iraqi regime to sustain and where possible develop its indigenous capabilities, including through procurement of necessary materiel.
c. The development, drawing on those capabilities, of Iraq’s ‘break-out’ potential in the chemical, biological and ballistic missile fields, coupled with the proven ability to weaponise onto some delivery systems chemical and biological agent.’

What happened then, according to Butler, was that even harder assessments were made by the JIC which were incorporated into the government’s dossier – including the 45-minute claim – over which, in 2003, significant doubts arose because of concerns over the reliability of some of those sources. It is these admissions of error which have caused all the excitement. But those who have seized on this part of the report have completely ignored the fact that the JIC had previously consistently and solidly warned that Saddam had a WMD capability which he was continuing to develop.

Yet despite all these JIC assessments that Butler notes – and endorses – the report nevertheless bafflingly concludes that, before the war, Iraq ‘did not, however, have significant - if any - stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment, or developed plans for using them.’

There are similar lacunae in the Senate report, which is full of naïve judgments – such as that Iraqi nuclear scientists who continued to work at nuclear facilities might not have been working on nuclear weapons but were simply anxious to ‘use their expertise’; or that the CIA was guilty of ‘group-think’ by assuming that because Saddam persistently lied, deceived and dissembled he wasn’t telling the truth about WMD. Is it really ‘group-think’ not to give a persistent and proven con-man and liar the benefit of the doubt?

In addition, the Senate report does not review all the available intelligence on Iraq but confines itself to one document, the National Intelligence Estimate 2002 which it says is an authoritative overview of a decade of intelligence. But a note at the end asserts that this document was produced in three weeks flat after a Senate demand and was accordingly sloppy and full of errors. The committee did not take into account other information, such as the interim report by the former head of the Iraq survey Group Dr David Kay, who disclosed the existence of many clandestine biological programmes some of which were concealed even after the start of the war. And although he also criticised intelligence failures in claiming the existence of WMD stockpiles, he said the reality in Iraq of a possible trade in WMD between Iraqis and terrorists was even more dangerous to the world. None of this, however, is reflected in the Senate report.

The real story is surely this. The intelligence services got it very wrong throughout the 1990s. They persistently underplayed the evidence they were collecting about both Iraq and al Qaeda, as well as the relationship between the two. Some sources turned out to be frail, as is always the case. But the overall picture was consistent. The problem lay with the spooks’ own analysis. Tony Blair was wrong to press intelligence in aid to shore up the case he was failing to make successfully to the public. But that does not mean the war was wrong, or that the case he made for war was wrong. And it does not mean that Saddam was no threat. On the contrary, the evidence continues to mount that he did indeed present exactly the lethal threat that made those UN resolutions necessary in the first place.

But this isn’t reported. Instead, the media makes a leap — from ‘there were no caveats’ to ‘there were no WMD’. That’s real group-think for you —and of all the weapons against the west, it could prove the most lethal of all.

Posted by melanie at July 20, 2004