Would Blair pay for the controversial decision to go to war?!

LONDON, August 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Over four months after the end of the controversial invasion of Iraq, the British government still suffers from the consequences of its decision to join the U.S. in occupying the Arab state.

Britain's headline-grabbing claim before the war that Baghdad could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was based on second-hand information, the Guardian reported Saturday, August 16.

The British daily said the revelation that the 45-minute assertion was hearsay was contained in an internal Foreign Office document released to a judicial inquiry probing the suspected suicide of a government arms expert at the center of a row of how Britain went to war.

Senior judge Lord Hutton is leading an investigation probing the circumstances leading up to the death of scientist David Kelly, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.

Hotly denied claims from the BBC that London "sexed up" an official dossier last September on Iraq's weapons arsenal to bolster the case for war in March, together with the suspected suicide of Kelly - the likely source of the report - have triggered a major political crisis for Prime Minister Tony Blair.

BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan reported that Blair's office was responsible for inserting in the Iraq dossier the claim that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

That assertion "came from a reliable and established source, quoting a well placed senior officer" in the Iraqi army, the Foreign Office document was cited by the Guardian as saying.

The paper added that the government has never before admitted that such key information was based on hearsay.

Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, told the Guardian that the revelation damaged the government's credibility, adding: "It provides an even thinner justification to go to war."

“The irony is that the government launched a furious attack on the BBC for broadcasting allegations that the dossier was "sexed up" based on a single, anonymous, uncorroborated source. That source was Dr Kelly,” the Guardian said.

Kelly received a written reprimand from his bosses just days before he committed suicide

It added that Campbell told the foreign affairs select committee: "I find it incredible ... that people can report based on one single anonymous uncorroborated source."

“In fact, the foundation for the government's claim was even shakier, according to the document: a single anonymous uncorroborated source quoting another single anonymous uncorroborated source,” it charged.

Hutton's inquiry in London heard earlier this week that Kelly 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.

Hutton will next week hear from Blair's official spokesmen and senior advisers as he tries to fathom the circumstances leading up to the death of Kelly, who was found dead with a slit wrist on July 18, a day after he went missing after leaving his home in southern England for a countryside walk, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Blair, currently on holiday in Barbados, and the man who is in charge of Kelly's department, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, are expected to be summoned to give evidence at some stage before the inquiry closes.