Iraq dossier concerns 'overruled'

Dr Brian Jones told the daily Independent the DIS' "unified view" was for there to be careful caveats about assessments of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons.

But, he said, they were over-ruled by the heads of the intelligence agencies, leading to a misleading dossier.

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The claims came ahead of MPs debating the Hutton Report later on Wednesday.

The Hutton Report into the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly last week concluded that Downing Street had not inserted material in the dossier against the wishes of the intelligence services.

On Tuesday Tony Blair set up an independent inquiry to examine the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - in the light of the failure to find any since Saddam Hussein's fall.

Dr Jones was the former head of the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons section of the defence intelligence staff - a military assessment service inside the Ministry of Defence - but is now retired.

He blamed the heads of the intelligence agencies for "over-ruling" them - despite the fact that his staff were, in his opinion, the "foremost group of analysts in the west" on chemical and biological weapons intelligence.

It would be a "travesty" if they were now blamed for any intelligence failings with regard to Iraq's WMD.

He said that if - as he had been told - there was other, top secret, intelligence which would have removed his reservations, that should now be made public.

Dr Jones' views echo the concerns he expressed to the Hutton inquiry last summer, when he said parts of the dossier were over-egged.

Conservative leader Michael Howard backed Dr Jones' call for the secret intelligence to be published.

Such a move could alter his decision to accept Lord Hutton's conclusions, he suggested.

"Of course, if new evidence comes available which cast doubt on the Hutton findings then it would be foolish not to take that new evidence into account," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell said Dr Jones was among those set to dash the government's insistence the new inquiry should not be a re-run of the Hutton hearings.

"The government hopes this story will lie down. Every time it tries to drive a stake into it, the story just jumps up again," he told Today.

The Lib Dems are refusing to take part in the latest inquiry because they say it will not consider the political judgements that were made on the intelligence.

And former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke called for an inquiry into the real reasons for the war, which America decided to wage at a very early stage with WMD as just legal cover.

Wednesday's Commons debate, which follows the weekly prime minister's question time, will be opened by Mr Blair with Mr Howard and the Lib Dems' Charles Kennedy replying for their parties.