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UK admits Iraq claim based on overseas source

The UK was forced to admit Friday that one of the central allegations against Iraq in last September's disputed weapons dossier was based on information from an overseas intelligence service rather than a British primary source.

In a blow to the British government's credibility, a senior UK Foreign Office official admitted that a claim that Iraq had tried to procure nuclear material from an African country had come "from a foreign service."

William Ehrman, the Foreign Office's director general of defense and intelligence, told members of the British parliament (MPs) on the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee: "The intelligence came from a foreign service and we understand that it was briefed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2003."

Prime Minister Tony Blair's office in Downing Street attempted to underline the threat posed by Saddam Hussein by claiming in last September's dossier that Iraq had attempted to acquire nuclear material from Africa.

The dossier said: "Uranium has been sought from Africa that has no civil nuclear application in Iraq." The dossier did not name a country, but the finger of blame was quickly pointed at Niger.

Blair recently refused to withdraw the explosive claim, insisting that the joint intelligence committee (JIC) had judged it "at the time to be correct." But the remarks by Ehrman, who sits on the JIC, will intensify the pressure on the prime minister to disown the African claim in the dossier.

Ehrman made his admission as the UK foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was being questioned by the former government minister Sir John Stanley. He asked Straw to comment on recent reports in the US press that a retired US ambassador concluded in February last year, after a visit to Niger, that the allegations were false.

Sir John said: "Given the fact that the Niger documents were certainly at that time known to American and British intelligence to be forgeries, it is clear that the statement in the 2002 dossier was based on separate intelligence in which the British government had confidence ... Why did the government not at least put some degree of health warning?" Straw said he had had "absolutely no knowledge" that documents had been forged until the IAEA said so earlier this year.

The admission will also fuel speculation that Britain placed the allegations about Niger in the public domain at the behest of the CIA or possibly Mossad.

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