Morning:
3°c
Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
BBC accused of having a 'culture of secrecy' after it refused to reveal how much it pays its top presenters and stars
More...
'Iraq weapons claims were sexed up'
By Joe Murphy, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 15.02.05Another weapons scientist has come forward to accuse the Government of "sexing up" intelligence on Iraq.
Rod Barton, an Australian microbiologist who was on the team searching for evidence of illegal weapons, said they were pressured to invent or exaggerate their findings.
His claims have reignited the storm over allegations that the Government embroidered its case for going to war with Iraq.
Mr Barton was a friend of David Kelly, the British scientist who committed suicide after being at the centre of claims that Tony Blair's original dossier on Saddam Hussein was "sexed up".
In an interview with Australian television, he said: "Both Washington and London wanted other things put in and to make it - I can only use these words - to make it sexier."
Mr Barton claimed spy chief John Scarlett had asked for claims to be included in the report. He did not say what these were.
Mr Scarlett, the former chairman of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee and now the head of MI6, was the author of the discredited 2002 dossier and has denied coming under political pressure to find evidence against Saddam.
Mr Barton says he resigned from the US-led Iraq Survey Group because its head, Charles Duelfer, came under pressure to falsify findings.
