Allies defiant over Iraq weapons evidence

Britain, the US and their supporters were continuing to back their intelligence services today, after Tony Blair rejected charges that the British government had doctored evidence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency said its team of nuclear safety experts would arrive in Baghdad by Friday to investigate whether remaining nuclear material stored at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex – looted after the US-led war on Iraq – was secure.