Associated Press - Arab News

LONDON, 4 February 2004 — The British government named a commission yesterday to look into intelligence failures about Iraqi weapons — and faced immediate criticism that it was ducking the issue of how it used intelligence to justify war.

The long-resisted inquiry was announced a day after US President George W. Bush outlined a US bid to find out why no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have been found in Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had once told skeptics they would have to eat their words, acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found.

However, he told a House of Commons committee: “I have no doubt whatever that we did the right thing” by going to war.

Britain’s third-largest political party refused to participate in the probe, saying questions should also have been asked about the government’s use of intelligence.

The inquiry “deals neither with the workings of government nor with the political decision-making based on intelligence,” said Sir Menzies Campbell of the Liberal Democrats. “An inquiry that excludes politicians from scrutiny is unlikely to command public confidence.”

The five-member committee, chaired by retired civil service chief Lord Butler, is to report by July.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the inquiry would hear from witnesses in private and investigate the accuracy of intelligence on Iraq’s banned weapons and examine any discrepancies between it and what has been discovered since the end of the conflict.