date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 18:01:46 +0100 from: "Tony Blair" subject: Butler Report to: "m.hulme@uea.ac.uk" [x7OFG5] Dear member I made a statement to Parliament on Lord Butler's Report on intelligence and weapons of mass destruction today. The report is comprehensive and thorough. I wanted to set out the important points and implications of my statement on the Butler Report. The Report specifically supports the conclusions of Lord Hutton's inquiry about the good faith of the Government in compiling the September 2002 dossier. In fact Lord Butler said in his press conference today, "We have no reason, we've found no evidence to question the Prime Minister's good faith". The report makes specific findings that the dossier and the intelligence behind it should have been better presented and had more caveats attached to it. It reports doubts on the 45 minute intelligence and says it should have been included in the dossier in different terms. It expressly supports the intelligence on Iraq's attempts to procure uranium from Niger in respect of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. The Report finds there is little - if any - significant evidence of stockpiles of readily deployable weapons. However, it concludes Saddam Hussein had "the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes, including if possible its nuclear weapons programme, when United Nations inspection regimes were relaxed and sanctions were eroded or lifted". He was carrying out "illicit research and development, and procurement, activities". He was "developing ballistic missiles with a range longer than permitted under relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions." Throughout the last 18 months there have been two questions. One is an issue of good faith, of integrity. This is now the fourth inquiry that has dealt with this issue. This report, like the Hutton inquiry, the reports of the Intelligence and Security Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, has found the same thing. No-one lied. No-one made up the intelligence. No-one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services. Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty. That issue of good faith should now be at an end. But there is another issue. I expected to find actual usable, chemical or biological weapons shortly after we entered Iraq. UN Resolution 1441 in November 2002 was passed unanimously by the whole Security Council, including Syria, on the basis Iraq was a WMD threat. Lord Butler says in his report: "We believe that it would be a rash person who asserted at this stage that evidence of Iraqi possession of stocks of biological or chemical agents, or even of banned missiles, does not exist or will never be found." I have to accept as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy. The second issue is therefore this: even if we acted in perfectly good faith, is it now the case that in the absence of stockpiles of weapons ready to deploy, the threat was misconceived and therefore the war was unjustified? I have searched my conscience in the light of what we now know, in answer to that question. Saddam retained complete strategic intent on WMD and significant capability; the only reason he ever let the inspectors back into Iraq was that he had 180,000 US and British troops on his doorstep; he had no intention of ever co-operating fully with the inspectors; and he was going to start up again the moment the troops and the inspectors departed; or the sanctions eroded. Had we backed down in respect of Saddam, we would never have taken the stand we needed to take on WMD, never have got the progress for example on Libya, that we achieved; and we would have left Saddam in charge of Iraq, with every malign intent and capability still in place and every dictator with the same intent everywhere immeasurably emboldened. For any mistakes made, as the Report finds, I take full responsibility. But I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake. Iraq, the region, the wider world is a better and safer place without Saddam. Iraq was the one country to have used WMD recently. It had developed WMD capability and concealed it. Action by UN inspectors had by the mid to late 1990s reduced this threat significantly; but as the Report shows by the time the inspectors were effectively blocked in Iraq (at the end of 1998) the JIC assessments were that some chemical weapons stocks remained hidden and that Iraq remained capable of a break-out chemical weapons capability within months; a biological weapons capability, also with probable stockpiles; and could have had ballistic missiles capability in breach of UN Resolutions within a year. This was the reason for military action, taken without a UN Resolution, in December 1998. Subsequent to that, the Report shows that we continued to receive the JIC assessments on Iraq's WMD capability. We published the Spetember 2002 dossier in response to the enormous parliamentary and press clamour. It was not, as has been described, the case for war. But it was the case for enforcing the UN will. The Report states that in general the statements in the dossier reflected fairly the judgements of past Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) assessments. The Report, however, goes on to say that with hindsight making public that the authorship of the dossier was by the JIC was a mistake. It meant that more weight was put on the intelligence than it could bear; and put the JIC and its Chairman in a difficult position. It recommends in future a clear delineation between Government and JIC, perhaps by issuing two separate documents. I think this is wise, though I doubt it would have made much difference to the reception of the intelligence at the time. The Report also enlarges on the criticisms of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in respect of the greater use of caveats about intelligence both in the dossier and in my foreword and we accept that entirely. The Report also states that significant parts of the intelligence have now been found by the Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) to be in doubt. I accept the Report's conclusions in full. Any mistakes made should not be laid at the door of our intelligence and security community. They do a tremendous job for our country. I accept full personal responsibility for the way the issue was presented and therefore for any errors made. As the Report indicates, there is no doubt that at the time it was genuinely believed by everyone that Saddam had both strategic intent in respect of WMD and actual weapons. On the sparse, generalised and highly fragmented intelligence about Al Qaida prior to September 11th, it is now widely said policy-makers should have foreseen the attacks that materialised on September 11th 2001 in New York . I only ask: had we ignored the specific intelligence about the threat from Iraq, backed up by a long history of international confrontation over it, and that threat later materialised, how would we have been judged? I know some will disagree with this. There are those who were opposed to the war and remain so now. I only hope that now, people will not disrespect the other's point of view but will accept that those that agree and those that disagree with the war in Iraq, hold their views not because they are war-mongers on the one hand or closet supporters of Saddam on the other, but because of a genuine difference of judgement as to the right thing to have done. There was no conspiracy. There was no impropriety. The essential judgement and truth, as usual, does not lie in extremes. We all acknowledge Saddam was evil and his regime depraved. Whether or not actual stockpiles of weapons are found, there wasn't and isn't any doubt Saddam used WMD and retained every strategic intent to carry on developing them. The judgement is this: would it have been better or more practical to have contained him through continuing sanctions and weapons inspections; or was this inevitably going to be at some point a policy that failed? And was removing Saddam a diversion from pursuing the global terrorist threat; or part of it? I can honestly say I have never had to make a harder judgement. But in the end, my judgement was that after September 11th, we could no longer run the risk; that instead of waiting for the potential threat of terrorism and WMD to come together, we had to get out and get after it. One part was removing the training ground of Al Qaida in Afghanistan. The other was taking a stand on WMD; and the place to take that stand was Iraq, whose regime was the only one ever to have used WMD and was subject to 12 years of UN Resolutions and weapons inspections that turned out to be unsatisfactory. Both countries now face an uncertain struggle for the future. But both at least now have a future. The one country in which you will find an overwhelming majority in favour of the removal of Saddam is Iraq. I am proud of this country and the part it played and especially our magnificent armed forces, in removing two vile dictatorships and giving people oppressed, almost enslaved, the prospect of democracy and liberty. [cid:blairsig$oehbpqyvcb] Tony Blair ______________________________________________________________________________________ Privacy: we won't pass on your email address to anyone else. 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