Top Blair aide reveals debate over Iraq threat

The dossier on which British Prime Minister Tony Blair justified war against Iraq contained no proof of any threat from Baghdad, according to an e-mail from a top Blair aide released yesterday.

The e-mail is the first public sign of debate within Mr Blair's inner circle about the strength of intelligence used to justify a war that most Britons opposed.

"The document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from (Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein)," Mr Blair's chief of staff and long-time confidant Jonathan Powell wrote to a senior intelligence official.

"It shows he has the means but it does not demonstrate he has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the West," Mr Powell wrote in an e-mail one week before the controversial dossier was published on September 24, 2002, six months ahead of the invasion of Iraq.

Powell's comments, revealed in an inquiry into the suicide of weapons expert David Kelly, cast further doubt on Mr Blair's own claim in the foreword to the dossier that Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programme posed a "serious and current threat".

It made clear that the evidence alone would not turn sceptical public opinion, saying: "The dossier is good and convincing for those who are prepared to be convinced".

Senior judge Lord Hutton's inquiry is a key test for Mr Blair, whose public trust ratings have plunged over the government's handling of the Kelly affair and the failure to find any banned weapons in Iraq four months after Saddam's overthrow.

Mr Kelly slashed his wrist after being named as the source for a BBC reporter who accused Blair's communications chief Alastair Campbell of "sexing up" the dossier by inserting claims that Saddam could deploy banned weapons at 45 minutes' notice.

A poll last week showed 41 per cent of the British public blame the government for Mr Kelly's death and 68 per cent think the government was dishonest over the Iraq war.

Mr Powell, in his note to Joint Intelligence Committee chief John Scarlett, said the government should make clear "we do not claim that we have evidence that (Saddam) is an imminent threat".

Many of Mr Blair's own Labour Party parliamentarians, who only reluctantly backed military action, say the government did exactly that by playing up the 45-minute claims in the dossier.

Mr Blair, currently on holiday in Barbados, is due to return to give evidence to Lord Hutton's inquiry. Mr Campbell is expected to take the stand today and along with Mr Powell, will be the closest of Blair's advisers to be questioned about the most damaging crisis of the Labour leader's six-year rule.