In his recently published book, Ron Suskind claims not only that the White House ignored evidence passed to him by MI6, via Tony Blair, that Iraq did not have WMDs, but went further and forged letters between Saddam Hussein and the head of Iraqi Intelligence to strengthen the case for war. After interviewing Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of British Intelligence, Suskind wrote that Sir Richard flew to Washington to present the Habush Report to the head of the CIA.

This Report, based on the evidence of a high-placed Iraqi source, indicated that Saddam had destroyed his nuclear and chemical weapons programmes by 1991, and his biological programme by 1996. These assertions subsequently turned out to be true.

Suskind alleges that this Report was then ‘buried’ by the White House as the decision to go to war had already been made.