"Tony Blair last night suffered a blow on the eve of the most testing week of his premiership when the US official at the helm of the hunt for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction asserted Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
Resigning from his post after nine fruitless months in charge of the Iraq Survey Group he said he did not think there had been a large-scale weapons programme inside Iraq since 1991.
David Kay, a hardline CIA of ficial close to the Republicans also criticised President George Bush for failing to give him adequate support."
"Mr Blair has already shifted ground from saying he was absolutely confident that Saddam's weapons arsenal would be located to saying instead that evidence of weapons programmes would be found.
More recently on the BBC Frost programme he said he did not know if any weapons would be found."






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