A rchive Date
[ 23-06-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Britain ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/06/23/118002-ap.html
Intel chief to testify at WMD probe
Mon, June 23, 2003
LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair's communications director will testify before lawmakers probing whether the government exaggerated claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Blair's office said Monday.
Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief, has been accused of redrafting intelligence reports on Saddam Hussein's arsenal.
The Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons is focusing on two intelligence dossiers published by Blair's office setting out its case on the threat from alleged Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
That threat was the heart of Blair's hard-fought case to persuade a skeptical Parliament of the need for military action to topple Saddam. The failure of coalition forces to find such weapons since the war ended has put Blair on the defensive, though he has insisted that he believes they will be found.
Campbell "has always wanted to give evidence," but the government was worried about setting a precedent, Blair's spokesman told reporters. No date was set for Campbell to testify before the committee.
Earlier this month, Blair's office said Campbell wrote to Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the Secret Intelligence Service, before the war to say procedures for drafting such documents would be tightened, Blair's Downing Street office said.
Campbell and Dearlove discussed one of the dossiers that lawmakers are examining, a paper titled "Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation" that included material copied from an American student's thesis posted on the Internet.
Campbell assured the SIS head that "far greater care would be taken in dealing with anything that might impact on their reputation or their work," Blair's office said.
The other dossier that lawmakers are examining was published in September and claimed Iraq could fire chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of Saddam Hussein giving an order to do so.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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