- (AFP) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair came under pressure
to explain why he ignored warnings from British intelligence that a war
on Iraq would make it easier for terrorists to get hold of weapons of mass
destruction.
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- The revelation came out of a 57-page report by the Intelligence
and Security Committee, a cross-party parliamentary panel that oversees
the work of Britain's three main intelligence agencies.
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- It said an assessment last February by the Joint Intelligence
Committee (JIC), which brings together British intelligence chiefs, concluded
there was no evidence that Iraq had funneled chemical or biologial weapons
to al-Qaeda.
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- "The JIC assessed that al-Qaeda and associated groups
continued to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to Western
interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against
Iraq," it added Thursday.
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- "The JIC assessed that any collapse of the Iraqi
regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology
or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, not necessarily
al-Qaeda."
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- Robin Cook, a one-time foreign secretary who quit Blair's
cabinet in protest over the Iraq war, said the revelation left the government
in a "desperate position", as it demolished a key plank in Blair's
argument for war.
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- "I have always thought Tony Blair was so convinced
of the case for war that he was not sufficiently sceptical in asking tough
questions about any evidence that supported his prejudice," he said.
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- The Daily Mail newspaper said the revelations exposed
Blair to the "devastating charge that he deliberately suppressed crucial
intelligence in his eagerness to join the US in invading Iraq".
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- The Financial Times newspaper said that Blair's "determination
to take Britain to war with Iraq has again left the prime minister politically
exposed".
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- Blair took a skeptical Britain into the US-led to oust
Saddam Hussein on the argument that if his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction
was not stopped, terrorists were more liable to acquire such deadly devices.
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- The Intelligence and Security Committee, made up of eight
MPs and a peer, all Blair appointees, cleared the government of allegations
that it "sexed up" a September 2002 dossier on Iraq and chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons.
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- Its work is separate from a judicial inquiry into the
suicide of weapons scientist David Kelly, the source of a BBC news report
that contained the "sexed up" charge. It resumes its hearings
Monday.
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