date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 18:01:46 +0100
from: "Tony Blair" <tony.blair@reply-new.labour.org.uk>
subject: Butler Report
to: "m.hulme@uea.ac.uk" <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
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