ISC report stops short of accusing Hoon

An Intelligence and Security Committee report published today has stopped short of accusing Defence Minister Geoff Hoon of making misleading statements to the committee.

But the report notes that the ISC was “disturbed” to learn that full disclosure was not forthcoming from Mr Hoon, and that the initial failure by the Ministry of Defence to disclose that some staff had put their concerns in writing to their line managers was “unhelpful and potentially misleading”.

However, the ICS report further concluded that the September 24 dossier “was not ‘sexed up’ by Alastair Campbell or anyone else”.

The report, ‘Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction – Intelligence and Assessments’ examined whether the available intelligence, which informed the decision to invade Iraq, was adequate and properly assessed and whether it was accurately reflected in Government publications.

It did conclude that the repetition of the “45-minute” claim four times in the September 24 dossier was “unhelpful” in a document that had been prepared for public consumption.

The ICS report said: “The fact that it was assessed to refer to battlefield chemical and biological munitions and their movement on the battlefield, not to any other form of chemical or biological attack, should have been highlighted in the dossier. The omission of the context and assessment allowed speculation as to its exact meaning. This was unhelpful to an understanding of this issue.”

Mr Hoon who appeared before the commons this afternoon said that he regretted that ther had been a "misunderstanding".

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that a full report would be provided by the government later in the year.

(SP)