Blair: I do not know if Iraq had WMDs

• Tony Blair was unsure when asked whether he accepted his statement that Iraq had WMD capable of being fired within 45 minutes was wrong

• The PM's position has been shifting since July last year; he is now looking for "clandestine operations" in Iraq - rather than weapons themselves

• Claims that the Iraqi Survey Group had found "clandestine laboratories" were recently dismissed as a "red herring" by US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer

Key quote

"In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterise as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," he told Time magazine. Paul O’Neill, former US treasury secretary.

Story in full: TONY Blair has admitted that he does not know whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction at the time of the Iraq war, and is no longer confident of finding any.

The Prime Minister has also said he was looking for evidence of "clandestine operations" in Iraq - backing down from his earlier pledge that weapons programmes would be found rather then weapons themselves.

He also left doubt hanging over whether he will lead the Commons debate on the forthcoming Hutton Report or whether one of his ministers will be sent to do battle with Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.

Speaking on BBC1’s Breakfast with Frost programme yesterday, Mr Blair made no attempt to defend the central claim in his Iraq dossier - that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that could be fired within 45 minutes.

When challenged if he now accepts this to be wrong, he said: "You can’t say that at this point in time. What you can say is that we received that intelligence about Saddam’s programmes and about his weapons that we acted on that; it’s the case throughout the whole of the conflict.

"I remember having conversations with the chief of defence staff and other people [who] were saying, ‘Well, we think we might have potential WMD [weapons of mass destruction] finds here or there.’ Now these things didn’t actually come to anything in the end. But ‘I don’t know’ is the answer."

Michael Ancram, the shadow foreign secretary, said Mr Blair did not admit to such doubts when making the case for war last year. "Once again, Tony Blair is hedging his bets. He should come clean, and explain whether his previous claim to have evidence of WMD was yet another fabrication, and if not, what that evidence was," Mr Ancram said. "You have a right to trust the Prime Minister if he tells you he has information. If he hasn’t, that raises very serious questions about the way he was conducting himself in the run-up to this war."

Mr Blair also refused to say whether he would lead the debate in the Commons on Lord Hutton’s forthcoming report into the death of Dr David Kelly, the government scientist who killed himself after being named as the source for a BBC story which No 10 sought to disprove. It was too early to decide who would speak in the debate, said the Prime Minister.

Mr Howard said it would be "inconceivable" for Mr Blair to duck out of the debate, expected next month.

The Prime Minister’s position on weapons of mass destruction has been shifting since July last year, when he said he was confident evidence of "weapons programmes" would be found in Iraq as opposed to the actual weapons detailed in the dossier he used to justify war.

Yesterday, he also appeared to drop his claims that the Iraqi Survey Group, which is still scouring Iraq for Saddam’s hidden arsenal, had found "clandestine laboratories".

This was recently dismissed as a "red herring" by Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Mr Blair yesterday toned down his language, claiming the discovery of "clandestine operations that should have been disclosed to the United Nations".

Paul O’Neill, a former United States treasury secretary, has added his voice to the growing level of doubt over the weapons of mass destruction evidence by saying that he had seen nothing during his time in government to support claims later made.

"In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterise as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," he told Time magazine.

"There were allegations and assertions by people. But I’ve been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions."

On Saturday, the Danish military said its engineering troops found artillery shells north of Basra which may contain chemical blister agents.

They were wrapped in plastic, it added, and appeared to have been buried for at least ten years.

• British troops in riot gear yesterday faced Iraqi protesters in Amarah, near Basra, the day after earlier clashes killed six Iraqi civilians and wounded at least 11 others.