'France and Italy gave information on Saddam' By Mark Huband and Christopher AdamsTwo foreign governments, thought to be France and Italy, supplied Britain with the intelligence for its claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought uranium from Africa.
The Financial Times has learnt from senior Whitehall sources that the information came from two west European countries, and not from now discredited documents that proved to be forgeries.
This information, which does not appear to have been passed on to the US, would suggest why the government felt confident enough to put it in a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction last September.
US criticism of British claims about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium has exposed flaws in intelligence-sharing between London and Washington and caused deep concern in some parts of Whitehall, officials said on Sunday.
Britain made the uranium claim in last September's dossier despite being told the US Central Intelligence Agency had "reservations" about its inclusion.
Tony Blair faces difficult talks this week in Washington with George W. Bush over the US's controversial plans for a military trial of two British-born terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. Downing Street, however, denied reports of a rift with the US.
Ministers rushed to defend the inclusion of the uranium claim in the September dossier. Peter Hain, leader of the Commons, said all the intelligence he had seen proved "absolutely conclusively" that Mr Hussein had WMD and was developing more.
Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, said on Sunday: "We have never said that the British report was wrong . . . the British stand by it because they have sources we did not have."
Jack Straw, foreign secretary, has written to the Commons foreign affairs committee saying British officials were confident the dossier's statement was based on reliable intelligence.
The information from foreign intelligence services was not shared with the US because it "was not ours to share", an official said.
The foreign secretary also disclosed that the US did not share with London details of a visit to Niger in 2002 by Joseph Wilson, an American envoy, who reported that no contract to buy uranium had been concluded with Iraq. Britain only learnt about this in recent press reports.
But he pointed to a part of the envoy's report that cited a visit by an Iraqi delegation in 1999 to Niger. This supported the UK claim that Iraq had sought African uranium.