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Canwest News Service
Tony Blair received intelligence that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction had been "dismantled" 10 days before Britain invaded Iraq, the inquiry into the 2003 war was told on Wednesday.
The Foreign Office did not believe Iraq had nuclear missiles, but Blair, prime minister at the time, told Parliament that Saddam was still a threat to security in the Middle East because he had chemical and biological weapons which could be launched at 45 minutes' notice.
However, Sir William Ehrman, the director of international security at the Foreign Office from 2000 to 2002, told the inquiry: "We were getting, in the very final days before military action, some (intelligence) on chemical and biological weapons that they were dismantled and (Saddam) might not have the munitions to deliver it.
"On March 10 we got a report saying that the chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and that Saddam hadn't yet ordered their reassembly and he might lack warheads capable of effective dispersal of agents."
Despite the new information, coalition forces invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, leading to the deaths of 179 British personnel over the following six years.
The issue of Iraq's ability to produce or use weapons of mass destruction is central to the inquiry, which must determine whether Blair misled Parliament over the reasons for going to war.
Ehrman was asked by Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the inquiry's five panel members, why the last-minute intelligence did not lead to an urgent reassessment of the decision to invade. "Did it make you wonder whether, at this late stage, more care and attention might be given, that maybe it wasn't too late to stop the war?" he said.
Ehrman replied: "There was contradictory intelligence, so I don't think it invalidated the point about what weapons he had. It was more about their use. Even if they were disassembled the (chemical or biological) agents still existed."
The inquiry heard that ministers were warned that there were "huge" gaps in British intelligence about Iraq's WMD programs. Ehrman said a series of intelligence briefings between 2000 and 2002 included major caveats, all of which were "flagged up" to ministers. In April 2000, the picture was "limited to chemical weapons;" in May 2001 the knowledge of WMD and ballistic missile programs was "patchy," in March 2002 the intelligence was "sporadic."
Ehrman said: "The biggest gap in all of that, and one which ministers were extremely well aware of, was the lack of interviews with (Iraqi) scientists." He added that the foreign secretaries during this period, Robin Cook and Jack Straw, received regular briefings.
"I certainly never felt either with Robin Cook or with Jack Straw that they didn't understand the picture that was being given to them on intelligence," he said.
The inquiry was told that Iraq was ranked by the Foreign Office as only the fourth most dangerous of rogue states trying to develop weapons of mass destruction in 2001.
Strict sanctions imposed on Saddam made it virtually impossible for him to restart his nuclear program, the inquiry heard, and even if sanctions were lifted it was likely to take five years before Iraq could build a nuclear weapon.
Ehrman said: "In terms of nuclear and missiles, I think Iran, North Korea and Libya were probably of greater concern than Iraq."
Tim Dowse, the head of counter-proliferation at the Foreign Office from 2001 to 2003, said: "It wasn't top of the list. In 2001 and early 2002 I was probably devoting more of my time to Iran, Libya and (the rogue nuclear scientist) AQ Khan than I was to Iraq."
On the second day of the inquiry at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in Westminster, Dowse said: "We regarded the effect of WMD weapons inspectors until 1998 as effectively disarming Iraq.
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