Peace groups 'dismayed' by report

A million people marched in London before the war began

Anti-war campaigners said they were "dismayed and astonished" by the findings of the Hutton inquiry.

The Stop the War Coalition said the report was "one-sided" and reiterated demands for a full independent inquiry into the build-up to war in Iraq.

Protesters lobbied the Royal Courts of Justice, where Lord Hutton gave a statement on his findings, and the Houses of Parliament.

Another anti-war group described the inquiry a "red herring".

Lord Hutton largely exonerated the Ministry of Defence and the prime minister in his report into the circumstances surrounding the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly.

Part of that inquiry focused on whether intelligence used to bolster the case for an invasion of Iraq had been "sexed up", as claimed by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan.

Lindsey German, convenor for the Stop the War Coalition, said: "Most people would be dismayed and astonished by the report. It's so one-sided."

'Wider questions'

She told BBC News Online: "[Lord] Hutton has taken everything the government said as true. In fact, Andrew Gilligan's story has been shown to be essentially true."

Ms German reiterated demands for a full independent inquiry into the build-up to the war.

She said: "The inquiry didn't look at any of the wider questions surrounding our participation in the war - the substantive questions about Tony Blair's conduct."

I'm not really interested in the minutiae of the report... We know Tony Blair lied about WMD and continued to lie afterwards Gabriel Carlyle Voices in the Wilderness UK

Voices in the Wilderness UK, a group set up in 1996 to oppose the economic sanctions placed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, organised a lobby of the Royal Courts of Justice on Wednesday to coincide with Lord Hutton's statement.

A spokesman for the group, Gabriel Carlyle, told BBC News Online: "The Hutton inquiry is a bit of a red herring,"

"I'm not really interested in the minutiae of the report... We already know that Blair made [as yet] unsubstantiated claims about Iraq's WMD.

"Either Blair was lying or it's an amazing piece of intelligence which Blair refused to give to UN inspectors and won't even give to the American inspectors currently crawling all over Iraq."

He said he supported the call for a full independent inquiry into the build-up to war, but also demanded to see the intelligence on which Mr Blair based his claims that Iraq was producing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

"There is no reason why the intelligence at the basis of this claim should be withheld any longer," he said.