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The Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, widely known as the Butler Review after its chairman Robin Butler, Baron Butler of Brockwell, was announced on 3 February 2004 by the
British Government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...
and published on 14 July 2004. It examined the intelligence on
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
's
weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natura ...
which played a key part in the Government's decision to invade Iraq (as part of the U.S.-led coalition) in 2003. A similar
Iraq Intelligence Commission The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction is a panel created by Executive Order 13328, signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in February 2004. The impetus for the Commission l ...
was set up in the United States. Despite the apparent certainty of both governments prior to the war that Iraq possessed such weapons, no such illegal weapons or programs were found by the Iraq Survey Group. The inquiry also dealt with the wider issue of WMD programmes in "countries of concern" and the global
trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...
in WMD. Recommendations were made to the prime minister to better evaluate and assess intelligence information in the future before invoking action.


The committee

Lord Butler of Brockwell headed the five-member committee which included senior parliamentarians and civil servants with military and intelligence links: * The Lord Butler of Brockwell, career civil servant who served three prime ministers as Cabinet Secretary. * Field Marshal The Lord Inge, a crossbencher who was Chief of the Defence Staff from 1994 to 1997. *
Sir John Chilcot Sir John Anthony Chilcot (; 22 April 1939 – 3 October 2021) was a British civil servant. In 2009, he was appointed chairman of the Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the "Chilcot Inquiry"), an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the ...
, a career diplomat and top civil servant. *
Ann Taylor Ann or Anne Taylor may refer to: *Ann Taylor (writer, born 1757) (1757–1830), English writer *Ann Taylor (poet) (1782–1866), English poet and children's writer, daughter of the above *Ann Taylor (actress) (born 1936), British actress, hostess a ...
, Labour MP who supported the invasion of Iraq, was chair of the Commons
Intelligence and Security Committee The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community. The committee was established in 1994 by the ...
(ISC), and former chief
whip A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally e ...
of the Labour Party. *
Michael Mates Michael John Mates (born 9 June 1934) is a Conservative Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of East Hampshire from 1974 to 2010. He was a minister at the Northern Ireland Office from 1992 to 1993, resignin ...
Conservative MP who supported the invasion of Iraq, chair of the Northern Ireland select committee. He was also a member of the ISC. The Butler Review followed procedures similar to the Franks Committee inquiry into the
Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
. The inquiry had access to all intelligence reports and other government papers, and it could call witnesses to give oral evidence. It worked closely with the US inquiry and the Iraq Survey Group. The committee met in secret and only its conclusions were published on 14 July 2004.


Background

The British government followed
US President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
who had created a similar
Iraq Intelligence Commission The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction is a panel created by Executive Order 13328, signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in February 2004. The impetus for the Commission l ...
one day earlier. The Butler Inquiry's remit did not extend to an examination of the political decision making process.


Controversy

The Liberal Democrats opted not to take part, because the role of politicians had been excluded from the Inquiry's remit. (Senior Lib Dem MP
Alan Beith Alan James Beith, Baron Beith, (born 20 April 1943) is a British Liberal Democrat politician who represented Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2015. From 1992 to 2003 he was Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democr ...
was to have been the sixth member of the panel). Explaining their position Foreign Affairs spokesman
Sir Menzies Campbell Walter Menzies Campbell, Baron Campbell of Pittenweem, (; born 22 May 1941), often known as Ming Campbell, is a British Liberal Democrat politician, advocate and former athlete. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Fife from ...
asked the prime minister:
Don't you understand ... that following the public response to the Hutton report that an inquiry that excludes politicians from scrutiny is unlikely to command public confidence...
On 1 March 2004 the
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
announced that they would not be taking part in the inquiry either. Conservative leader
Michael Howard Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne (born Michael Hecht; 7 July 1941) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He previously held cabinet posi ...
said that this was because Lord Butler of Brockwell's interpretation of the terms of reference were "unacceptably restrictive". Conservative member Michael Mates stated that he would remain on the committee. Over a dozen years later, the
Chilcot Inquiry The Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot)Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
'' reported, 'Every previous inquiry into Britain's decision to invade Iraq has swiftly been condemned by the public as a "whitewash". Such a description hardly applies to the monumental inquest that has been published by Sir John Chilcot.'


