Blix Believed Iraq Dossier Was 'Understated'

By Gavin Cordon, Whitehall Editor, PA News


Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix believed
the Government�?s controversial Iraq weapons dossier
actually understated the case against Saddam Hussein,
according to documents released today by the Foreign
Office.

The papers released by the FO show that British
officials at the United Nations in New York showed a
draft of the dossier to Dr Blix in September 2002, two
weeks before the final version was published.

A note from one official, Adam Bye, said that Dr Blix
had liked the section on chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons as he believed that it did not
exaggerate the facts.

According to the note, Dr Blix said that the dossier
even risked understating Iraq�?s ability to produce
weapons of mass destruction �? particularly the lethal
anthrax virus.

He also described the claim that even if Iraq was able
to acquire fissile material from abroad, it would
still take at least two years to build a working
nuclear bomb as �?modest�?.

Since war, Dr Blix has strongly criticised the case
made for war by Britain and the United States, based
on Saddam Hussein�?s supposed possession of illegal
WMD.

However, in a Commons statement, Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw said that at the time the dossier was
published, the assumption that Iraq did indeed have
WMD was shared across the international community.

In his note, sent to Mr Straw�?s office, Mr Bye said:
�?On the whole, Blix liked section 6 (on WMD) �? he felt
it did not exaggerate the facts, nor revert to
rhetoric, probably both desirable for its credibility.

�?Blix felt that more evidence of illegal procurement
activities would have been good �? this was the sort of
activity/evidence that most impressed him when reading
WMD reports (Blix is of course a more sophisticated
reader than most).

�?Blix also thought that the section risked
understating Iraq�?s indigenous capacity to produce WMD
(ie meaning that, even if it held low stocks of WMD,
it could quickly produce more).

�?Specific mention of anthrax might be particularly
worthwhile in this respect �? Unmovic (the UN weapons
inspectors) believed this was an area where Iraq had
very likely maintained indigenous capability (though
Unmovic had not said so in public, nor was the case
totally watertight).�?

Under �?additional thoughts�?, Mr Bye noted that Dr Blix
regarded the assessment in the dossier of the time it
would take for Iraq to build a nuclear bomb as
�?modest�?.

�?Blix believed the IAEA (International Atomic Energy
Agency) had, at the time, assessed Iraq could complete
a nuclear bomb within a year. While Iraq had trouble
putting together a missile (mismatch between the size
of the bomb and size of the missile) a bomb could have
been delivered by plane,�? he wrote.

Mr Bye said Dr Blix also regarded the section on
Iraq�?s chemical weapons capacity as �?modest�? and he
had not challenged the claim in the dossier that Iraq
had tried to acquire uranium from the African state of
Niger.

�?He thought we should be clear that such uranium was
not weapons usable without enrichment (no small feat).
However it was illegal for Iraq to buy it,�? Mr Bye
wrote.

However Dr Blix did challenge claims in the dossier
that aluminium pipes acquired by Iraq were for the
purpose of uranium enrichment and that castor oil
resin could be used by the Iraqis to create a
battlefield weapon.

The comments by Dr Blix were made before UN weapons
inspectors were able to re-enter Iraq and see for
themselves conditions on the ground.

However they will be seen by the Foreign Office as
further corroboration for their view that at the time
the dossier was published, the view that Iraq had WMD
was widely shared across the international community.