Senator queries WMD claims

A senior US senator says he has evidence that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deliberately withheld crucial information from the UN arms inspectors deployed to Iraq.
The claim comes as Congress prepares to open inquiries into whether the US Government misread or inflated threats posed by Iraq before going to war.

In London, parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee has opened a hearing into whether the UK Government misled parliament on the threat posed by Iraq.

In both cases, a key question is over claims, made by the US and the UK, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Since the war was officially declared over, no such weapons have been located - although their alleged existence was a key reason cited by the US President George W Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for going to war.