“45-Minute” Iraqi WMD Claim Based on Poor Information, British Inquiry Expected to Find

A British inquiry into intelligence on prewar Iraq is expected to find that there was inadequate intelligence to support the September 2002 British claim that prewar Iraq’s military could deploy biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of receiving a deployment order, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, July 6).

A report set to be released July 14 is set to conclude that the intelligence used to support the claim was of poor quality and is also expected to criticize both the sources of such information and its analysis, according to the Times. The inquiry is also expected to find that most of the prewar intelligence gathered on Iraq was inadequate, the Times reported (Mark Huband, Financial Times, July 8).

The inquiry would report, though, that British intelligence was correct when it determined that prewar Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Niger, according to the Financial Times (see GSN, June 28; Mark Huband, Financial Times II, July 8).

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