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UK govt's WMD 45-minute claim 'not supported'
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-08 08:33 The British government's claim Saddam
Hussein could unleash chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes was
inadequately supported by intelligence, the Financial Times said on Thursday an
inquiry will conclude.
Citing people familiar with Lord Butler's report into intelligence which
Prime Minister Tony Blair cited to justify war against Iraq, the newspaper said
the intelligence to substantiate the claim was of insufficient qualify and
intelligence gathered on Iraq was inadequate.
The FT added that Butler's report, to be published on July 14, also
criticizes the credibility of the source of the 45-minute claim and the way the
information was assessed.
Blair took Britain to war last year -- against the majority of public opinion
-- on the basis of a now notorious dossier, released in September 2002, claiming
Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam could have some
weapons ready for use in 45 minutes.
No such banned weapons have been found in Iraq and the 45-minute claim has
been discredited.
Blair asked former civil servant Butler to conduct a public inquiry into
intelligence on Iraq after an earlier probe by Lord Hutton gave the government
such a clean bill of health it was dismissed by many as a whitewash.
Weekend media reports said the head of the government's Joint Intelligence
Committee, John Scarlett, and the head of the MI6 intelligence service, Richard
Dearlove, will face criticism by the inquiry for allowing misleading information
into the dossier.
The government's top lawyer, Lord Goldsmith, who advised Blair the war was
legal, and the prime minister's former communications chief, Alastair Campbell,
were also expected to come under fire in the report.
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