Conclusions of the Review

The review was published on 14 July 2004. Its main conclusion was that key intelligence used to justify the war with Iraq has been shown to be unreliable. It claims that the
Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
did not check its sources well enough and sometimes relied on third hand reports. It says that there was an over-reliance on Iraqi dissident sources. It also comments that warnings from the Joint Intelligence Committee on the limitations of the intelligence were not made clear. Overall it said that "more weight was placed on the intelligence than it could bear", and that judgements had stretched available intelligence "to the outer limits". It says that information from another country's intelligence service on Iraqi production of chemical and biological weapons was "seriously flawed", without naming the country. It says that there was no recent intelligence to demonstrate that Iraq was a greater threat than other countries, and that the lack of any success in the
UNMOVIC The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) was created through the adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1284 of 17 December 1999 and its mission lasted until June 2007. UNMOVIC was meant to ...
finding WMDs should have prompted a re-think. It states that Tony Blair's policy towards Iraq shifted because of the attacks of 11 September 2001, not because of Iraq's weapons programme, and that the government's language left the impression that there was "fuller and firmer intelligence" than was the case. The report indicated that there was enough intelligence to make a "well-founded" judgment that
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
was seeking, perhaps as late as 2002, to obtain uranium illegally from
Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesDemocratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
(6.4 para. 499). In particular, referring to a 1999 visit of Iraqi officials to Niger, the report states (6.4 para. 503): "The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible." Stauber and Rampton, however, noted that "the ''Butler Report'' offers no details -- not even an approximate date when this may have happened, thus giving no way to assess its credibility. The British have also declined to share any information about this intelligence, even with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was responsible for prewar monitoring of Iraq's nuclear capability. In any case, the Congo's uranium mine was flooded and sealed several decades ago, which means that Iraq would not have been able to obtain uranium there even if it tried." This intelligence (which had controversially found its way into George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech) had previously (before September 2003 . May, 2004 been thought to rely on forged documents. The Butler Review stated that "the forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made." (6.4 para. 503) Taking into account the American intelligence community's findings on the matter, it is true that in December 2003, then CIA director
George Tenet George John Tenet (born January 5, 1953) is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the P ...
conceded that the inclusion of the claim in the State of the Union address was a mistake. (''CNN.com'', 2003) However, Tenet believed so, not due to any compelling evidence to the contrary, but rather because the CIA (criticized concerning this matter by the
Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq The Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence (formally, the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq) was the report by the United States Senate Select Committee o ...
chmidt, 2004 had failed to investigate the claim thoroughly; however again, the Butler Review states (6.4 para. 497) in 2002 the CIA "agreed that there was evidence that ranium from Africahad been sought." In the run-up to war in Iraq, the British Intelligence Services apparently believed that Iraq had been trying to obtain uranium from Africa; however, no evidence has been passed on to the IAEA apart from the forged documents (6.4 Para. 502). (''Times Online'', 2003) The report did not blame any specific individuals. It specifically stated that
John Scarlett Sir John McLeod Scarlett (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Commit ...
, the head of the JIC should not resign, and indeed should take up his new post as head of
MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
.


