UK denies 'doctoring' dossier

2003-06-24 18:40

London - Foreign Secretary Jack Straw strongly denied on Tuesday that the British government deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq under Saddam Hussein when he appeared before a parliamentary committee probing the affair.

"It's completely untrue, totally untrue" that a September 2002 dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction had been doctored to beef up the case for war, Straw told the House of Commons' foreign affairs committee.

He acknowledged, however, that a second dossier released in February, which included a section lifted wholesale from a 12-year-old dissertation from a US graduate student, proved to be an "embarrassment" to the government in the run-up to war, he said.

The government made a "very substantial error" by failing to identify the sources cited in the second dossier, on Iraq's attempts to hide weapons of mass destruction, Straw said.

"The arrangements for the production of the so-called second dossier, which effectively was a briefing paper to the press, were not satisfactory even given the status of the document, and lessons have been clearly learned with respect to that," he said.

Credible

But the first dossier was entirely credible, and bore the stamp of approval of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which brings together the chiefs of Britain's intelligence agencies, Straw said.

"It was not signed off before the chairperson of the JIC was satisfied with it," said the foreign secretary, adding that it had been prepared using "the right process."

The foreign affairs committee began hearings last week on Britain's decision to join the US-led war on Iraq, after BBC radio broadcast allegation by an unnamed source that the February dossier was "sexed up" by Downing Street despite the reservations of intelligence officials.

The controversy dwells in particular on a one-sentence, headline-grabbing claim in the 50-page document that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in as little as 45 minutes.

Blair has instructed the British parliament's intelligence and security committee, which meets behind closed doors, to hold its own inquiry, and he had pledged to publish its findings.

He has refused to appear before the foreign affairs committee, but in an exceptional move his chief of communications Alastair Campbell is to testify before the MPs on Wednesday.

Straw is to return on Friday to speak in private to the committee.

- AFX