Downing Street to make Iraq inquiry decision 'shortly'

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Downing Street to make Iraq inquiry decision 'shortly'

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Downing Street said Monday it would "shortly" say how it plans to address the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, one day after Washington was set to launch an inquiry into prewar intelligence.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said there was a need "to address valid questions" about the failure to find WMD, and to see how that compares with the intelligence ahead of the war.

"What's different between last week and this is that the Hutton report, like the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report and like the Intelligence and Security Committee report, has cleared the government of allegations of having politically interfered with, falsified or hyped the intelligence on (WMD)," the spokesman said.

"That allows us to address -- hopefully in a more rational way, a more rational context -- the perfectly valid question that people have asked about WMD," he said.

But Blair's spokesman refused to give details of what form the probe might take, saying that it would be spelled out to parliament "shortly."

Britain's main opposition Conservatives are tabling a motion to the House of Commons on Monday for an independent inquiry, a move also backed by the second largest opposition Liberal Democrats.

"Now I think it is quite clear that there does need to be an inquiry," Tories leader Michael Howard told the BBC radio.

"I hope the prime minister won't continue to be the odd man out, won't continue to be isolated on this," he said.

Pressure has been growing on both sides of the Atlantic since David Kay, the man heading the weapons hunt, quit his post, saying intelligence suggesting former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons was wrong.

Blair, who faces a grilling by a powerful parliamentary committee Tuesday over Iraq's banned weapons, has so far resisted calls to look at the quality of prewar Iraq intelligence.

Polls issued by two British Sunday newspapers showed a majority of Britons demand an independent public inquiry into the government's evidence for the war with Iraq.

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