Smash hit

But immediate action was needed too. As soon as he reached Downing Street, Blair summoned Hilary Armstrong, the chief whip. Shortly afterwards she held a crisis meeting in the Commons with all the government whips. They said that WMD was the number one issue among Labour backbenchers in the Commons tearoom. Blair was in for his toughest challenge at prime minister’s questions the following day.

Armstrong gave her troops the “line” from Downing Street: the government was the victim of skullduggery in the intelligence services. The whips were told to convince every Labour MP that the prime minister was not a liar and the attack on Iraq was justified. Labour backbenchers tempted to vote against Blair were phoned or grabbed in the Commons by fellow MPs with small majorities. “Do you realise this could lose me my seat at the next election?” they were told to say. “Do you really want that to happen?” John Reid, the Commons leader and Blair’s favourite bruiser, was also unleashed. He told The Times: “There have been uncorroborated briefings by a potentially rogue element — or indeed rogue elements — in the intelligence services.”

On Wednesday morning, backbenchers at the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party were treated to a rousing tirade by John Prescott. “The prime minister doesn’t lie,” the deputy prime minister insisted.

Ensconced in his “den” in Downing Street, Blair spent half an hour more than usual preparing for prime minister’s questions. As he got into his car to go to the Commons, the labels on his folder could clearly be seen: Iraq Dossier; Intelligence and Security Committee; Supportive Quotes; Rumsfeld.

Blair was so intent on his paperwork as he sat down in the chamber at 11.58 that he brusquely gestured to Gordon Brown that he wanted a glass of water. The chancellor looked surprised but complied, pouring from a decanter next to the dispatch box.

Blair had wound himself up into such a lather of self-righteousness that there was no stopping him. He announced the intelligence committee investigation and then bulldozed Duncan Smith, egged on by jeering Labour MPs. Tory MPs looked stony-faced.

That night Prescott held a 65th birthday party at his grace-and-favour apartment near Trafalgar Square. The food was bangers and mash, and many guests turned up with their own beer and wine. When Blair arrived, Prescott came over to shake his hand and slap him on the back.

IT appeared the boil had been lanced. But today The Sunday Times can reveal that, far from accepting the judgment of the intelligence services, Downing Street rejected an intelligence dossier about Iraq because it failed to establish that Saddam posed a growing threat.

Early last year, when Blair and President George W Bush had already agreed in principle that Saddam’s regime posed a major threat, Campbell told American journalists in Britain that the government would produce an intelligence dossier providing proof that Iraq was building WMD.

Blair, who had been praised for producing a comprehensive dossier on Osama Bin Laden shortly after the 9/11 attacks on America, decided a similar document on Iraq would help the British public understand why it was necessary to take a hard line against Saddam.

A six-page dossier was drawn up for him by staff from the joint intelligence committee (JIC) and presented in March 2002. But it contained no evidence that the threat from Iraq had increased significantly since the end of the Gulf war in 1991. It merely confirmed that Saddam had made fresh attempts to upgrade his arsenal, including biological weapons and long-range missiles. That dossier has never seen the light of day.

According to insiders, a template for a new dossier was drawn up by Campbell and Sir David Manning. Once again, the JIC staff were tasked to produce the goods.

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