Secret WMD review to consider 'systems', not individuals

The committee set up under Lord Butler to review intelligence on WMD will meet in secret and will focus only on "systems and processes" rather than on the actions of individuals, it emerged today.

The committee, which met for the first time yesterday, said that it would meet in private so as not to convey a "limited, partial or distorted public impression of the evidence, much of which must necessarily remain secret".

The Butler review will most likely begin taking oral evidence around the beginning of April, and anticipates presenting its report before Parliament breaks up for the summer recess in July.

The committee added that it did not intend to issue any statements about the progress of its work until publication of its final report.

In a statement, the committee said that its aim will be to ensure that persons appearing before it, or who have an interest in the outcome of the Review, are "treated fairly in giving their evidence".

Its terms of reference are:

• to investigate the intelligence coverage available on WMD programmes of countries of concern and on the global trade in WMD, taking into account what is now known about these programmes
• to investigate the accuracy of intelligence on Iraqi WMD up to March 2003, and to examine any discrepancies between the intelligence gathered, evaluated and used by the government before the conflict, and between that intelligence and what has been discovered by the Iraq Survey Group since the end of the conflict
• and to make recommendations to the Prime Minister for the future on the gathering, evaluation and use of intelligence on WMD, in the light of the difficulties of operating in countries of concern.

The review's creation was announced by the Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons on 3 February.

(gmcg)