Dossier 'not the immediate reason for conflict'
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has told the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of weapons expert David Kelly that the now-controversial government dossier was "not the immediate reason to go to conflict".
Mr Blair told the inquiry that there were discussions going on about the dossier. He said the facts in the dossier and the statement were the “key items”.
Mr Blair said: “I think the most important thing was I was very careful in my statement to make it clear what we were and were not saying.
“The purpose of the dossier was to respond to the call to disclose the intelligence that we knew.
“But at that stage the strategy was not to use the dossier as the immediate reason to go to conflict, but as the reason why we had to return to the issue of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction.”
Lord Hutton asked if Mr Blair agreed that the word from Number 10 had been: ``We want the document to be as strong as possible within the bounds of intelligence.''
Mr Blair said that it was, but stressed that it was entirely based on intelligence.
