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The first chapter of a probe into the apparent suicide of a government weapons expert at the heart of a row over Britain's case for invading Iraq closed yesterday, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's aides accused by intelligence insiders of having hyped the case for war.
Blair, the once invincible leader of a Labour government with an unassailable majority, has seen his personal trust ratings plummet over the affair.
Brian Jones, who headed a team of weapons experts that formed part of the Ministry of Defence's intelligence service, on Wednesday told Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of scientist David Kelly that he (Jones) and some of his officials were concerned there had been a tendency to "over-egg" language in some parts of a dossier making the case for war.
"Some of my staff had said that they were unhappy with all of the detail that was in the dossier. My expert analyst on chemical weapons expressed particular concern," he told the penultimate day of the inquiry before it adjourns for 10 days to allow Hutton to marshal evidence and call or recall witnesses.
"We at no stage argued that this intelligence should not be included in the dossier," he said. But the language in key parts of the paper was "too strong."
He said some of his group's lesser worries had been reflected in the final version of the dossier but other elements had been ignored.
It was the first time a key insider witness had come anywhere near to corroborating a BBC report that the British Government exaggerated the threat from Iraq in order to make the case for war alongside the United States to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in a brief but bloody conflict in March and April this year.
BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan sparked the controversy with a report alleging that Blair's communications chief Alastair Campbell, who resigned last week, included in the dossier a claim that Saddam could unleash banned weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes' notice, knowing the claim was probably wrong. Blair and his aides vehemently denied the allegation.
The inquiry also heard from "Mr A" - a friend of Kelly and sometime employee of the Ministry of Defence who has also worked with teams searching for Iraqi weapons and who was granted anonymity. Mr A said the perception in intelligence circles was that the dossier had "been round the houses" several times in an attempt to harden it up to support political ends.
In an e-mail to Kelly, Mr A said: "You and I should have been more involved in this than the spin merchants of this administration." But Mr A said he and colleagues thought the dossier, taken as a whole, was a reasonable summation.
Newspapers leaped on Wednesday's revelations that finally turned away from details about the public naming by the government of Kelly as the source of the BBC report and its handling of news of his apparent suicide and pointed straight at the heart of Blair's communications machine.
"The case for war looks flimsier than ever - and so does Mr Blair's defence," said The Independent in an editorial. It insisted that the prime minister, whose belief in the case for a war rejected by many Britons was patently evident, now had a case to answer.
(Xinhua News Agency September 5, 2003)
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