Criticism


Appointees

''Private Eye'' magazine expressed misgivings against members of a committee personally appointed by Prime Minister
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
. The magazine was particularly critical over the choice selection of
New Labour New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...
Party politician and close acquaintance
Ann Taylor Ann or Anne Taylor may refer to: *Ann Taylor (writer, born 1757) (1757–1830), English writer *Ann Taylor (poet) (1782–1866), English poet and children's writer, daughter of the above *Ann Taylor (actress) (born 1936), British actress, hostess a ...
, writing "Taylor is hardly a disinterested observer: she was herself involved in the famous 'September dossier' that explained Blair's reasons for going to war."
On 18 September 2002 an official in Blair's office sent this memo to chief of staff Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell: "The PM has asked Ann Taylor to read through the dossier in draft and give us any comments. He stressed that it is for her and for her only and that no one else outside this building was seeing it in draft. I'm contacting John Scarlett to work out how this should happen – needs to be tomorrow." Taylor went to Scarlett's office at 8 o'clock the next morning, read the dossier and gave her comments to the spy chief – who then passed them on to Blair. She advised that it "needs to come across as an impartial, professional assessment of the threat", and that the PM should "undercut critics" by explaining why Saddam should be stopped now. So the only person outside No 10 and the JIC who was trusted to help with the dossier (and who also expressed a wish to see Blair's critics undercut) is now sitting on the inquiry into its contents. One wonders why Blair didn't go the whole hog and add Alastair Campbell to Lord Butler's team of independent inquisitors.
Lynne Jones Lynne Mary Jones (born 26 April 1951) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Selly Oak from 1992 until the dissolution of parliament in April 2010. Early life Jones was born in Birmingham ...
(MP) was also critical of Taylor's involvement in subsequent inquiries, stating: "It is self-evidently bad practice to appoint someone to a committee when their previous conclusions are under scrutiny". A piece in the ''Western Mail'' was more direct, noting of a joke that followed the publication of the report: "When you call the Butler, you get what you ordered".


Uranium conclusion

Nuclear expert Norman Dombey, a professor of Theoretical Physics at the
University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...
, said the information relied upon by the Butler Review on the Niger issue was incomplete. "The Butler report says the claim was credible because an Iraqi diplomat visited Niger in 1999, and almost three-quarters of Niger's exports were uranium. But this is irrelevant, since France controls Niger's uranium mines".Whitaker, Raymond
Butler 'wrong' on Iraq uranium link
''The Independent''. 25 July 2004.
Dombey also noted that Iraq already had some 550 tonnes of uranium compound sitting in its gutted Tuwaitha nuclear research center:
Iraq already had far more uranium than it needed for any conceivable nuclear weapons programme. ... Nuclear weapons are difficult and expensive to build not because uranium is scarce, but because it is difficult and expensive to enrich U235 from 0.7 per cent to the 90 per cent needed for a bomb. Enrichment plants are large, use a lot of electricity and are almost impossible to conceal. Neither British security services nor the CIA seriously thought Iraq had a functioning enrichment plant that would have justified all the noise about nuclear weapons we heard before the war. When I read of the supposed Iraqi purchase of uranium from Niger, I thought it smelt distinctly fishy. ... It was a gigantic red herring.
London's ''Evening Standard'' daily newspaper dismissed the report's findings, under the front-page headline "Whitewash (Part Two)", saying Lord Butler had effectively thrown Tony Blair "a lifebelt" by claiming that Saddam was indeed trying to procure uranium from Niger in 1999 to build a nuclear bomb, and concluding that illicit "material may be hidden in the sand".Murphy, Joe. "Whitewash (Part Two)", ''The Evening Standard''. 14 July 2004


See also

*
Iraq Dossier ''Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation'' (more commonly known as the ''Iraq Dossier'', the ''February Dossier'' From pages 35–42 o"The Decision to go to War in Iraq: Ninth Report of Session 2002-03" (PDF). or th ...
*
Downing Street Memo The Downing Street memo (or the Downing Street Minutes), sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the smoking gun memo, is the note of a 23 July 2002 secret meeting of senior British government, defence and intelligence figures discussin ...
*
Iraq Inquiry The Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot)September Dossier ''Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government'', also known as the ''September Dossier'', was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to dis ...


References


External links


Butler Report on WMD was watered down to protect Blair
by Melissa Kite of ''The Daily Telegraph''.
Media scepticism at UK Iraq probe
by Sebastian Usher, BBC.

* ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3892809.stm BBC overview of the Butler Report* the full text of th
Butler report (from BBC)Butler report (from The Guardian)
(
PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
)
Archived Butler Review Website

Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction. Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors


(13 July 2003). ''Times Online''. * May, Clifford D. (12 July 2004)
Our Man in Niger
''National Review Online''. * Schmidt, Susan (9 July 2004).

''washingtonpost.com'', p. A09 egistration required
Tenet admits error in approving Bush speech
(25 December 2003). ''CNN.com''. {{Iraq War 2004 in the United Kingdom Causes and prelude of the Iraq War Iraq and weapons of mass destruction Public inquiries in the United Kingdom