Blair defends govt as protesters shout abuse

The British government’s controversial Iraqi dossier was a response to the “tremendous amount of information and evidence” about Saddam Hussein’s programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction, Prime Minister Tony Blair declared today.

Giving evidence to the Hutton inquiry into the death of Government weapons expert Dr David Kelly, Mr Blair said that during the course of last year the possibility of war with Iraq prompted a growing public debate and there was “an enormous clamour” to know what intelligence the Government had.