Blair ignored vital terror warning

TONY Blair chose to ignore warnings that waging war on Iraq could increase the terrorist threat to Britain, a Commons report disclosed yesterday.

Just a month before the conflict to unseat Saddam Hussein began, the Prime Minister overruled his most senior intelligence advisers because he feared the emergence of an alliance between the Iraqi dictator and the al-Qaeda terror network.

The revelation that Mr Blair went on to press MPs into supporting his case for war while burying the warning was delivered in a report which will also hasten the demise of Geoff Hoon.

The parliamentary intelligence and security committee condemned the Defence Secretary for giving "unhelpful and potentially misleading evidence" as it sought to investigate how the government’s Iraq dossier was drawn up.

The committee of senior MPs also suggested he might not have admitted to the doubts held by senior military intelligence officers if the concerns had not been exposed at the Hutton Inquiry.

A contrite Mr Hoon apologised yesterday for confusing the committee, in a desperate attempt to salvage his political career.

In the face of renewed Tory demands for his resignation, Mr Hoon said he was sorry that the committee found him "potentially misleading" and that he had "no intention whatsoever other than to be open and straightforward".

As opposition parties digested the criticism levelled across the highest offices of government, ministers closed ranks to reject demands that Mr Hoon should resign.

It appears all but certain that Mr Hoon will remain in his job until the Hutton Inquiry issues its report.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader, said if the Defence Secretary would not quit, he should be sacked by Mr Blair.

He said: "It is absolutely clear Geoff Hoon’s position is quite untenable. Either he should resign or the Prime Minister should dismiss him at once."

But the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: "Geoff Hoon was a strong secretary of state at an important moment for this country, when we went into military conflict against Iraq, a conflict that was very successful. He continues to do an effective job."

The intelligence and security committee report yesterday went into unexpected detail about how the joint intelligence committee (JIC), which oversees the security services, told the Prime Minister in February the real threat was from al-Qaeda and similar groups.

It went on: "That threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq."

Mr Blair was warned, even in the event of "imminent regime collapse", there would be a risk of transferring weapons material to terror groups, whether as a deliberate act by Saddam or not.

But Mr Blair told the committee he had to weigh up the risks of not taking action against Iraq against the threat that Saddam’s regime could "develop into a nexus" between terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. He added: "This is my judgment and it remains my judgment."

Paul Keetch, the Lib Dem defence spokesman, said if MPs had known of the JIC’s concerns, it was "highly questionable" whether the government would have won the vote on military action. He added: "We did not go to war on the basis of intelligence, but rather on the basis of selective use of intelligence."