Blair's Claim on Iraqi Banned Weapons Based on Hearsay: Report

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, August 17, 2003

Blair's Claim on Iraqi Banned Weapons Based on Hearsay: Report

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's key claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was based on hearsay information, the Guardian daily newspaper reported Saturday.

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair's key claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was based on hearsay information, the Guardian daily newspaper reported Saturday.

The revelation that the 45-minute claim is secondhand is contained in an internal Foreign Office document released by a judicial inquiry over the death of arms expert David Kelly, said the report.

Kelly, who was at the center of a row over Iraq's banned weapons, was found dead with a slit wrist last month.

It had been widely thought that the basis for the claim came from an Iraqi officer high in Saddam Hussein's command structure. But in fact, it came through an informant, who passed it on to MI6,the left-wing daily said.

"The foundation for the government's claim was even shakier, according to the (Foreign Office) document: a single, anonymous, uncorroborated source quoting another single, anonymous, uncorroborated source," said the newspaper.

The British government has been under fire for including the allegation in a September 2002 dossier used to justify the war against Iraq.

However, Blair has never admitted the key information was based on hearsay.

"It was alleged that the source for the 45-minute claim was an Iraqi defector of dubious reliability. He was not an Iraqi defector and he was an established and reliable source," Blair told the House of Commons in June.

Hutton's inquiry in London heard earlier this week that Kelly, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, had told a BBC journalist the government had over-played the claim that it had evidence Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in as little as 45 minutes.

"It was a statement that was made and it just got out of all proportion. They were desperate for information which could be used," Kelly told Susan Watts, the science editor of BBC television's Newsnight program.

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