LONDON, July 11 (UPI) -- Two ex-intelligence officers have cast doubt over the way Tony Blair went about trying to justify war with Iraq, the BBC reported Sunday.
This comes as the government prepares for the Butler report into how intelligence on Iraq was handled.
Brian Jones, a retired top Defense Intelligence Staff official, said he was "confused" by Blair's evidence in the Hutton Inquiry.
John Morrison, former deputy chief of DIS, said Blair's claims on Iraqi WMDs were met by disbelief in Whitehall.
Their statements appear to challenge assertions by the prime minister in the run-up to war that Iraq posed a "current and serious" threat to Britain. Spy chiefs have gone as far as retracting intelligence behind Blair's pre-war claims.
An anonymous senior intelligence source said MI6 had withdrawn the assessment underpinning Blair's case.
Jones said no-one knew what chemical or biological agents had been produced since the first Gulf War and there was no certainty among intelligence staff that agents had been stockpiled.
