Blair Grilled Over Handling of Iraq Weapons

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday a parliamentary committee will investigate claims British intelligence services "sexed up" a government dossier on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But he denied Downing Street misled Parliament in order to justify the need to go to war with Iraq.

Blair faced tough questions from opposition and government politicians alike in a particularly turbulent parliamentary session. "If we can be deceived about this, then what can we not be deceived about?" former government Minister Claire Short, who resigned over the handling of postwar Iraq, told Parliament.

Demand for independant probe

Leader of the opposition Conservatives Iain Duncan Smith said, "Nobody believes a word now that the prime minister is saying." Smith also called for an independent inquiry and said the government's credibility was now at stake over the affair.

But Blair rejected calls for an independent inquiry into the affair, saying he welcomed the probe by the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee. He added the government would "fully cooperate with it."

However, the investigation came under fire from both Labor and opposition party parliamentarians. They say the committee -- which meets behind closed doors and is headed by a former member of Blair's government -- will not provide sufficient answers. "I remind the whole house that the prime minister will only let that committee see the intelligence reports he wants them to see," Duncan Smith said.

Blair has been under mounting pressure to answer questions about why coalition forces have not yet found any evidence that Iraq had stockpiled chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The alleged existence of the weapons was Blair's principal reason for going to war.

During heated exchanges in Parliament, Blair stuck to his stance and insisted that going to war to unseat Saddam Hussein had been the right thing. "The truth is, some people resent the fact it was right to go to conflict. We won the conflict thanks to the magnificent contribution of the British troops, and Iraq is now free and we should be proud of that," the British premier said.

Media report led to row

The wrangling over the existence of weapons of mass destruction; came to a head last week after the BBC cited an anonymous intelligence source saying Blair's office coerced intelligence services to include a claim that Iraq's weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes. Blair blasted the report as "completely and utterly untrue" and insisted that his office hadn't doctored the dossier to emphasize the 45-minute claim.

The debate over the report heated up on Wednesday, when Leader of the House of Commons John Reid accused "rogue elements" in the security services of seeking to undermine the government. His remarks kicked off further questions from legislators about the reliability of intelligence agencies and the need for a thorough inquiry.

"When you have somebody making the kinds of remarks that John Reid has made, on the record and widely retailed in the media today, I think both parliamentary opinion and public opinion, in terms of the political process as a whole, will not be satisfied unless we have a wholly independent inquiry," Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy told BBC Radio Scotland. The public, he said, "cannot now trust the security services."

No smoking gun?

Tony Blair, who risked his own premiership over going to war against Iraq, has long maintained that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. In April, he told the House of Commons that Saddam was "a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also." He continued: "Doing nothing is not an option ... Our way of proceeding should be and will be measured, calm and thought through."

But despite the growing pressure on Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush to provide evidence of the "smoking gun," U.N. weapons inspectors -- who are now back at work in Iraq after the Hussein regime fell in April -- have yet to find any evidence.

British tabloid The Daily Mirror reported Wednesday that 87 suspected WMD sites have been given the all-clear. Under the headline "Zilch," the Daily Mirror said the sites -- 19 of which were categorized by U.S. Central Command as "highest priority" -- had revealed no chemical or biological weapons, rather "a training facility for Iraq's Olympic swimming and diving teams, a drinks distillery and a factory making car license plates."

Washington still maintains Iraq is in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Wednesday's furor in the British Parliament coincided with U.S. Senate committee hearings in Washington over its government's justifications for war.

Political analysts believe growing doubt over London and Washington's grounds for waging war against Iraq spell more political risks for the British Prime Minister than for U.S. President Bush.

"If weapons of mass destruction are not found -- and that is still a big 'if' -- and there is a feeling his government misled the people, then Tony Blair is in big trouble," Vernon Bogdanor, an Oxford University political scientist, told Reuters.

Compiled by DW-WORLD staff from wire services