§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean)The report on the Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction chaired by Lord Butler of Brockwell, published on 14 July 2004 (HC 898), highlighted in Chapter 5.9 the importance of effective scrutiny and validation of human intelligence sources, and concluded that validation of sources after the war had thrown doubt on a high proportion of the sources and their reports. Specifically, the review concluded that the validity of the line of reporting which included the "45 minutes" intelligence had come into question; it further concluded that reporting received from a liaison service on Iraqi production of biological agent was seriously flawed.
The Chief of SIS has now written to the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) to inform the committee that, as a result of further investigation by SIS, both these lines of intelligence reporting have been formally withdrawn. This is normal practice in such cases.