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Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix believed the Government’s controversial Iraq weapons dossier actually understated the case against Saddam Hussein, according to documents released today by the Foreign Office. The papers released by the FO show that British officials at the United Nations in New York showed a draft of the dossier to Dr Blix in September 2002, two weeks before the final version was published. A note from one official, Adam Bye, said that Dr Blix had liked the section on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as he believed that it did not exaggerate the facts. According to...

BBC chief resigns over Iraq weapons adviser report ( ) LONDON, Jan 29, 2004 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- British Broadcasting Corp. chief Greg Dyke resigned Thursday, the second top BBC official to step down after a judicial inquiry harshly criticized the broadcaster's journalistic standards. On Wednesday, senior judge Lord Hutton criticized the 81-year-old network for an "unfounded" report it broadcast last year accusing the government of "sexing up" a prewar dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction with information it knew was wrong. Gavyn Davies, the chairman of the BBC's board of governors, resigned Wednesday - the first time...

LONDON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - David Kelly, the weapons expert whose suicide rocked the British government, believed Iraq did pose an immediate threat, the BBC said on Wednesday, just days before a critical report into his death. Kelly told the BBC before the war that Iraq's weapons could have taken "days or weeks" to deploy. But he did not back Prime Minister Tony Blair's notorious claim that they could be fired in 45 minutes. The failure to find Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- the primary Anglo-American motive for war -- has eroded public trust in Blair, putting him in...

Gilligan admits dossier row errors BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan has admitted making mistakes in live broadcasts reporting claims the government had "sexed up" its dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Mr Gilligan stood by the story he based on a conversation with government weapons expert Dr David Kelly. But under tough cross-examination at the Hutton inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, Mr Gilligan said he had made "slips of the tongue" in unscripted broadcasts. He was followed into the witness box by BBC director of news Richard Sambrook, who said there were errors in the BBC's strongly-worded response to the...