TONY BLAIR rejected yesterday a Commons committee’s finding that the “jury is out” on his key dossier about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

In a robust appearance before the Liaison Committee of select committee chairmen, Mr Blair stood by the validity of the intelligence that formed the background to the dossier.

But Mr Blair appeared to be preparing the ground for a failure to find any “live” weapons when he said throughout his grilling that evidence of “WMD programmes” would be found. Government officials insisted he had used the phrase before, but confirmed that it had been carefully chosen. Officials said that only time would tell, but no one could be certain that Saddam had not destroyed the weapons.

His words appeared to chime with a subtle shift in rhetoric by the Bush Administration. Before the war, President Bush clearly stated that Saddam’s regime “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons”, but on June 9 that changed. He said: “Iraq had a weapons programme. Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons programme. I am absolutely convinced that with time we’ll find out they did have a weapons programme.”

In London the Foreign Affairs Committee said on Monday that the jury was out on the claims of the Iraqi threat.

But Mr Blair said: “I’m afraid that in that regard, for me the jury is not out. It’s not out at all.” He continued: “I think it’s perfectly clear, as we made plain in the September dossier last year, that Saddam, once he realised, as he did back last September, that weapons inspectors were coming back in, was then going to engage in an active programme of concealment.”

Asked if he would concede that, if no weapons of mass destruction were found, the case for war was faulty, Mr Blair replied: “I don’t concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong.”

In a lengthy appearance, Mr Blair pleaded for the Iraq Survey Group to be given time to come up with evidence of Iraq’s weapons.

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said earlier that Saddam had six or seven months to hide weapons across an area almost the size of France. People would think it fair “that we should have at least that time if not longer to search for those weapons in a country with which we are not nearly so familiar”, he said. It was the nearest that any minister had come to giving a timescale. Mr Blair carefully avoided setting a deadline.

The Prime Minister said the only mistake in the second “dodgy” February dossier had been not properly crediting an internet thesis, despite being accused by the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday of “misrepresenting” the status of the document to MPs.

Asked about allegations that the House had been deliberately misled, he responded: “Obviously I refute that entirely. The fact is that we put before the House of Commons and, indeed, the country the case that we made. I should tell you right at the very outset I stand by that case totally. I’m quite sure we did the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein.”

He went on: “Not merely was he a threat to his region, to the wider world, but it was an appalling regime that the world is well rid of. So I refute any suggestion that we misled either Parliament or the people totally.”

Mr Blair said: “On the central allegations — that’s the reason why you looked into it with such urgency — on that central allegation that myself or anyone else inserted information into last September’s dossier against the wishes of the intelligence agencies, that allegation was totally false. And I don’t know anyone who now believes that allegation to be true.”

He added: “I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes. Let us allow the Iraq Survey Group to do its work.”

Mr Blair was asked whether he wanted to repeat his September claim that Saddam had plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons that could be deployed in 45 minutes. He replied: “I certainly would want to reiterate the validity of that intelligence as we received it last September.”

He continued: “That intelligence, I have no doubt at all, was valid intelligence. I also, however, draw attention to the fact that we said in the September dossier, not once but several times, that the moment he (Saddam) realises inspectors may come back in, then he will engage in a programme of concealment. And that, we believe, incidentally, from the information we are getting now, is precisely what he did.”

Mr Blair said that he did not have “specific intelligence” on why Saddam did not use WMD, but said that he believed the dictator began a programme of concealment last September.

“One advantage of this programme of concealment is that it places an inhibition on his ability to use these weapons quickly,” he said.

Times Recommends

• Fish and chip shops ‘selling cobbler as cod’
• T in the Park festival at Kinross
• Body Watch