Calls for Iraq inquiry grow

Tony Blair today faced new questions and new pressure on Iraq after a Government attempt to score a knockout blow in its row with the BBC failed.

Mr Blair in the Commons was set to fend off renewed demands to set up a full, independent inquiry into the runup to the war.

Both Iain Duncan Smith and Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy were expected, at today's weekly clash at Prime Minister's Questions, to press for an investigation headed by a senior judge.

But Mr Blair also faced questions over last night's bizarre attempt to crush the BBC charge that Downing Street "sexed up" the dossier of evidence against Saddam Hussein. The Ministry of Defence suggested that it had found the mole behind the report from the BBC's defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan.

In a statement, the MoD said that one of its officials had come forward to confess that he had held an unauthorised meeting with Mr Gilligan at a London hotel shortly before the report was broadcast.

The statement said that the official had played a low-grade part in drawing up the dossier and was not a member of the intelligence services. Within two hours the BBC issued a counter-statement saying the individual fingered by the MoD did not match Mr Gilligan's lone source "in some important ways".

The BBC also rejected an extraordinary tit-for-tat deal from Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.

He was said to have offered to reveal the name of the MoD official to BBC chairman Gavyn Davies if Mr Davies would confirm whether the individual was Mr Gilligan's source. "We are not getting into that game," said a senior BBC figure.

The MoD effort totally failed to resolve the long-running row. Some MPs put a cynical question mark over the move, suggesting that it had been timed to divert the spotlight - and the headlines - from last night's revolt by Labour MPs over foundation hospitals.

The Prime Minister was confronted with another Iraqi headache over allegations that the White House was blaming Britain for faulty intelligence behind claims that Saddam Hussein was attempting to build a nuclear bomb.

Officials in Washington said yesterday that President Bush had been wrong to claim in his State of the Union address last January that Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Africa. A CIA investigation concluded the claims were based on crudely forged documents. However, both London and Washington have maintained that the evidence came from more than one source.

Critical MPs were also keen to question Mr Blair on an apparent shift in his stance on the chances of discovering chemical or biological weaponry in Iraq.

Answering questions in the Commons yesterday, the Prime Minister repeatedly said he was convinced investigations would uncover evidence of weapons of mass destruction "programmes."

But he made no direct suggestion that the search would uncover the military hardware or the chemical or biological agents which, for many MPs, would be the proof.