Government ‘pessimistic’ WMD will be found
Senior government officials ‘right at the top of Whitehall’ no longer believe that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are likely to be found in Iraq, the BBC’s political editor, Andrew Marr, has claimed.
However, the Government itself continues to believe that evidence of WMD development programmes could still be turned up, according to Mr Marr.
The claim comes in a week when the Foreign Affairs Select Committee cleared the Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell, of deliberately ‘sexing up’ an intelligence dossier that Mr. Blair then presented to the House of Commons in September last year.
The inquiry was sparked by a story by the BBC that quoted an un-named source who suggested Mr. Campbell had deliberately embellished the report as the Government was attempting to gain support for military action against Iraq.
A furious row erupted between Mr. Campbell and the BBC with neither side backing down when the inquiry’s findings were made public.
The Government issued a statement this evening stating the Prime Minister stood by comments he made earlier in the week to the House of Common’s Liaison Committee, in which he said he believed evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would be found.
