'Time to go', Hoon is told

Hoon's position is 'untenable'

Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has stepped up calls for the defence secretary to quit or be sacked following the publication of a key report on Iraq's weapons.

Mr Duncan Smith spoke out after the Intelligence and Security Committee said it was "disturbing" that Geoff Hoon had not disclosed full details of concerns expressed among Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) about the government's Iraq weapons dossier.

Either he should resign or the prime minister should dismiss him at once Iain Duncan Smith

The Conservative leader said it was plain Mr Hoon should go after the critical parliamentary inquiry.

"It is absolutely clear that Geoff Hoon's position is quite untenable," he said.

"Either he should resign or the prime minister should dismiss him at once.

"I think this report is a damning report of the secretary of state. The committee has accused him of misleading and withholding information."

'Time to go'

He went on: "My concern right now is that we have troops in Iraq whose lives are at risk under the authority of the secretary of state.

"His career is hanging in the wind and it is an untenable position.

"Geoff Hoon has got to go, I'm afraid."

Hoon's career 'hanging in the wind'

Speaking to BBC2's Daily Politics show, Robin Cook, who resigned as leader of the House of Commons over the decision to go to war, said: "Why was it we ended up going to war on intelligence that ended up being so wrong?

"It does look as if we went to war on the basis of a monumental blunder."