Iraq had no usable chemical or biological weapons before the war, and British intelligence to the contrary relied in part on "seriously flawed" or "unreliable" sources, an official inquiry reported yesterday in London.

　　However, it absolved Prime Minister Tony Blair's government and the intelligence agencies of "deliberate distortion or culpable negligence."

　　Blair said he accepted the report's findings and accepted personal responsibility for any errors made.

　　In a statement to the House of Commons, Blair conceded that it was "increasingly clear" Saddam Hussein had no stockpiles of illicit weapons on the eve of the war. But he insisted the US-led military campaign was not a mistake.

　　"I have to accept, as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy," Blair said.

　　But, he insisted, "I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all. Iraq, the region, the wider world is a better and safer place without Saddam."

　　Lord Butler's report, echoing the damning findings of last week's US Senate report, said that Iraq "did not have significant, if any, stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment or developed plans for using them."

　　The report said the government's claim in a September 2002 dossier that Saddam could use chemical and biological weapons on 45 minutes notice was potentially misleading because it did not explain that it referred to battlefield weapons.

　　However, the report backed the government's claim it had intelligence Iraq had sought uranium in Africa, and that the claim was not based on forged documents.

　　The report said the September 2002 dossier prepared by Blair's government on the Iraqi threat pushed its case to the limits of available intelligence.

　　"Language in the dossier may have left with readers the impression that there was fuller and firmer intelligence behind the judgments than was the case," the report said.

　　"The clearest evidence the British government hadn't got an intention to mislead is that it would have been a very foolish thing to do to say that these weapons were there, when as a result of the war the fact that whether they were or not was going to be established so soon," Butler said at a news conference following the release of his report.

　　His report repeated the assessment of a previous inquiry that the 45-minute claim was potentially misleading because it was not made clear that it referred to battlefield munitions.

　　However, Butler's five-member committee, which interviewed Blair, senior Cabinet figures and key intelligence officials, said that in general intelligence material had been correctly reported.

　　"We do regard it as a failing, a serious failing, in the dossier that there were not the warnings which were in the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments about the thinness of the evidence," Butler said.

　　"But we have no evidence that the government did not itself believe the judgments which it was placing before the public," he said.

　　(The Associated Press)