It is widely accepted that the British intelligence dossier of September 2002 claiming that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) which could be deployed “within 45 minutes” was critical to the British Government’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Given that no such weapons have materialized despite careful, comprehensive and labour-intensive searching, the dossier is now seen by many as a self-serving attempt by the Blair administration to “spin” the country into war.