New WMD pressure on Blair

Tony Blair was today engulfed in the latest row over Iraqi weapons as Robin Cook challenged his honesty and Michael Howard called for him to resign.

At the same time, in a dramatic development in Washington, CIA director George Tenet said US intelligence had never claimed Iraq posed an "imminent threat."

The Prime Minister was under intense fire from all political parties after his startling confession over a crucial claim in the Government's dossier on the weapons threat from Iraq.

Mr Blair admitted yesterday that on the eve of the war he was still unaware that the claimed 45-minute deployment time for weapons of mass destruction related only to battlefield munitions and not long-range missiles.

In the Commons today, former foreign secretary and Leader of the Commons Mr Cook said he found that claim "hard to credit".

He pointed to a meeting with the Prime Minister, recorded in his diary, in the run-up to war in which Mr Blair appeared to concede that Saddam's chemical arsenal was limited to short-range weapons.

Mr Cook asked for Downing Street to "clarify" the Prime Minister's assertion that, as late as the 18 March debate last year on the decision to go to war, he did not know.

"I knew Iraq only had battlefield weapons because I asked the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee," he said. "I have the highest respect for his professionalism. Is it not hard to credit that at no point between the September dossier and the March debate he did not explain to the Prime Minister the crucial distinction between battlefield weapons and medium-range weapons, or equally difficult to believe that the Prime Minister's security adviser, Sir David Manning, never thought to ask?"

Michael Howard said that whether or not Mr Blair knew, he should go. The Tory leader said it was a "grave dereliction of duty" for the Prime Minister to have sent British troops into battle without asking such a fundamental question.

"I cannot imagine a more i r responsible state of affairs," he said. "If I had been prime minister and not asked the question I would be seriously considering my position." Asked on the BBC's World At One whether that amounted to a call on Mr Blair to resign, he replied: "Yes."

Mr Tenet, in a defiant speech defending US intelligence against charges of inaccuracy, said CIA analysts had never claimed Iraq posed an imminent threat, but insisted secret reports suggested Saddam you are never completely wrong or completely right." He admitted: "When the facts of Iraq are all in, we will neither be completely right nor completely wrong." The search for illegal weapons in Iraq was less than 85 per cent complete, he said.

He appeared to suggest MI6 from a trusted foreign power. What we did not collect ourselves we validated as carefully as we could. Still, the lack of direct access to some of those sources created some risk."

The Liberal Democrats were quick to say that Mr Howard's demand "rang hollow" given his party's support for the war.

The more damaging threat appeared to come from Mr Cook. Significantly, until now the former foreign secretary, who resigned from the Cabinet over the war, has always said he believed that however wrong the decision, Mr Blair had acted in good faith.

Today he pointed to a conversation he had with Mr Blair 13 days before the Commons debate and vote which took Britain to war. His diary, apparently using alternate words from himself and from the Prime Minister, records: "I told him it was clear from the private briefing I have had that Saddam has no WMD in the sense of weapons that could strike at strategic cities but he probably does have several thousand battlefield chemical munitions.

"Do you never worry that he might use them against British troops?"

Mr Blair, it appears, replied: "Yes but all the effort he has put into concealment makes it difficult for him to enable them quickly for use."

Mr Cook comments: "There is a logic to that response and it is a logic that does not make the case for war but for a process of containment."