The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, facing persistent questions about his government's use of intelligence on Iraq's development of illicit weapons, said this morning he had made a valid case for military action.
"I refute any suggestion that we misled Parliament or the people," Mr Blair told the House of Commons Liaison Committee, stressing he stands "totally" behind the case he made for war.
"I am quite sure we did the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein because not merely was he a threat ... to the wider world but it was an appalling regime that the world is well rid of."
Yesterday, another parliamentary committee sharply criticized the government's handling of intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The Foreign Affairs Committee said Mr Blair "misrepresented" the status of a dossier published in January.
Mr Blair had referred to it as "further intelligence," although he acknowledged later that it contained material from a graduate thesis published on the Internet. The committee, however, cleared ministers of deliberately misleading lawmakers.
The committee said that another dossier on Iraqi weapons, published in September, gave undue prominence to an uncorroborated claim that Iraq could deploy biological or chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order being given. It also said the "jury is still out" on the accuracy of the information contained in the intelligence document.
"The jury is not out at all," Mr Blair retorted today.
"You would almost think that this question about Saddam and weapons of mass destruction was somehow invented by the CIA and British intelligence. There is no doubt that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction," he said.
Mr Blair's government is under pressure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as the danger posed by Saddam's alleged illicit weapons program was the reason Britain gave for going to war.
"The longer the period during which no weapons of mass destruction are found on the scale indicated in that September dossier, and the longer the period when there is also no evidence that such weapons on that scale have been destroyed, then the greater is going to be the concern not only of Parliament but also the British people," said Conservative lawmaker Sir John Stanley.
Mr Blair said he had no doubts that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Mr Geoff Hoon that coalition forces needed at least another four months to search for banned arms in Iraq.
"Saddam Hussein had at least seven months (before the war began) in which to hide weapons of mass destruction," Hoon told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "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 the September dossier had received the backing of intelligence chiefs.
"This document was produced with the complete agreement of the Joint Intelligence Committee and they looked at the document and they judged that it was a reliable document," he told the BBC.