Blair: We will find weapons

Downing Street today delivered a firm denial that Tony Blair has all but given up hope of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The Prime Minister's spokesman said Mr Blair was fully confident the hunt would uncover "concrete evidence" to prove Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons threat was real.

The move marked a hardening of position from only two days ago. Then Mr Blair, cross-examined by MPs, repeatedly said he believed the investigation in Iraq would uncover "evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes".

He conspicuously stopped short of claiming that any hardware would be discovered.

Last night, the BBC reported an unnamed Whitehall source as saying the Government had effectively given up on the quest for solid evidence, seen by many as the key test of whether Britain had been right to go to war.

Today No 10 delivered what the spokesman called a "strong denial". He said: "The Prime Minister has absolute confidence we will find not only evidence of those programmes but concrete evidence of the products of those programmes as well."

When it was pointed out that he was going further than Mr Blair himself had gone on Tuesday, he said: "If I have had to amplify that today, I have had to amplify it because of the BBC report, based on an unnamed source."

Going a further step, Downing Street said Mr Blair was confident the weapons hunt "will find material that had Hans Blix (the UN chief weapons inspector) found it would have justified him going back to the Security Council, and for a further UN resolution".

The defiant stance from No10 could fend off the Government's critics, led today by former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. But it is also a major hostage to fortune. In a dramatic new twist to the saga, the alleged mole at the centre of the "sexed up" dossier claim was summoned to be questioned by a Commons committee.

The foreign affairs committee reopened its inquiry into the dossier allegations after a MoD adviser who met BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan was named as Dr David Kelly, a weapons expert.

Tory committee member John Maples said Dr Kelly would be asked what he knew and what he told Mr Gilligan about the dossier's central claim that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons at 45-minute readiness.