Adrian Hamilton: The doubters have their day

If Sir John Chilcot has achieved nothing else, his inquiry has brought out of the woodwork a steady stream of officials anxious to distance themselves from the invasion of Iraq and in particular the intelligence assessments used to justify it. There is no doubting the importance of the letter now released by Major-General Michael Laurie, a senior member of the Defence Intelligence Staff at the time. Not only does it contradict Alastair Campbell's evidence that the dossier published in the run-up to war was not intended to "make the case for war", it also contradicts the evidence of the intelligence chiefs who helped write the document.

Both Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6, and John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, insisted to Sir John that its claims about weapons of mass destruction were fully justified. Michael Laurie, however, declares that "we could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment related to WMD".

These doubts were revealed in Andrew Gilligan's BBC broadcast. The trouble is that few of them made any headway in No 10 or with the JIC. Indeed, the committee formally thanked John Scarlett for a dossier which has now been revealed as grossly over-egged and after which he was rewarded with a knighthood and promotion.