BBC: Iraq weapons 'unlikely to be found'

Senior UK Whitehall sources no longer believe weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, the BBC has learned

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BBC political editor Andrew Marr said "very senior sources" in Whitehall had virtually ruled out the possibility of finding the weapons.

They believe they did exist - but were hidden or destroyed by Saddam Hussein before the war.

Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said the admissions were a "dramatic development" and ex-Prime Minister John Major has called for a full independent inquiry into the basis for war.

Mr Cook, who resigned as leader of the Commons in the run-up to the war, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Parliament voted for war because it was told that Saddam did have real weapons of mass destruction.

"Indeed what the prime minister said on the eve of the war was that the weapons posed a real and present danger, either because might use them or because he might pass them to terrorist groups."

He said it would have been better to have given the UN weapons inspectors more time to finish their job, rather than rushing to war.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3054549.stm

That didn't exist in the first place.