Reply #32: BLAIR KNEW DOSSIER SOURCE UNPROVEN [View All]

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14431373&method=full&siteid=50143&headli

16 July 2004
BLAIR KNEW DOSSIER SOURCE UNPROVEN

16 July 2004
BLAIR KNEW DOSSIER SOURCE UNPROVEN
By Bob Roberts Deputy Political Editor
TONY Blair was warned two weeks before publication of the Iraq dossier that the intelligence was dodgy, it emerged last night.


In a personal meeting with the PM, the head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove admitted one of the key sources on Saddam's chemical weapons was "on trial".


He told the PM "the source remains unproven". But just 14 days later Mr Blair declared in the forward of the dossier that the chemical weapons intelligence was "beyond doubt".


The revelation comes as pressure grows for heads to roll over the Butler Report.


Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said it had exposed "one of the greatest failures in British intelligence ever". And ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the new head of MI6 John Scarlett must go as he produced the dossier.


No 10 accepted there were lessons to be learned from the report. Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "Obviously there are implications within the Butler Report which we will have to reflect on. We will do so, but do so in a considered way."


But Commons Leader Peter Hain told MPs that in the course of four inquiries "1,056 pages and 500,000 words have been spent analysing the matter and none of the charges that have been made by any of the critics of the Prime Minister or the Government have been sustained".


Meanwhile, Mr Blair was last night facing a stiff test at the polls. Labour-held Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South were contested.