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British intelligence agencies accepted false information even after a source told them of a supposed chemical weapon that was remarkably similar to one from the 1996 movie The Rock, my colleague Ewen MacAskill has learned from the report.

The incident is just one of a series of blunders described by the Chilcot report committed by Britain’s overseas spy agency, the Secret Intelligence Service in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the incident, the report describes a source providing details about spherical glass containers allegedly filled with chemical weapons at an establishment in Iraq.

MI6 at the time defended the authenticity of the source and the material, according to the Chilcot report. “However, it drew attention to the fact that the source’s description of the device and its spherical glass contents was remarkably similar to the fictional chemical weapon portrayed in the film The Rock,” the report says.

In the 1996 movie, Nicolas Cage, playing an FBI chemical warfare specialist, joins Sean Connery, playing a former British spy, to prevent chemical weapons being launched against San Francisco.

The similarity between the movie and the source’s alleged device had been noted when the MI6 report was first circulated on 11 and 23 September 2002, well before the Iraq invasion in March 2003.

But this and other bogus claims were not formally withdrawn by MI6 until 29 July 2003, four months after the invasion, Chilcot reports.

In a devastating finding, Chilcot said: “SIS did not inform No 10 or others that the source who had provided the reporting issued on 11 and 23 September 2002 about production of chemical and biological agent had been lying to SIS.”

MI6 stood by bogus intelligence until after Iraq invasion Read more

False allegations that Saddam could attack UK targets within “45 minutes” were not withdrawn until 28 September 2004. Bogus information by a source known as Curve Ball that also fed into the case for war was not withdrawn until the following day, 29 September 2004.

The faulty intelligence from MI6 was compounded by Tony Blair who hardened up the information when he wrote the foreword to the so-called “dodgy dossier” in September 2002. Chilcot concluded that Blair presented the assessments of the spy agencies to parliament with a “certainty” not justified by available intelligence.

Chilcot blames the intelligence community not just for passing on bogus information in the first place but failing to correct the prime minister when he toughened up the so-called intelligence.

The intelligence agencies had a serious blind spot. “At no stage was the proposition that Iraq might no longer have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programmes identified and examined by either JIC (the Joint Intelligence Committee, the umbrella organisation representing all the intelligence agencies) or the policy community.”

In the foreword to the dossier presented to the public in September 2002 preparing the case for war, Blair said he believed the intelligence had “established beyond doubt” that Saddam had continued to produce WMDs.



But the Chilcot report concludes: “The assessed intelligence had not established beyond doubt that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.”