The British intelligence chief responsible for a pre-war dossier on Iraq's weapons dropped a key sentence from it days before publication after prompting from Downing Street, an inquiry heard on Tuesday.
He did it at the suggestion of Jonathan Powell, chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair, the inquiry heard.
The offending sentence stated that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was prepared to use chemical and biological weapons "if he believes his regime is under threat."
Powell argued that phrase suggested Iraq was only a threat if attacked.
The revelation that Powell ordered the sentence to be omitted raises fresh doubts over the intervention of Blair's office in the compilation of the September dossier.
The justification Blair gave for war -- Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- has come under intense scrutiny at the inquiry into the suicide of Iraq weapons expert David Kelly.
Kelly killed himself in July shortly after being named as the source of a BBC radio report that claimed the dossier had been "sexed up" at the last minute at the behest of Blair's Downing Street office. His death and the inquiry has plunged Blair into the worst political crisis of his six-year tenure.
In an e-mail to John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Powell noted that the sentence "backs up the argument that there is no CBW [chemical, biological weapons] threat and we will only create one if we attack him. I think you should redraft that para."
Scarlett agreed to the change to what would have been the dossier's final draft before publication.
"We were prompted to look again at this by the [Powell's] memorandum," Scarlett conceded. But under tough cross-examination, he rejected the suggestion made by counsel to the BBC that Downing Street's "intervention" forced the change.
"It was not as a result of the intervention from Downing Street. It was a result of the exercise of my professional judgment," Scarlett said, adding that the change was made in line with intelligence received.
Scarlett's evidence will do little to boost the public's trust in Blair over the Iraq war. A Guardian/ICM poll on Tuesday showed that now only 38 percent of the British public believe it was right to invade Iraq.
Lord Hutton, chairing the inquiry, has said no one is immune from criticism in his final report, in which he is expected to look at how Kelly was treated by the Ministry of Defense and the government and the wider case Blair made for war.
Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon is seen by the British media as the most likely government "fall guy" over the Kelly affair. He admitted on Monday that he had approved a strategy by which his ministry would confirm Kelly's identity to any journalist who offered the correct name.
Nevertheless, he stood by his assertion that he had protected Kelly's anonymity.
Kelly's wife told the inquiry her husband felt let down and betrayed by his superiors and described his distress at being thrust into the limelight.
Explicit entries from the diaries of Blair's media chief Alastair Campbell, published on Monday, referred repeatedly to the need to get the BBC's source "up" or "out" to undermine the BBC's report on Iraq.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was