No 10 denies Blair knew Iraq posed no threat

DOWNING STREET last night dismissed claims that Tony Blair knew Iraq did not pose a real threat to Britain before the war.

The claims were made by former foreign secretary Robin Cook in part of his diary published in the Sunday Times yesterday.

Mr Cook said that it was clear when he spoke to the prime minister just two weeks before conflict commenced that Mr Blair did not believe Saddam's weapons posed a "real and present danger" to Britain.

He also gained the impression that Mr Blair was determined to go to war regardless of the progress made by Hans Blix and his team of UN weapons inspectors.

Number 10 said the claims were "absurd" and Mr Blair's views were "consistent".

"The idea that the prime minister ever said that Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction is absurd," said the prime minister's spokesman. "His views have been consistent throughout, both publicly and privately, as his cabinet colleagues know."

In his book, Mr Cook claims that the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, John Scarlett, assented when he suggested that Saddam had no WMD capable of being used over long distances to target cities.

He also says that a "large number of ministers" spoke up in Cabinet against British involvement in the US-led military action, in the nearest to a "mutiny" he had seen since Mr Blair took office.

In extracts from the book, Point of Departure, Mr Cook reveals that he spoke to Mr Scarlett whose committee brings together the chiefs of Britain's security and intelligence services on February 20, a month before hostilities began on March 20.

After receiving a detailed briefing on the latest intelligence on Saddam's arms capabilities, he concluded that the Iraqi dictator "probably does not have weapons of mass destruction in the sense of weapons that could be use against large-scale civilian targets".

On March 5, he told Mr Blair he believed Saddam's WMD capability was limited to battlefield chemical munitions which could be used against British troops if they went to war but could not otherwise threaten British interests.

When he asked whether Mr Blair was not troubled by the prospect of the weapons being used against British troops, he said he received the reply: "Yes, but all the effort he has had to put into concealment makes it difficult for him to assemble them quickly for use."

Mr Cook, who quit Cabinet on the eve of war, said Mr Blair's response left him "deeply troubled".

Meanwhile, British and US troops clashed yesterday with hundreds of former soldiers of Saddam Hussein's army demanding compensation for loss of their jobs. British soldiers fired rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of former soldiers who hurled rocks and set tires ablaze in the city of Basra.

Ex-soldiers also clashed with US troops for a second day in Baghdad near a payment centre where they are given their $40 compensation for losing their jobs.

Around 200 Iraqi men confronted American soldiers, shouting and waving their fists, before being pushed back away from the area.