Britain releases secret file from before Iraq war

By Luke Baker

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government released a once-secret draft document on Monday that was drawn up to justify going to war in Iraq, succumbing to three years of pressure from freedom of information campaigners.

The 32-page document, written by a former director of communications at the Foreign Office, cites intelligence sources to state that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and could easily use them since it had done so before.

Yet the document, amended in the margins, makes no mention of Saddam Hussein being capable of launching weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, a false claim later used in another government dossier to make the case for going to war.

"Saddam remains the only man to have used chemical weapons to wage war on civilians: so far," the author of the document, former journalist John Williams, wrote in late 2002.

"It is not speculative to suggest he would do so again if he could: he has done it. And we know that he is now re-equipping himself with chemical weapons, while seeking to extend the range of the missiles that would carry them."

The much-disputed 45-minute threat was made in what came to be known as the "dodgy dossier", a document the BBC subsequently alleged was "sexed up" to make the case for war stronger.

A hunt for who might lie behind the BBC's reporting ensued, and a government weapons expert, David Kelly, later committed suicide, prompting a high-level inquiry into the affair.