US and UK stand by WMD claims

Illegal weapons "no figment of the imagination"

The US and Britain have again rejected charges that they did not have proper evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before invading the country.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he believed the evidence was overwhelming that Iraq had the weapons and that it continued to develop weapons programmes after UN inspectors left in 1998.

It was not a figment of anyone's imagination, he said.

Because of Iraq's prior use of such weapons, against Iran and against the Kurds, it was perfectly appropriate for the international community to insist on regime change, Mr Powell said.

He was speaking in Rome on his way to the Mid-East summit.

It was Mr Powell's presentation to the United Nations in February that convinced many of the doubters about Iraq's weapons programmes, the BBC's state department correspondent, Jon Leyne, says.

Mr Powell has pointed out that he spent four days and nights going through the evidence with the CIA before he went to the UN, in order to convince himself that it was solid information.

The UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has rejected calls for an official inquiry into his government's claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking at the G8 summit in Evian, he said he stood "100%" by the evidence shown to the public about Iraq's alleged weapons programmes.

'Monumental blunder'

"The idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability for delivering weapons of mass destruction is completely and totally false," he said.

Calls for an inquiry were made after ex-cabinet minister Clare Short said the UK prime minister had "duped" the country into going to war.

Another former cabinet minister, Robin Cook, who resigned over the war, said the government had clearly sent troops into battle "on the basis of a mistake" and an inquiry should be held.

Mr Cook said the government had committed a "monumental blunder".

"We have not found any of these chemical shells capable of being used in 45 minutes or 45 hours," he told the BBC.

"We have been in Iraq, since the war ended, for over 45 days and we have not found a single chemical shell. It is obvious that that statement was wrong."

Dismissing the inquiry calls, Mr Blair said: "It is important that if people actually have evidence they produce it, but it is wrong frankly for people to make allegations on the basis of so-called anonymous sources."

The prime minister also dismissed as "completely and totally untrue" Ms Short's claim that he and President Bush had secretly agreed a date for invading Iraq last September.