Brian Jones had told The Independent daily that he and other experts had formally complained about an intelligence dossier because they feared being made "scapegoats" if no weapons of mass destruction were discovered in Iraq.

The former chief of defence intelligence (CDI), Air Marshal John Walker, told the BBC Jones's comments should be taken very seriously.

"If you... get a group of national experts in this particular field having such disquiet about the terminology used and the importance given to certain phrases and things in this dossier, to the point that their section head writes... to place it on record, then I think probably there is a lot of truth in it."

The dossier, a key plank of Tony Blair's case in persuading a sceptical British public to back the war, is at the center of a probe ordered this week by the prime minister into the intelligence used to justify the US-led invasion in March.

"In my view, the expert intelligence analysts of the DIS (Defence Intelligence Staff) were overruled in the preparation of the dossier back in September 2002, resulting in a presentation that was misleading about Iraq's capabilities," Jones said. Jones headed until a year ago the DIS section tasked with analzying all intelligence on weapons of mass destruction.

Walker, who described Jones as one of Britain's top experts on chemical warfare, said he had had "absolutely total confidence" when the two worked together at the defense agency.

Pressure on Blair to justify his argument that Iraq's weapons programs posed a threat intensified after US President George W. Bush launched a probe Monday into pre-war intelligence.

Blair, Washington's closest ally in the war, had been far more clear-cut than Bush in citing Saddam's refusal to give up his alleged pursuit of weapons as the main reason for taking the nation to war.

Meanwhile, another former British intelligence chief, Francis Richards, may be called to testify at the inquiry into the quality of intelligence on the supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, sources in Gibraltar said.

According to the official sources, there was "a possibility" that Richards, who headed British Government Communications Headquarters -- the equivalent of the US National Security Agency -- until March of last year could appear at the investigation.

Richards has been the governor of the British possession of Gibraltar, off the southern coast of Spain, since May of last year.

WAR.WIRE