Is it true that we have found "massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories" in Iraq? Paul Bremer flatly rejects it:

Mr Bremer, interviewed on ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby Programme...ridiculed the comment. "I don't know where those words come from, but that is not what [ISG chief] David Kay has said," he told Dimbleby as the interviewer tried to interrupt to tell him the source. "I have read his reports so I don't know who said that. It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me. It sounds like someone who doesn't agree with the policy sets up a red herring then knocks it down."

Well said. And exactly who was it that was out to undermine the coalition with red herrings like this, anyway? Why, none other than Tony Blair himself. Oops.

Bremer later found out the statement he contradicted was Blair's, and he backtracked, saying "There is actually a lot of evidence that had been made public . . . clear evidence of biological and chemical programs." He added "Weapons of mass destruction or no weapons of mass destruction, it's important to step back a little bit here, to see what we have done historically."

It seems clear that Bremer knew no 'huge system of clandestine laboratories' had still been active in 2002, and he smelled a trap. If someone was saying such a thing, which was clearly false, then probably it was an enemy of the Bush administration trying to set up a trap that would be sprung later. He hadn't counted on Tony's earnest hyperbole (though the incident makes it clear that Tony is now doing Bush more harm than good by sticking with the cover story long after US officials had ceased trying to defend it.) When Bremer realized that he had been tricked by Fleet Street into calling Tony Blair a liar, he quickly backed down and tried to give the PM some cover. Well, there used to be laboratories back in the 1980s (we should know, we authorized US companies to supply them) . . .

The former foreign secretary Robin Cook yesterday said it was time for Mr Blair to drop his claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "It really is time that the prime minister accepted that himself," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "It is undignified to continue to insist he was right when everyone can see he was wrong."