Straw challenged the adjectives used in the run-up to the Iraq war as he appeared before a parliamentary committee looking into allegations that the British government exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam's regime.

"Neither the prime minister or I or anyone acting on our behalf have ever used the words 'immediate' or 'imminent' in relation to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein," Straw testified.

"What we talked about (in a September 2002 dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction) was a 'current and serious' threat -- which is very different," he said.

Straw's remarks were liable to be seized upon by opponents of the Iraq war as fresh proof that the war was unjustified, even illegal, so long as UN inspectors were still on the ground.

Not unexpectedly, Straw vigorously denied that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government and staff had doctored the dossier in order to beef up the case for Britain joining the US-led invasion of Iraq.

"It's completely untrue, totally untrue," he told the House of Commons' foreign affairs committee.

He acknowledged, however, that a second dossier released in February, which included a section lifted wholesale from a 12-year-old dissertation from a US graduate student, proved to be an "embarrassment."

The government made a "very substantial error" by failing to identify the sources cited in the second dossier, on Iraq's attempts to hide weapons of mass destruction, Straw said.

"The arrangements for the production of the so-called second dossier, which effectively was a briefing paper to the press, were not satisfactory even given the status of the document, and lessons have been clearly learned with respect to that." he said.

But the first dossier was entirely credible, and bore the stamp of approval of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which brings together the chiefs of Britain's intelligence agencies, Straw said.

"It was not signed off before the chairman of the JIC was satisfied with it," said the foreign secretary, adding that it had been prepared using "the right process."

The foreign affairs committee began hearings last week on Britain's decision to join the US-led war on Iraq, after BBC radio broadcast allegation by an unnamed source that the February dossier was "sexed up" by Downing Street despite the reservations of intelligence officials.

The controversy dwells in particular on a one-sentence, headline-grabbing claim in the 50-page document that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in as little as 45 minutes.

Blair has instructed the British parliament's intelligence and security committee, which meets behind closed doors, to hold its own inquiry, and he had pledged to publish its findings.

He has refused to appear before the foreign affairs committee, but in an exceptional move his chief of communications Alastair Campbell is to testify before the MPs on Wednesday.

In remarks on June 11 at the Foreign Press Association, Campbell said it was "absolutely right" for Blair's office to have been involved "at every stage" of the preparation of the September dossier.

Campbell also said the February document had suffered from "a quite minor error" that had been blown "totally out of proportion."

Straw is to return Friday to speak again to the committee, but in private.

WAR.WIRE