Dossier on Iraq weapons resembled paper written by Jack Straw’s press officer

The Sunday Times

"A confidential draft document about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction written by a Whitehall press officer bears a strong resemblance to the Government’s 2002 dossier that provided justification for the 2003 invasion.

The early version, drawn up by John Williams in 2002 when he was press secretary to Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary at the time, was published yesterday, after a decision by the Information Tribunal in January that it should be released.

The Government has long insisted that Mr Williams, now no longer a Whitehall official, produced his document on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction off his own bat and that it played no part in the formulation of the official dossier, written by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), and published in September 2002.

But an analysis of the two dossiers shows that each lists similar intelligence judgments about the threat from Iraq, although they appear in a different order....."