Secret emails suggesting that Britain was duped into war in Iraq were released yesterday, renewing calls for a full-scale public inquiry into the conflict.
Documents released under freedom of information laws show Government
officials pressed intelligence chiefs to strip out caveats about Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
Agents complained that the Government's infamous dossier making the
case for war suggested Saddam's biological warfare programme was more
advanced than they believed to be the case.
They also privately mocked claims about Iraq's nuclear programme,
joking that atomic specialists the document suggested had been assembled
in Iraq must be 'Dr Frankenstein'.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
The 2002 dossier, which helped convince many MPs of the case for
war, contained the now-discredited claim that Saddam Hussein had chemical
and biological weapons which could be deployed within 45 minutes.
An inquiry headed by Lord Hutton, widely seen as a whitewash, concluded
that spy chief Sir John Scarlett, who compiled the document, could
have been 'subconsciously influenced' by political pressure while
drawing up the report.
Yesterday's documents showed Sir John was directly instructed to make
the conclusions as firm as possible.
