LONDON, February 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - In a remarkable U-turn Tuesday, February 3, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced a cross-party inquiry into the quality of British intelligence about Iraq's alleged banned weapons.

"I think it is right...that we have a look at the intelligence that we received and whether it was accurate or not," Blair told a senior parliamentary committee.

Until now, Blair has firmly resisted calls for an inquiry although no banned weapons have been found, months after Saddam Hussein was toppled, Reuters reported.

Clamor has grown to explain apparent flaws in intelligence that led Blair to state, prior to the invasion, that Iraq was a "serious and current" threat and that it had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.

A move by President George W. Bush to appoint an independent commission on U.S. intelligence - confirmed Monday - turned up the heat on Britain to do the same although Blair denied being wrongfooted by Washington's move.

"It's humiliating that we are just being an echo of the U.S. again," former Cabinet Minister Clare Short said.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a statement to parliament at 1230 GMT, spelling out details of the inquiry.

He said that the inquiry would help the government evaluate the accuracy of information they were provided on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The official government line that evidence of weapons could yet be found has been increasingly hard to sustain since chief U.S. weapons hunter David Kay quit his post last month and blew a hole in the Anglo-American argument.

Blair insisted that the lack of banned weapons did not undermine the legal or moral case for the invasion, although it was the express reason he gave for military action.

Saddam, he said, was flouting U.N. resolutions, anyway.

"Had we failed to act on the intelligence we received, I think it would have been a gross dereliction of duty," he said.

"Whatever is discovered as a result of that inquiry, I do not accept that it was wrong to remove Saddam Hussein or that the world is not a safer or better place for that".

"In the fullness of time, it might be demonstrated that the advice was inaccurate," Howard

Argument has raged over whether the inquiry will examine the political decisions taken to wage the invasion, rather than focus exclusively on problems with the intelligence received.

The minority Liberal Democrats are insisting on the former, Blair has refused. Their dispute delayed a formal announcement of the cross-party probe which had been expected late Monday.

"We are still hoping to get the agreement of the Liberal Democrats," Blair said, adding that "we do not in my view need an inquiry into the political decision to go to war".

It would, he said, look at the way intelligence was gathered, then evaluated and used by government.

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has dealt a major blow to Blair's credibility with the UK public.

The new inquiry will frustrate his attempts to draw a line under what has been the most torrid period of his nearly seven years in office.

Last week, he narrowly averted a first major defeat in parliament and a day later had to run the risk of being criticized in judge Lord Hutton's report on the suicide of a weapons expert, who was outed as the source of a report that Blair exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq to justify war.

In the meantime, Howard backed away from his pre-invasion claims Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

In his first admission weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq, Howard said this morning he may have been wrong when he argued Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological armaments.

Intelligence from the U.S. and Britain may have been inaccurate, he said.

"In the fullness of time, it might be demonstrated that the advice was inaccurate," Howard was quoted by Herald Sun newspaper as saying.

"Obviously, the evidence is not pointing in the other direction," he said.

Howard said it was fair that "questions might be asked" if no weapons were found by the Iraq Survey Group, a U.S.-led team, led by Kay.

The Prime Minister said he would wait for the report of a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's intelligence in late February before making any decisions on extra inquiries, the Australian paper said.

Australia's intelligence agencies made their assessments on mainly British and U.S. intelligence, obtained through intelligence sharing agreements, he said.

Howard relied heavily on this intelligence to justify his case for war to the Australian public and said repeatedly before the invasion began last March that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was developing a nuclear capability.