"Continued to produce chemical and biological weapons"

A key part of Tony Blair’s claim that Saddam represented a "serious and current" threat was his insistence that "his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programme is not an historic left-over from 1998" but that Iraq had "continued to produce" chemical and biological weapons (Column 3). Blair – in fact Campbell – had claimed in his foreword to the dossier that the assessed intelligence had established this "beyond doubt", going slightly further than the dossier which asserted that the intelligence showed this in one case and that it was known in the other.

But this issue had not been expressed with anything like this certainty in the formal Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) paper of 9 September 2002. Indeed that paper, which was explicitly stated to be "based on judgement and assessment" in the face of "limited" intelligence (p164), reached the distinctly uncertain judgement that Iraq’s alleged chemical and biological weapons were "either from Gulf war stock or from more recent production" (p165). This was consistent with a statement from within the document that made clear that intelligence on the issue was not conclusive: "recent intelligence indicates that production of chemical and biological weapons is taking place" (p167).

When this point was first expressed as a judgement in the dossier draft of 16 September, the certainty of its expression and its status as a judgement had been vehemently disputed by the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS).

The government claimed that the more certain line taken in the dossier had resulted from intelligence from a new source that arrived too late for the JIC assessment but in time for the dossier. This appears to have been accepted by both the Hutton and Butler Inquiries, even though the new intelligence had not been assessed - as Blair claimed - at this point. A December 2006 New Statesman article by retired DIS manager Dr Brian Jones shows what a charade this was. But the proof that the certainty expressed in the dossier was for public consumption only can be found in the Butler Report itself.

Firstly, Blair had been briefed on the new intelligence by Sir Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6/SIS and expressly told "that the case was developmental and that the source remained unproven." (para 578) Indeed, the intelligence was withdrawn as unreliable in July 2003.

Secondly – and crucially – the JIC itself did not place any great weight on this intelligence at the time. The formal JIC assessment that followed the dossier, dated 28 October 2002, did not budge an inch from the JIC’s previous assessment:

"…intelligence indicates that [Iraq] has continued to produce chemical agent." (para 347)

"…intelligence indicates that [Iraq] has continued to produce biological agents. We judge that Iraq… currently has available, either from pre-Gulf War stocks or more recent production, anthrax spores, botulinum toxin, aflotoxin, and possibly plague and ricin." (para 556)

Mobile Biological Weapons facilities

The discovery after the war of vehicles that might justify the dossier’s claim that Iraq had developed mobile biological weapons facilities created a brief flurry of excitement, which soon turned into disappointment for the US and UK governments. But this was another of the dossier’s fabricated judgements – and again the evidence of what the JIC really thought is to be found in the Butler Report. It correctly set out how new intelligence provided merely "a degree of corroboration" for existing reports on this issue that the JIC had not necessarily believed:

"In September 2002, new intelligence from a reliable and established source quoting a new sub-source provided a degree of corroboration for the original source’s reporting. The new informant reported on the existence of mobile fermentation systems, designed for the military and allegedly for the production of single cell protein (a dietary supplement suitable for animal feed as well as human consumption) but having characteristics consistent with the production of biological agents. The informant was suspicious about the true purpose of the systems, although he did not connect them with biological warfare." (para 517)

This intelligence was reported in the JIC assessment of 9 September in terms which made clear that it was not necessarily believed that the systems in question were for military use, let alone that they were for biological warfare. Intelligence indicated that "Iraq has developed for the military, fermentation systems which are capable of being mounted on road-trailers or rail cars. These could produce BW agent." (para 518)

Obviously, such uncertainty would not do for the dossier, which offered a "judgement": "we judge that Iraq has… developed mobile laboratories for military use, corroborating earlier reports about the mobile production of biological warfare agents." This was one of the points that was expressed in an earlier draft as "recent intelligence…indicates". The amendment here was so clumsy that the construction in the published dossier makes no sense: a judgement does not corroborate anything.

And Blair told the House of Commons: "The UN inspection regime discovered that Iraq was trying to acquire mobile biological weapons facilities. Present intelligence confirms that Iraq has now got such facilities." (Column 4)

Not only was the claim that intelligence confirmed that Iraq had mobile biological weapons facilities a direct lie, so was the claim that UN inspectors had discovered that Iraq was trying to acquire such facilities. In fact, the DIS had successfully objected to a false claim in a dossier draft that the inspectors had established that Iraq was planning to use mobile facilities to conceal its biological capabilities from them. The inspectors – who first went to Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War – had discovered that Iraq had considered developing such facilities back in 1987.

Foolish though it was to do so on an issue that was a matter of public record, Blair again misled the House of Commons.

Next: The nuclear claims