World News 13-10-2004 45 Minute Claim Withdrawn who: Foreign Secretary Jack Straw what: Announces formal withdrawal of controversial "45 minute claim" where: House of Commons, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "The Conservatives are demanding Tony Blair apologises for the way he presented the intelligence about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction," says the BBC this morning. "It follows the withdrawal of the claim Saddam Hussein could use WMD at 45 minutes notice and Mr Blair`s recent acceptance Saddam had had no WMD." Yesterday, foreign secretary Jack Straw told the Commons that John Scarlett, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), had formally withdrawn the intelligence which led to the controversial warning. Gary Streeter, the Conservative foreign affairs spokesman, demanded that Mr Blair should now apologise to the country, says The Telegraph, "for the way this intelligence was conveyed by the Government to the country". The Independent offers some perspective on the issue by comparing "What they said then" with "What they say now". For instance, in February 2003, Jack Straw said "it is clear that the regime continued to hold vast stocks of deadly weaponry"; yesterday he "informed parliament a line of reporting that produced claims about Iraqi production of biological agent should be withdrawn" but he said "I do not accept that we were wrong to act as we did in the circumstances". Meanwhile, the BBC reports this morning that hundreds of bodies of executed women and children have been discovered in a mass grave being excavated in the north Iraqi village of Hatra. [... more]

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