But, with the Commons rising today for the summer recess, and Mr Blair departing on a trip to America and the Far East, the aftermath of the conflict dogged him to the last.

A handful of his Labour critics backed a Conservative motion calling for a judicial inquiry, and he came under renewed pressure in the Commons over the claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger and that weapons of mass destruction could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Labour MPs were told to stop attacking the Government through the press. The appeal was delivered at the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, while Ian McCartney, the party chairman, said that the constant abuse was beginning to burn into the national psyche.

Mr Blair received help from an unlikely quarter. The senior Conservative Sir Patrick Cormack rebuked his own MPs over their behaviour since the war ended. He told the Commons that he was ashamed of the Tories for their obsession with silly details.

“It grieves me deeply that my party, which I am honoured to belong to, should have started nit-picking when it was so right to give support on the principal issue (of going to war),” Sir Patrick said.

“It also grieves me that those young men and women in the Gulf must be wondering if we have lost our marbles in this place, spending our time on these silly accusations which have no substance.”

Mr Blair is known to be deeply frustrated at the outcome of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee hearing. His aides are convinced that Dr David Kelly, the government adviser on deadly weapons, is the source of Andrew Gilligan’s BBC report in which he claimed that the Government had “sexed up” the dossier of September last year.

They believe that, because of political manoeuvring on the committee, it was impossible for it to get to the truth.

Iain Duncan Smith accused Mr Blair of becoming a “stranger to the truth”. The Tory leader said that the Prime Minister and Alastair Campbell, the No 10 communications director, had created “a culture of deceit and spin” in government.

The Prime Minister told a Labour MP that Saddam was known to have bought uranium from Niger in the 1980s and that it was “therefore not beyond the bounds of possibility” that he went back. The implication was that the claim was based on speculation.

When MPs reacted, Mr Blair corrected himself by saying that he stood entirely by the September dossier.

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