Revealed: new doubts on Blair's Iraq dossier

[Barrett808]

Dramatic new evidence from the intelligence services casts fresh doubts over Tony Blair's central claim that Iraq continued to produce chemical and biological weapons until the outbreak of war, The Observer can reveal.

Newly disclosed Cabinet Office documents show that the Prime Minister's categorical assertion was based only on a single source and was attacked as 'too strong' by a senior intelligence official. The same official attacks the dossier's descriptions of the graphic effects of mustard gas and VX, a nerve agent, as 'grossly misleading'.

The production claim, which remained in the dossier despite warnings from experts, was repeated in Blair's foreword to the dossier and, more crucially, in the key Commons debate on 24 September last year after the dossier was published.

He told Parliament: ' concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons that Saddam has continued to produce them.'

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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1041828,00.html