Resumen de Intelligence Failure as a Mutually Reinforcing Politico-Intelligence Dynamic: The Chilcot Report and the Nature of the Iraq WMD Intelligence Failure

Mark Phythian

• By the time the Chilcot Report was published in July 2016, inquiries of one sort or another focusing on Iraq had been a semi-permanent feature of British politics for a quarter of a century. These stretched back to the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War and the House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee’s investigation of Britain’s role in producing a ‘supergun’ for Saddam Hussein’s regime, and included Sir Richard Scott’s 1992–96 investigation into the export of defence and dual-use goods to Iraq.1 The question of intelligence failure in relation to the 2003 invasion of Iraq had itself been either the context for or subject of four previous inquiries by the time the Chilcot...