The British government made a "fundamental mistake" when it claimed Iraq's Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes, the former head of UN weapons inspectors Dr Hans Blix said.
He told the Independent on Sundaynewspaper the claim, made in the government's September dossier on Iraq weapons, seemed "pretty far off the mark".
"It seems to me highly unlikely that there were any means of delivering biological or chemical weapons within 45 minutes," he said.
Dr Blix, who retired last month as head of the UN weapons inspectorate, also called for UN inspectors to be allowed to return to Iraq to continue the search for banned weapons.
UN inspectors left Iraq in March as American and British forces prepared to invade. Calls for their reinstatement have been denied, with the US occupation authorities preferring instead to set up their own body, the Iraq Survey Group.
While Dr Blix did not doubt the competence of the British and American experts, he said international inspectors from the UN would bring "greater credibility".
Meanwhile the US government stood accused today of misrepresenting intelligence information to justify the war with Iraq.
A former senior State Department official said that when the war began in March, Iraq posed no threat to the United States or to its neighbours.
Its missiles could not reach Israel, Saudi Arabia or Iran, said Mr Greg Thielmann, who held a high post in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Mr Thielmann, one of four critics at a session held by the private Arms Control Association, said the White House had formed a "faith-based" policy on Iraq and took the approach that "we know the answers - give us the intelligence to support those answers."
Agencies