Straw's Iraq concerns denied

Straw (l) and Powell both reportedly had doubts about Iraq's weapons

The Foreign Office has denied claims that Jack Straw was concerned about the quality of intelligence over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war.

Claims made in the Guardian on Saturday that both the UK foreign secretary and his US counterpart Colin Powell had been worried were "simply untrue", a spokeswoman said.

The Guardian said the two men had expressed their concerns during a private meeting at the Waldorf Hotel in New York before the war.

It quotes a diplomatic source who had reportedly read a transcript of their conversation.

Mr Straw reportedly feared that claims being made by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush could not be proved, because of a "lack of corroborative evidence".

And Mr Powell reportedly told Mr Straw he was "apprehensive" about some US intelligence assessments.

'No such meeting'

He reportedly described them as "at best, circumstantial evidence highly tilted in favour of assessments drawn from them, rather than any actual raw intelligence".

According to the Guardian, Mr Powell said he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not "explode in their faces".

But a Foreign Office spokeswoman denied all the claims, saying: "No such meeting took place.

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"The foreign secretary has always been clear of the strength of the evidence against Iraq in respect of its weapons of mass destruction, much of it from UN sources."

Both the US and UK governments had cited the threat from Iraq's alleged arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as a major reason for going to war.

They are now under pressure to produce evidence of the weapons, with the Pentagon this week announcing a stepping-up of the search in Iraq.

'Not some invention'

On Friday, Mr Blair indignantly denied as "completely absurd" claims that an intelligence dossier on the military threat from Iraq had been rewritten by Downing Street to make it "sexier".

Mr Blair said Saddam Hussein's weapons had been well documented by the UN and were "not some invention of the British security services".

He said he had "absolutely no doubt" about the truth of the evidence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

"What's more, the idea that we authorised or made our intelligence agencies invent some piece of evidence is completely absurd."

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The claim about the dossier had been made by a senior British intelligence source to the BBC.

He said one key claim - that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes of an order - was inserted "against our wishes because it wasn't reliable".

Earlier this week US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, suggested that the weapons may have been destroyed before the fighting began.

On Friday he rejected the charge that the war against Baghdad had been waged under a false pretext, saying he still believed weapons would be found.