"But it found that the government failed to reflect the level of uncertainty among intelligence officials about Iraq's continuing production of biological and chemical weapons. The committee said the government ended up overestimating Iraq's current abilities by ignoring the inhibiting effect that the presence of United Nations inspectors would have had on getting arsenals up and ready for use.

"The committee said that intelligence chiefs had been unable to find any link between Baghdad and Al Qaeda before the war but had warned that a collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime could end up making it easier for terrorists, including Al Qaeda, to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction.

"The committee also criticized Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon for being 'unhelpful and potentially misleading' by failing to disclose in his closed-door testimony in July that some of his intelligence staff were troubled by overstated claims in a crucial intelligence dossier. Mr. Hoon told the House of Commons this afternoon that he believed he had been forthcoming but regretted any misunderstanding."

And this:

"On the 45-minute claim, the committee said the matter was presented out of context in a way that "allowed speculation as to its exact meaning," adding, 'It was unhelpful to an understanding of the issue.'

"It said that the dossier left the impression that the arms referred to were long-range weapons of mass destruction that could reach far beyond Iraq when in fact they were battlefield chemical and biological weapons whose range was local.

"The report did not say whether it thought the resultant exaggeration was intentional, but it noted that the claim appeared four separate times.

"The committee said that the document failed to make it clear that Baghdad was not considered a 'current or imminent threat to mainland U.K.' In that connection, it said that it was 'unfortunate' that a sentence making clear that Mr. Hussein could not launch a nuclear attack on London or any other part of Britain was removed from the preface that Mr. Blair prepared for the dossier.

"In its comments on Mr. Hoon, the committee said he had failed to mention in his July testimony the fact that two members of the defense intelligence service had expressed misgivings in writing about the dossier."