Iraq Inquiry Digest

45 minutes – missiles or munitions?

by Andrew Mason

At LabourList.Org yesterday, Greg Pope MP, a member of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee, wrote about the oft-mentioned ‘45 minutes’ controversy in the second piece of his series of contributions commenting on aspects of the Chilcot Inquiry, “Iraq Inquiry: separating myths from facts over the 45 minute claim“:

[]

Except the truth may be a little different to this version of events. The source for the 45 minute claim was described by the Foreign Office at the time as “an established, reliable and longstanding line of reporting”. Not only was he not a taxi driver but, I was informed by an impeccable source, he was in fact a defecting high-ranking officer in the Iraqi army. This officer talked of chemical and biological “missiles” which could be deployed within 45 minutes.

The word “missile” and how it was translated from Arabic into English is crucial here – in English it implies a long-range capacity of the kind that Saddam was developing; in fact, as we now know, the defector was talking about battlefield weapons such as mortars and short-range shells. This would have made much more sense as this was exactly the kind of CBW that Saddam had already used in the Iran-Iraq war.

[]

This version of events, whilst supporting the commonly suggested identity of the original (second-) source, varies in detail about the reported nature of the weapons.

From the report of the Butler Review, p126:

506. As the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) have already reported, the underlying intelligence report referred to an average period of 20 minutes, with a maximum of 45 minutes, for ‘BCW munitions’ to be moved into place for an attack. It was taken into the JIC assessment of 9 September through the inclusion of a sentence which noted that:

Intelligence also indicates that chemical and biological munitions could be with military units and ready for firing within 20-45 minutes.
[JIC, 9 September 2002]

In his article “Revealed: the Iraqi colonel who told MI6 that Saddam could launch WMD within 45 minutes” Con Coughlin, of behalf of the Telegraph (and MI6?), interviewed Lt-Col Ali al-Dabbagh, who told him he was the head of an Iraqi air defence unit in the western desert, and said that cases containing WMD warheads were delivered to front-line units, including his own, towards the end of the previous year (2002).

In the same piece Con Coughlin further reported that:

The devices, which were known by Iraqi officers as “the secret weapon”, were made in Iraq and designed to be launched by hand-held rocket-propelled grenades. They could also have been launched sooner than the 45-minutes claimed in the dossier.

In a longer article “How the 45-minute claim got from Baghdad to No 10” published concurrently on December 07 2003, Mr Coughlin expanded on the nature of these weapons:

“They arrived in boxes marked ‘Made in Iraq’ and looked like something you fired with a rocket-propelled grenade,” Lt Col al-Dabbagh explained.

“They were either chemical or biological weapons; I don’t know which, because only the Fedayeen and the Special Republican Guard were allowed to use them. All I know is that we were told that when we used these weapons we had to wear gas masks.”

According to information he learnt subsequently from his military colleagues, the weapons were made at factories at Habbaniyah, al-Nahrawan, Nabbai and al-Latifia.

Saddam’s officials also gave elaborate instructions on how to use the weapons. Because of their limited range, those responsible for firing them were to dress in civilian clothes and drive in civilian vehicles with yellow number plates.

“Each military unit was given two four-wheel drive Isuzu cars,” said Lt Col al-Dabbagh. “We were not allowed to use them and they had to be kept in good condition.” If the war reached a critical stage and Iraq’s forces were in danger of being overrun, then designated officers would be given the task of driving the vehicles towards coalition positions and firing the weapons.

“We were instructed that when we got the order we must use these cars and use the secret weapon. We were also told that if any of us discussed this weapon with any of our colleagues we would be hanged immediately.”

Later the Guardian reported that Lt-Col al-Dabbagh’s claims may have been false.

(See: “Iraqi who gave MI6 45-minute claim says it was untrue” by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor, Tuesday 27 January 2004)

This story related that Nick Theros, who represented Dr Ayad Allawi’s interests — in his capacity as a member of the IGC — in the United States, said that the Iraqi officer who claims to have been the original source of the intelligence had in fact never seen inside the purported chemical weapons crates upon which his 45-minute claim was based.

Mr Theros shortly afterwards disputed the Guardian (and in the US, Newsweek) reports, claiming that he was not the representative of the Iraqi National Accord, and minimising potential damage to the INA by stating that: “Both Dr Allawi and Col Al-Dabbagh merely acknowledged that they had passed on intelligence information to MI6 as received. They were not “hyping” or politicizing intelligence, but rather, passing raw intelligence reports for analysis by US and UK intelligence agencies.”

(For more on this see Professor Juan Cole – Controversy over 45 Minute Claim – Tuesday, January 27, 2004)

Dr Brian Jones, formerly the NBC branch head in the scientific and technical directorate of the Defence Intelligence Analysis Staff (DIAS) (which is in turn part of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS)), has very recently stated on this website that:

…there was indeed other intelligence that was not seen by the DIS, and this is a central issue. It is why I referred in my minute to “intelligence not seen by my branch,” and my colleague was careful to note his views were “based on the intelligence that was available to me [meaning him]“.

