A report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee also cleared Blair's key aide and powerful director of communications Alastair Campbell of exerting "improper influence" on the drafting of an intelligence file.

The committee said Campbell played no role in including a key, controversial section saying Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were deployable within 45 minutes.

The BBC had quoted an intelligence source who said that Campbell insisted on inserting that passage into the government dossier -- thus beefing up the case for war -- despite the reservations of Britain's intelligence services.

The allegations have prompted a bitter row between the BBC and the Labour government, with recriminations flying between the two sides.

Blair, meanwhile, has been under fire for weeks over his handling of the Iraq war.

A poll last week found two-thirds of voters do not trust him, while a survey last month showed most people here believe Britain and the United States deliberately exaggerated evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in order to win support for going to war.

Monday's parliamentary committee report said that in a government file published last September, the 45-minutes claim was given undue prominence and said the language used in that dossier was "more assertive than that traditionally used in intelligence documents".

"We conclude that the 45-minutes claim did not warrant the prominence given to it in the dossier, because it was based on intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source. We recommend that the government explain why the claim was given such prominence," the deputies said in their report.

"We further recommend that in its response to this report, the government set out whether it still considers the September dossier to be accurate in what it states about the 45-minute claim, in the light of subsequent events."

But the deputies cleared any minister of misleading parliament.

The committee concluded that "in the absence of reliable evidence that intelligence personnel have either complained about or sought to distance themselves from the contents of the (September) dossier, allegations of politically-inspired meddling cannot credibly be established".

However, the committee was scathing in its criticism of a second government dossier, published in February, saying Blair had inadvertently "misrepresented its status" by telling parliament it contained "further intelligence".

Labelled the "dodgy dossier" by the press and politicians, that file featured in part an uncredited paper by a post-graduate student in the United States.

"We conclude that the effect of the February dossier was almost wholly counterproductive. By producing such a document the government undermined the credibility of their case for war," deputies said.

The committee also said that "continuing disquiet and unease about the claims made in the September dossier are unlikely to be dispelled unless more evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme comes to light".

WAR.WIRE