Downing Street Says » WMD/45-Minutes

Put to him that one would expect the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to ask for precise details about a claim that a potential enemy country could ‘do something’ within 45 minutes, the PMOS said he thought that this whole debate appeared to be an attempt to rewrite history and inject another element of conspiracy into the issue. He pointed out that, subsequent to the publication of the Dossier, the 45-minute point had played little part in the discussion about Iraq. Peter Bradley MP had put down some figures yesterday pointing out how little it had been raised during the Debate inasmuch as there had been two questions about it in the 38,000 Written Questions and it had not been mentioned at all in the 4,500+ Oral Questions. Nor had the Prime Minister drawn attention to it in his Statement to the House on 18 March. The PMOS underlined that we had not claimed, as some were reporting, that Saddam could attack the UK within 45-minutes, or indeed within any timescale. We had said consistently that, were he to deploy WMD, we would inevitable be drawn into any regional conflict. The Prime Minister had actually stated this point on the way to Camp David in September 2002. As the Dossier had made clear, the Prime Minister and the Government believed that Saddam had WMD and that he had the capability to deploy them both in a battlefield and a strategic capacity. Some people were implying that since the 45-minute claim did not apply to strategic or long-range missiles, the Government had in some way not made the case that we believed that Saddam had that capability. This was completely untrue. Page 22 of the Dossier set out clearly:

“Iraq has a variety of delivery means available for both chemical and biological agents. These include:

Thus, the Prime Minister and the Government clearly believed that Saddam had had WMD and that he had been able to deploy them in a tactical and strategic way. We had never claimed in the Dossier that the 45-minutes had referred to ballistic missiles of this sort. The vast majority of media reporting after the publication of the Dossier had not made that link. This matter had not really featured until it had been made an issue in May. The Government believed that Saddam had had WMD and that he could deploy it. Irrespective of whether it was battlefield or strategic, it was a false distinction to say that if WMD was deployed in one way, it would not have the same effect if it was deployed in another. We were still talking about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Moreover, under UN Resolutions, Saddam should not have been able to possess any of this material in the first place.

Put to him that the Prime Minister would surely have wanted to know what the 45-minute claim had referred to, the PMOS said the Prime Minister believed than Saddam had had the capability to deploy WMD, both in a battlefield and long-range context. He was making the point today that if one were to believe some of the coverage at the moment, you would think that the 45 minutes referred to battlefield munitions and that the Government had not said in its Dossier that Saddam had delivery means of a different capability. As David Kay had pointed out in the interim ISG report, it was clear that there were programmes relating to 1,000km.

Put to him that many journalists at the time had assumed a link between the 45-minute claim and the fact that ballistic missiles were capable of reaching Cyprus, Eastern Turkey, Tehran and Israel (p17 of Dossier), and that the Government should have taken the trouble to correct this misapprehension, the PMOS underlined that neither the Dossier nor the Prime Minister had ever said that Iraq could deliver ballistic missiles within 45 minutes. The 45-minute point (p17) had not appeared on the same page as the variety of delivery means for both chemical and biological agents (p22). In the Government’s reply to the ISC report earlier this week we had said, “The Government notes that the wording of the assessment was considered by the JIC to be an accurate reflection of the intelligence because the source of the intelligence report on which the JIC assessment drew did not specify the nature of the delivery system to which the 45-minutes applied. There was no reference either to battlefield or strategic systems in the final JIC assessment on 9 September.” Put to him that there was a difference between battlefield weapons, which it was thought Saddam might use if attacked, and ballistic missiles which could arrive in Cyprus at 45-minutes’ notice, the PMOS underlined that the Dossier had stated that we believed he had a variety of delivery means available for both chemical and biological agents, including al-Hussein ballistic missiles with a range of 650km. Put to him that it was the linkage which the Dossier had sought to imply that was the important point here because it had led many journalists to make the assumptions they had made, the PMOS said he did not accept that the media reporting had wholly gone down that route. The Evening Standard, for example, had discriminated between weapons on standby for use within 45 minutes and those missiles which could reach Cyprus. Put to him that the Standard’s headline had been misleading if that was the case, the PMOS said he did not believe that what had been reported in some parts of the press had been the dominant take on the Dossier which had been viewed, in the main, as serious, sober-minded and considered. Put to him that that was like saying that because BBC Radio 5 Live had had a different take on the Dossier story, Andrew Gilligan’s claim did not matter, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had noted yesterday, Mr Gilligan’s story had been 100% wrong. Given the way this issue was being portrayed today, one would think that the Government had initially said that it believed that Saddam had the capability to deploy long-range missiles, but now did not believe it. That was not true, as the Dossier had made clear. Asked if the Government continued to believe that Saddam had had a ballistic capability, the PMOS said that David Kay had described in his report ballistic missiles with a range of 1,000km. The Butler Inquiry had been set up to examine the issue of WMD and intelligence. The key point was integrity, which we believed had been firmly nailed.

Asked if the intelligence on 9 September 2002 had been the last JIC intelligence on the 45-minutes which the Prime Minister had received prior to the Dossier’s publication, the PMOS said he believed the answer was yes. Asked at what point he had become aware that the 45-minute claim had referred to battlefield weapons, the PMOS said that it would have been around the time that the ISC had been examining the issue – obviously after March 2003. Asked if further intelligence had been received after the publication of the Dossier which had stated specifically that the 45-minute claim referred to battlefield weapons, the PMOS said that as he understood it, it had been the assessment once attention had focussed on the issue. He did not believe it had been based on any subsequent intelligence.

