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UK defense chief faces grilling on Iraq war

PLA Daily 2004-02-06

LONDON, Feb. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon was Thursday facing tough questions on Iraq war after British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted he did not know a key claim in his Iraq dossier referred to battlefield arms.

Hoon was likely to be grilled on the issue when he appeared at the House of Commons defense committee one day after Blair told lawmakers that he was unaware the "45 minutes" claim over Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) meant only battlefield weapons when he urged the parliament to vote for joining the US-led war against Iraq last March.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, the British government in September 2002 published a Iraqi weapons dossier including a claim that Iraq could deploy biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order.

Hoon told BBC Radio 4's Today program he also did not know at the time what the dossier's claim Iraq could launch WMD in 45 minutes referred to.

He discovered the claim referred to battlefield weapons after the dossier was published when he asked one of his officials about the delivery systems, Hoon told the BBC.

"This was not at the time a great issue of public concern, it was not a great debate," Hoon said, adding that the "45 minutes" point had not misled the public over the Iraq war.

The dossier row continued to raise questions about why British troops were sent to war. The "45 minutes" became controversial last May after former BBC defense correspondent Andrew Gilligan said in his report that the government had "sexed up" the dossier to make a stronger case for the war, which had been branded "unfounded" by senior judge Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of government weapons expert David Kelly.

Kelly apparently took his own life days after he appeared before a televised Commons select committee last July after being confirmed as source of Gilligan's report.

The government has established an independent committee to investigate Iraq intelligence used by Britain in deciding to join the Iraq war after the United States announced that it would launch a similar inquiry to check intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons.

After the defense committee questions session on Thursday, Hoon was to meet the families of six Royal Military Police officers who were killed by a mob in Iraq last June.

They were expected to ask him why the men were left exposed in a dangerous place without back-up, heavy weaponry or radio communications, local reports said.