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The
54-page report of the Select Committee
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LONDON,
July 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A parliamentary probe
into two dossiers published by the British government in the run-up to
war criticized Monday, July 7, Prime Minister Tony Blair for the way
he presented the case for war against Iraq, but cleared the government
of misleading the House of Commons over the threat posed by ousted
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
The
House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee was scathing in its
criticism of a second government dossier,
published in February, saying Blair had inadvertently
"misrepresented its status" by telling parliament it
contained "further intelligence" without having been
informed of its provenance, the BBC News Online reported.
Labeled
the "dodgy dossier" by the press and politicians, that file
featured in part an unaccredited paper by a post-graduate student in
the United States and claimed that Saddam's alleged weapons of mass
destruction were deployable within 45 minutes.
The
committee said that in a government file published last September, the
45-minutes claim was given undue prominence and said the language used
in the dossier was "more assertive than that traditionally used
in intelligence documents".
"We
conclude that the 45-minute 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 deputies
said in their report.
"We
conclude that the effect of the February dossier was almost wholly
counterproductive. By producing such a document the government
undermined the credibility of their case for war," deputies said.
They
said it was "wholly unacceptable" for the government to
plagiarize work without attribution, adding it was "fundamentally
wrong" for such a document to be presented to parliament without
ministerial oversight.
Cleared
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Donald
Anderson, the Chairman of the Select Committee, looks over the
report
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But
in their 54-page verdict on how ministers made the case for war in
Iraq, MPs concluded that ministers did not mislead parliament over
Iraq's weapons, noting that Blair's press chief Alastair Campbell did
not make changes to the September dossier, as alleged in a BBC report.
"The
claims made in the September dossier were in all probability well
founded on the basis of the intelligence then available....although we
have concerns about the emphasis given to some of them," the
report said.
The
committee's report says Campbell "did not play any role in the
inclusion of the 45 minutes claim in the September dossier".
It
says that "on the basis of the evidence available to us Alastair
Campbell did not exert or seek to exert improper influence on the
drafting of the September dossier".
On
June 8, Campbell wrote a personal letter apologizing
to Sir Richard Dearlove, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service,
for discrediting the service with the release to journalists last
January of the so-called "dodgy dossier."
They
go on: "However, we have no doubt that the threat posed to United
Kingdom forces was genuinely perceived as a real and present danger
and that the steps taken to protect them were justified by the
information available at the time."
Deputies
also probed a BBC report quoting an intelligence source who said that
the 45-minute claim was inserted into the dossier -- thus beefing up
the case for war -- despite the reservations of Britain's intelligence
services.
The
allegations have prompted a bitter row between the BBC and the Labor
government, while Blair has been under fire for weeks over his
handling of the Iraq war, with polls finding that voters are losing
trust in him.
A
poll last week found two-thirds of voters did not trust him, while a
survey last month showed
most people here believe Britain and the United States deliberately
exaggerated evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in
order to win support for going to war, according to Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
There
were no signs Monday that the controversy was over, with both the
government and the BBC claiming they had been vindicated by the
parliamentary inquiry.
Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw called on the BBC to apologize for its reporting
on the September dossier.
Speaking
to journalists in Downing Street, Straw said the committee's report
had demonstrated that "the central and most damaging allegation
against the government, that we inserted the 45-minutes intelligence
into the dossier whilst knowing it to be untrue and against the wishes
of the intelligence agencies, has been shown to be false".
He
said the suggestion that the dossier had been "sexed up" was
"a fundamental attack on the integrity of the prime minister and
the government."
But
the BBC said in a statement: "We believe the decision to
highlight the circumstances surrounding the 45-minutes claim has been
vindicated."
