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British Intelligence Chiefs Warned That Iraq War Could Increase Terrorist WMD Threat Shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom, British intelligence chiefs had prepared a secret assessment warning that terrorist groups would be more likely to acquire weapons of mass destruction if then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime were overthrown, according to a British parliamentary report released yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 11). In a Feb. 10 assessment, the British Joint Intelligence Committee said there was no intelligence that Iraq had provided weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda. “Any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists,” the assessment said (Adams/Alden, Financial Times, Sept. 11). British Prime Minister Tony Blair had told the Joint Intelligence Committee that “there was obviously a danger that in attacking Iraq you ended up provoking the very thing you were trying to avoid,” according to yesterday’s report. He also told the committee, however, that he believed the risk of Iraq providing weapons of mass destruction to terrorists would have increased if Hussein had been allowed to remain in power. “This is my judgment and it remains my judgment,” Blair was quoted as saying by yesterday’s report, “and I suppose time will tell whether it’s true or it’s not true.” Yesterday’s report was issued by the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, which has been conducting an inquiry into whether Blair’s office had exaggerated prewar intelligence on Iraq used in a September 2002 dossier, according to the Washington Post. While the committee determined that the dossier had not been inflated, it did criticize the inclusion of a claim that the Iraqi military could have launched WMD attacks within 45 minutes of receiving an order to do so, the Post reported. The 45-minute claim, “an arresting detail” that had been mentioned four times in the dossier, had referred only to “battlefield chemical and biological munitions and their movement on the battlefield, not to any other form of chemical or biological attack,” the report said. This “should have been highlighted in the dossier,” it said. The report also said, however, that British intelligence services were justified in continuing to support the disputed claim that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Niger — a claim the United States has determined to be false, according to the Post (see GSN, Aug. 11). “We have questioned the Secret Intelligence Service about the basis of its judgment and conclude that it is reasonable,” the report said (Glenn Frankel, Washington Post, Sept. 12). In addition, the committee also criticized in its report British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, saying it was “disturbed” that Hoon did not reveal during testimony that ministry staff had expressed concerns about the dossier, according to CNN.com. Committee Chairwoman Ann Taylor said that while Hoon did not lie, he had been “potentially misleading” in his testimony. “He did not tell us lies,” Taylor said. “It was potentially misleading, events overtook it. ... We got the information in the end. It is speculative (to ask) what might have happened,” she said. The Defense Ministry “could have been more helpful,” Hoon said. “I regret any misunderstanding,” he said (CNN.com, Sept. 11). Bush Administration Officials Shift in Justification for War Meanwhile, since the end of major combat operations in Iraq, senior White House officials, including President George W. Bush himself, have moved away from citing Iraqi WMD programs as a major justification for war, according to the Washington Post. In a speech Sunday, Bush barely mentioned Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Instead, he linked Iraq to the war on terrorism, calling it the site of the last stand by the “enemies of freedom.” Another senior administration official who has apparently altered is arguments is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who leading up to war stressed the issue of Iraqi WMD efforts, according to the Post. More recently, however, Wolfowitz has instead chosen to focus on the evils of Hussein’s regime and the new opportunity to turn Iraq into an example for the rest of the Middle East. In an interview with the Post last week, Wolfowitz denied that the White House has altered its justification for going to war with Iraq. He said that he and other administration officials “had been clear from the beginning” that, in addition to weapons of mass destruction, war with Iraq would provide a chance to liberate the country and to create a model of democracy for the region. “I was often criticized for talking too much about what Iraq could become when it was liberated, and I believed it has to become,” Wolfowitz said. “We have to win (this war), and when we win it, I believe it will advance American interests,” he said. Some critics in Congress of the war, however, have indicated that the White House shift in focus away from weapons of mass destruction is meant to hide the fact that evidence of such weapons has yet to be found, the Post reported. “I don’t think (Wolfowitz and other administration officials) are being forthright,” said Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), the sole Republican senator to vote against the war. “They are using whatever argument is most marketable at any given time,” he said (Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, Sept. 12).
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