Blair leads backlash over war criticism

By BEN RUSSELL in London

British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday led a Cabinet backlash against claims by former ministers Clare Short and Robin Cook that ministers exaggerated MI6 warnings about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Cook said ministers used selective intelligence to bolster the case for war and Short claimed the Prime Minister used half-truths and exaggerations in the run-up to military action.

But Blair told MPs yesterday that the dossier on Iraq's arsenal published last September "described absolutely accurately the position of the Government".

Ministers Jack Straw and David Blunkett also entered the row, angrily denying claims made by their former colleagues.

Blair said: "That position is that indeed Saddam Hussein was a threat to his region and the wider world.

"I always made it clear that the issue was not whether he was about to launch an immediate strike on Britain.

"The issue was whether he posed a threat to his region and the wider world."

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, challenged him in the Commons over Short and Cook's testimony and demanded a "proper independent inquiry" into the affair.

But giving evidence on the second day of a parliamentary inquiry into the decision to go to war, Dame Pauline Neville Jones, the former chairwoman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, warned about possible failings in intelligence.

She told the Commons Foreign Affairs committee: "I think it is so extraordinary not yet to have found any weapons of mass destruction that I do think the questions have to be asked ... for reasons nothing to do with the integrity of the people involved ... that the intelligence was somehow off beam."

Terence Taylor, a former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, told the committee: "From the information available from UN sources alone it would not have been a safe assessment to conclude that Iraq did not pose a serious risk to its neighbours and to the wider world from its nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities."

Earlier Straw vehemently denied Short's claims that Blair had sealed a deal to go to war by the northern spring as early as last September, despite continuing negotiations in the UN.

"It was not the case that a fixed decision for war was taken at an early stage. We were prepared to take 'yes' for an answer from Saddam Hussein," he said.

Blunkett accused Cook of using out-of-date information.

He told the BBC: "He will have seen the intelligence made available to all members of the Cabinet. That isn't the same thing as having access to the leading members of MI6."

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