London Guardian (Tuesday): Blair must answer vital questions

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian of London
Dated Tuesday July 8

Blair told: it's time to answer vital questions
By Michael White and Matt Wells

The government was last night confronted with fresh challenges to its case for waging war in Iraq when a Labour dominated Commons committee posed a series of unexpectedly sceptical questions about Whitehall's prewar intelligence assessment.
Far from giving Tony Blair's defence of his government's conduct an easy run, the Commons foreign affairs select committee listed four unanswered questions over claims made in the September dossier about Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes and his missing missiles.
As expected, the committee formally acquitted Mr Blair's communications director, Alastair Campbell, of "improper influence" or "sexing up" the dossier by knowingly inserting false claims that Saddam's weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes of an order, and doing so against the advice of intelligence officials. But they still want ministers to say if they continue to believe that claim is accurate.
"We conclude that the 45 minutes claim did not warrant the prominence given to it in the dossier, because it was based on intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source. We recommend that the government explain why the claim was given such prominence," the report states.
It is now up to the much more secretive intelligence and security committee to question M16 in private. It will report in the autumn.

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