It was the additional intelligence we knew to be available (but had not seen) that was used to overcome the objection of the DIS (not just my colleague and myself) that remained at the end of the last meeting of the dossier drafting committee. It was on the basis of the existence of this additional information that CDI and DCDI decided they would overrule the objections of their staff and endorse the dossier. CDI and DCDI were the only people in the DIS who were allowed information on the new intelligence.

Nevertheless, this intelligence was later withdrawn. Jack Straw revealed this to Parliament on October 12 2004, stating that the intelligence services had withdrawn the controversial claim that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be ready within 45 minutes, although this actually happened (it was withdrawn by the SIS in July 2003) sometime before the Hutton Inquiry (into the death of Dr David Kelly) began taking its evidence on Monday August 11 2003, and which was not told about this withdrawal.

If Greg Pope’s information, or that of his “impeccable source”, is correct about the weapons being “missiles” this does not explain why Tony Blair found it necessary to state as he did to the House of Commons (during the debate about Lord Hutton’s report on Feb 4 2004) when he was asked:

Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South) (Con): The Prime Minister says that all the intelligence about the 45 minutes was made available. As he will be well aware, it has subsequently emerged that this related to battlefield weapons or small-calibre weaponry. In the eyes of many, if that information had been available, those weapons might not have been described as weapons of mass destruction threatening the region and the stability of the world. When did the Prime Minister know that information? In particular, did he know it when the House divided on 18 March?

The Prime Minister : No. I have already indicated exactly when this came to my attention. It was not before the debate on 18 March last year. The hon. Gentleman says that a battlefield weapon would not be a weapon of mass destruction, but if there were chemical, biological or nuclear battlefield weapons, they most certainly would be weapons of mass destruction. The idea that their use would not threaten the region’s stability I find somewhat eccentric.

Later during this same debate, following a disturbance, Tony Blair also stated:

The Prime Minister : I was dealing with the issue of today’s story about Dr. Jones, and I was saying that there are really two issues. One is whether there was some missing intelligence that was not seen, and the other is obviously about the evidence of Dr. Jones himself. I was saying, and I repeat, that Dr. Jones is an expert in this field and is highly respected. But on the 45 minutes there is no missing intelligence. Dr. Jones saw all the intelligence there was to see on it. So, incidentally, did Lord Hutton. The intelligence referred to in the article which he did not see was, I am told, about the production of chemical and biological warfare agents. He did not see it, because the Secret Intelligence Service put it out on a very restricted basis owing to source sensitivity. His superiors, however, were briefed on the intelligence. It does not bear on the 45-minute point at all, and the ISC itself saw this CW intelligence and was satisfied with it.

(Whilst a rocket-propelled grenade could be loosely described as a missile, mortars and short-range shells are not generally militarily described as such. The term ‘missile’ more usually applies to larger weapons, ranging in size from shoulder-launched MANPADS (Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems) to full-scale ballistic missiles such as Iraq’s Al Samoud 2s (which had no WMD capability) or earlier Scud-types (which it seemingly no longer retained).)

3 Responses to “45 minutes – missiles or munitions?”

Comment from Chris Ames
Time December 17, 2009 at 8:51 am

What staggers me about Pope’s ludicrous piece of spin and its pompous title “separating myths from facts” is that he does not address the point of which just about everyone else in the world is aware – that the 45 minutes intelligence came from a subsidiary source. As Brian Jones said:
“The description Scarlett gave for the secondary source, who passed the information on, was ‘reliable and authoritative’… If he is passing on information from someone who has never reported before then that is a nonsense.”
If Pope does not know this, he is merely showing his ignorance and making a fool of himself. He says:
“The source for the 45 minute claim was described by the Foreign Office at the time as “an established, reliable and longstanding line of reporting”. Not only was he not a taxi driver but, I was informed by an impeccable source, he was in fact a defecting high-ranking officer in the Iraqi army.”
So an impeccable source says it’s an impeccable source! But Pope is right – the Foreign Office did use those words here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmfaff/813/813we28.htm
They did not say that he was reporting second hand. All that Pope has done is to reveal that he was misled, that he fell for it and that he is still falling for it.

Comment from Lee Roberts
Time December 17, 2009 at 11:09 am

I dont think anyone was misled. They believed what fitted their ideological views or what they thought would somehow advance them. One must remember that the media at that time was full of lies being exposed, specialists breaking ranks, and the UN denying the absurd claims being made by Judith Miller and Con-job Rice. So this was a time in which a truly objective analyst or politician would have looked at claims with heightened sensitivity. The 45 minute claim, given the years the UN inspectors had spent, and all the US satellite intelligence, was patently absurd. Anyone who believed that evidence was not misled.