Campbell faces questions over Iraq claim

Alastair Campbell faced potentially explosive questioning today over his role in overstating the reliability of intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weaponry, as the first major political figure to appear before the Iraq inquiry.

Tony Blair's former Downing Street director of communications was expected to be quizzed over a key claim it was "beyond doubt" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, made in a dossier published in September 2002 setting out the Government's case for war.

The assertion appeared in a foreword to the document, which appeared under the name of the former Prime Minister Blair. However, Campbell has already admitted that he was responsible for drafting it.

Several senior Whitehall figures have told the inquiry that the assertion was made despite the fact that the Prime Minister was warned that intelligence on Saddam's weaponry should be treated with caution.

Critics of Campbell's involvement in building the Government's case for war in Iraq were expecting the former spin doctor to go on the offensive today, a tactic he has deployed in the past.

Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP who has written a book on the dossier, said key questions on Campbell's role over the dossier must be asked by the committee.

"They [Downing Street] replaced all the question marks with exclamation marks. The whole process of forming the dossier was to make a political case for war."

- INDEPENDENT