British leader challenges critics on Iraqi threat facts

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair challenged critics Wednesday to produce evidence for claims the government exaggerated the scale of the Iraqi weapons threat.

Blair said accusations that aides fixed material published in September 2002 to include claims Saddam could launch chemical and biological weapons at 45 minutes' notice were "completely untrue."

"If anyone has actually any evidence, let them produce it," Blair said in response to challenges from an opposition leader in the House of Commons. "I think before any claim of that seriousness is made, at least some evidence should be produced."

Blair, who staked his case for military action in Iraq on the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, has come under growing pressure as U.S. and British forces fail to find evidence.

The prime minister's exchange with Charles Kennedy, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, centered on intelligence on Iraqi weapons published by the government in September.

An unidentified intelligence official, quoted by the British Broadcasting Corp., has alleged that Blair's office insisted on including a claim that some Iraqi chemical and biological weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes, although the official said experts doubted that was true.

The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee has been investigating the preparation of the material, as well as a second dossier published in January.

Kennedy said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had told the committee that the 45-minute claim was not in the first draft, but Blair's communications director, Alastair Campbell, disagreed.

"Can the prime minister please for once and for all clarify which version of events is correct?" Kennedy said.

"In fact it was clarified, and the clarification was this: in the first draft presented by the Joint Intelligence Committee, the 45-minute claim was there," Blair said.

"The allegation that this claim was inserted by anyone in No. 10 Downing St. (the prime minister's office) or any minister is completely and totally incorrect."

Blair did not directly respond to Kennedy's challenge to personally testify to the Foreign Affairs Committee. The prime minister said the committee would make its report public, and that another parliamentary committee was also investigating.