British Prime Minister Tony Blair's credibility over his use of intelligence before the Iraq invasion came under fresh assault on Wednesday when he said that at the time of the war he was personally unaware that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein did not have the ability to fire long-range chemical and biological weapons.
The prime minister's admission came in a day-long debate on the Hutton report yesterday and provoked heated exchanges.
Blair made clear that at the start of the war he had had no knowledge of the fact that the government's infamous claim that Iraq could mobilize its banned weapons within 45 minutes of an order referred only to battlefield, as opposed to long-range, arms.
PHOTO: EPA
Wednesday's claim surprised members of parliament on both sides of the house and drew incredulous responses from opponents of the war. It is bound to be examined by the Butler inquiry into the collection and government use of intelligence on Iraq.
Robin Cook, the former Cabinet minister, directly challenged the new claim. He said it conflicted with conversations he held with the prime minister, notably one on March 5, recorded in Cook's diary.
Cook called on the UK defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, to qualify the prime minister's remarks "because I find it difficult to reconcile what I know and what I am sure the prime minister knew at the vote in March."
Blair's office in Downing Street last night declined an opportunity to correct the remarks.
The 45-minutes claim was made a key element in the British government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capability. In his preface to the document, Blair said that the intelligence contained in it "discloses that his [Saddam's] military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them."
The published dossier, and media coverage of it, implied that Iraqi forces could deploy long-range chemical and biological weapons against British interests, including its bases in Cyprus. The claim was at the heart of allegations made by David Kelly and Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter, though Lord Hutton discounted it as something beyond his remit when investigating Kelly's death.
Well-placed civil service sources said on Wednesday that the intelligence community -- including Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the intelligence services, and John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee -- assumed that the source of the 45-minute claim was referring to short-range battlefield weapons as soon as they read his report at the end of August 2002. The question is why this was apparently not made clear to Blair.
Under pressure during the Hutton inquiry, Dearlove acknowledged for the first time that the reference to 45 minutes had been poorly written and referred to short-range weapons.
The defense secretary, challenged on the prime minister's ignorance, replied: "The prime minister will speak for himself, but ... in details of government activity the responsibilities that I carry out are inevitably going to provide me with a great deal more detailed information than is necessarily available at all times."
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