LONDON, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- British officials have formally dropped their claim that Iraqi weapons could have been deployed on 45 minutes' notice, the Times of London reported Wednesday.
That fear was a key rationale in the Anglo-American attack on Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the newspaper noted.
But Tuesday, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw told the House of Commons three of the main sources of that claim have turned out to be unreliable and, thus, the idea that Iraq could launch attacks on 45 minutes' notice also has turned out to be unreliable.
But neither Straw nor Tony Blair would go further than the apologies already given over the war intelligence.
Downing Street said Blair would not go beyond his statement at the time of the Butler report that he accepted responsibility for mistakes made in the intelligence gathered by the United States and Britain.
Straw did say Hans Blix, the United Nations' chief weapons inspector, had been shown a draft of the British government's dossier on Iraqi weapons and had accepted, as late as September 2002, its section on Iraqi chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.
