'No-one believed the dossier'

A vicious feud within the intelligence community was thrust into the open today after an expert claimed none of Britain's defence analysts agreed with the Government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons.

The accusation came from Dr Brian Jones, until last year the leading Ministry of Defence expert on weapons of mass destruction.

Dr Jones, who fiercely criticised the dossier to the Hutton Inquiry, today broadened his attack - saying there was a "unified view" among all the experts in his field that reports of Iraq's chemical or biological war capability should be "carefully caveated".

Writing in The Independent, Dr Jones says his view was overruled not by politicians but by John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The timing for Tony Blair could hardly have been worse.

The Prime Minister had been hoping, in a six-hour Commons debate today, to draw a line under Hutton, which he says cleared the Government of "sexing up" the dossier.

But amid chaotic scenes, the House of Commons was suspended as Tony Blair came under a hail of attacks from hecklers in the public gallery.

Protesters shouted "war criminal" and "what were the real reasons for the war?" Speaker Michael Martin suspended the debate for 10 minutes to clear the public gallery.

Mr Blair told MPs that the BBC report which sparked the Hutton Inquiry was "100 per cent wrong".

But he conceded that intelligence service concern over the phrasing of the Government's dossier was the "grain of truth" behind Andrew Gilligan's story.

Flanked by Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, the Prime Minister agreed with one MP that opposition to Hutton's findings were sparked by "frustration" that no ministers had been forced out by the issue.

But as the barrage continued during his speech, Mr Blair commented: "I somehow feel I'm not being entirely persuasive in certain quarters."

Dr Jones today made clear he will continue to challenge the weapons document and how it was drawn up. In a sideswipe at the JIC, he says its members are mostly "extremely busy officials" with "quite limited experience of analysing intelligence".

His attack came as US Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted he might not have backed the war had he known Iraq's weapons arsenal did not exist.

Asked if he would have backed war if he had been told there was no stockpile, Mr Powell replied: "I don't know, I don't know.

"Because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat. The absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus ... the fact of the matter is that we went into this with the understanding that there were weapons."

Mr Powell later insisted: "The President made the right decision."

But his comments were seen as a warning shot against the hawks in and around the White House. And they added to Mr Blair's difficulties over the British inquiry into prewar intelligence judgments.

The Prime Minister faces charges he has, yet again, crafted a narrow investigation by an establishmentfriendly team - and that they will fail to probe the true reasons for Britain going to war.

There were warnings that Lord Butler, the former Cabinet Secretary heading the inquiry, is the last man to give the Government a hard time. And there were complaints that his five-strong team, including senior Labour and Tory MPs, had been steered towards intelligence failures rather than the role of politicians.