Asked to explain why the 45-minute claim had lost prominence after its inclusion in the Dossier inasmuch as the Prime Minister and Ministers stopped referring to it, the PMOS said it was because it was only one part of the full intelligence picture. He expressed concern at the revisionism that was currently taking place. People appeared to be implying that the Government’s case for taking action against Saddam was based on the 45-minute point. That was simply not true. The Government’s case had been based on the fact that Saddam had posed a threat and had been in breach of UN Resolutions. Indeed, in his interim ISG report, David Kay had stated his work already showed that Saddam had been in multiple breach of Resolution 1441. Journalists also knew it was the case that the 45-minute point had never featured prominently in press briefings until it had been made into an issue several months later.

Asked again why the Prime Minister had not felt the urge to find out more about the threat to the UK, the PMOS underlined that we had never claimed that Saddam had presented a threat to the UK. Asked why, in that case, the Prime Minister had not been interested in finding out what the threat from Saddam meant to British interests, the PMOS said that as the Dossier had made clear, we believed that Saddam had posed a threat both in a battlefield context and also in terms of the delivery means for al-Hussein missiles with a range of 650km. Alarmingly, the 45-minute point seemed to have taken on a Holy Grail status for some people. It was a complete rewrite of history to claim that it had been the single factor which had dominated the public debate after the publication of the Dossier up until the Debate in the House in March.

Asked if he would agree that the Government should apologise for causing people to be misled about the 45-minute claim and not correcting media coverage at the time, the PMOS said that that was to presume that the coverage as a whole, after the publication of the Dossier, had reflected this view. It had not.

Asked for Downing Street’s view of the way this issue had been reported in the media over the last couple of days, in particular by the BBC and the Today Programme, given his assertions about revisionism and the like, the PMOS said he was simply making the point that because of what we had been through since 29 May 2003, the 45-minute point appeared to have achieved totemic status, as though it had been the single factor that had dominated every Debate in the House of Commons. That was patently not the case. For example, Robin Cook had not even mentioned the issue in his resignation speech. Nor had the Prime Minister mentioned it in his Statement to the House. Asked why so much was being made of it now, the PMOS pointed out that he wasn’t the one who was making a big deal out of it. He was simply doing his job and answering questions from journalists. Asked why they were so excited about it, the PMOS said that he wasn’t a media commentator and suggested that the journalist asked some of his colleagues for their views.

Put to him that being able to activate CB weapons within 45-minutes would indicate that Saddam had had large stockpiles of the ingredients necessary to do so, which we hadn’t yet found, and whether the Government would now accept that the 45-minute claim was, by definition, therefore wrong, the PMOS said he accepted that there was a disjunction between what the intelligence had showed and what the ISG had found so far. That was precisely why the Butler Inquiry had been set up. However, it was important for people to recognise and understand that battlefield WMD were not ‘harmless’ and did not pose a threat. It was clear that they did. For example, as Geoff Hoon had pointed out today, they had been used in Halabja. Indeed, in his evidence to the Hutton Inquiry, John Scarlett had said, “Do you know what a battlefield munition might actually involve? I can tell you the assessment from the DIS of what the most likely delivery system for chemical biological – particularly chemical – weapons might be – and this was based on the experience of the Iran/Iraq war: multiple rocket launchers, in particular the range of 20km or artillery up to 155mm artillery”. Quite clearly battlefield munitions had the capacity to cause enormous suffering. Put to him that stockpiles, factories and noxious substances were necessary to activate CB weapons but none had yet been found, the PMOS said he did not dispute the fact that we needed an explanation as to why what the Government – and the international community – had believed to be the case had not so far been proven. That was why the Butler Inquiry had been set up. However, that was a separate issue to questions about integrity and what the Governmental had included in the Dossier believing it to be true.

Questioned further about the media reporting of the issue and the Government’s failure to bother to correct any misapprehensions, the PMOS said he would disagree with the premise of the question. It wasn’t a case of people not bothering to correct it. As Geoff Hoon had pointed out on the Today Programme this morning, he had been in Poland and the Ukraine on 24 and 25 September 2002. Put to him that he would have been given a media digest outlining how the press had reported the Dossier, the PMOS said that, to shorthand Andrew Gilligan when he had reported on the publication of the Dossier, it had been a sensible and measured document. Generally, that had been the view of the British media. Put to him that Downing Street, or other MoD Ministers, could have corrected the media, the PMOS said the Prime Minister believed that there had been a threat from both long-range and battlefield missiles in respect of WMD. The 45-minute point had only become a great source of controversy after the conflict. Asked what Downing Street’s reaction had been to the headline in the Evening Standard in the light of Jonathan Powell’s e-mail asking what the headline should be after the publication of the Dossier, the PMOS said that he couldn’t recall his precise emotional reaction to the last edition of the Evening Standard on 24 September.

Asked for a reaction to the views just expressed by the Leader of the Opposition suggesting that the Prime Minister had been negligent in not asking the relevant questions, the PMOS repeated that the Prime Minister believed that Saddam had posed a threat as a result of his WMD – both in a battlefield context and his ability to deliver chemical and biological agents through al-Hussein missiles, amongst other delivery mechanisms. The PMOS took the opportunity once again to warn journalists of the danger of retrospectively making the 45-minute point a totemic trigger for military action, which it had never been.

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» Thursday, February 5, 2004

WMD/45-Minutes

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