By Jason Beattie, Evening Standard Political Correspondent
6 October 2004
Tony Blair faces huge embarrassment today when an official report confirms there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when war started.
Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer will tell the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington DC that there were no stockpiles of WMD in Iraq when the Coalition invaded last year.
The official confirmation has been long expected, but it is a huge blow to the Prime Minister and President George Bush, who both cited Saddam Hussein's weapons programme as the main justification for going to war.
However, in a lifeline for No10 and the White House, Mr Duelfer is expected to add that Saddam was seeking to restart his chemical and biological weapons programme. The report is expected to include new evidence of efforts by the Iraqi leader to bypass UN-imposed sanctions. It will claim Saddam set up clandestine laboratories to manufacture small quantities of chemical and biological weapons for use in assassinations. Downing Street and the White House will seize on these extracts in the report.
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