September Dossier Iraq ' s Weapons of Mass Destruction : The Assessment of the British Government , also known as the September Dossier , was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to discuss the contents of the document . The paper was part of an ongoing investigation by the government into weapons of mass destruction ( WMD ) in Iraq , which ultimately led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq . It contained a number of allegations according to which Iraq also possessed WMD , including chemical weapon s and biological weapons . The dossier even alleged that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapon s programme . Without exception , all of the allegations included within the September Dossier have been since proven to be false , as shown by the Iraq Survey Group . The much - anticipated document was based on reports made by the Joint Intelligence Committee , part of the British Intelligence ' machinery ' . Most of the evidence was uncredited , ostensibly in order to protect sources . On publication , serious press comment was generally critical of the dossier for tameness and for the seeming lack of any genuinely new evidence . Those politically opposed to military action against Iraq generally agreed that the dossier was unremarkable , with Menzies Campbell observing in the House of Commons that : However , two sections later became the centre of fierce debate : the allegation that Iraq had sought " significant quantities of uranium from Africa " , and the claim in the foreword to the document written by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that " The document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them . " Britain ' s biggest selling popular daily newspaper , " The Sun " , subsequently carried the headline " Brits 45mins from doom " , while the " Daily Star " reported " Mad Saddam ready to attack : 45 minutes from a chemical war " , helping to create the impression among the British public that Iraq was a threat to Britain . Major General Michael Laurie , one of those involved in producing the dossier wrote to the Chilcot Inquiry in 2011 saying " the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war , rather than setting out the available intelligence , and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care . " On 26 June 2011 , " The Observer " reported on a memo from John Scarlett to Blair ' s foreign affairs adviser , released under the Freedom of Information Act , which referred to " the benefit of obscuring the fact that in terms of WMD Iraq is not that exceptional " . The memo has been described as one of the most significant documents on the September dossier yet published as it is considered a proposal to mislead the public . Claims . Uranium from Niger . The claim that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Africa was repeated in US President George W . Bush ' s January 2003 State of the Union Address . The controversial 16 words used by President Bush on 28 January 2003 were : In March 2003 , the International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA ) , when it finally obtained the documents referred to by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations Security Council alleging transactions between Niger and Iraq , concluded that they were obvious fakes . Subsequently , CIA director George Tenet stated that the remarks should not have been included in the US President ' s speech . This followed a remark by US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice , saying that the presence of the line in the speech showed that it had been authorised by the CIA . In July , Tony Blair testified to the House of Commons Liaison Committee that the evidence the government had regarding Iraq ' s dealings with Niger came from a separate source to the fraudulent documents . Ever since Powell ' s presentation , critics argued that had the US and UK intelligence services fully cooperated with United Nations weapons inspectors , it could have been found out whether the claims were truthful . The same month , British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee ( which was investigating the veracity of the claims in the dossier ) that the statement in the dossier rested on separate evidence which was still under review , and that this specific intelligence had not been shared with the CIA . In written evidence to the same committee , however , Straw further disclosed that the intelligence information upon which the British government had relied was shared separately with the IAEA by a foreign government shortly before their report of 7 March 2003 . This was further confirmed in a Parliamentary answer to Lynne Jones MP . Lynne Jones subsequently contacted the IAEA to question whether a third party had discussed or shared separate intelligence with them and , if so , what assessment they made of it . IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky responded to Jones on 25 May 2004 : The Foreign Affairs Select Committee judged that the British government had been wrong to state in an unqualified manner something that had not been established beyond doubt : The privately Blair - appointed Butler Review , whose own report was issued after the aforementioned public investigation , concluded that the report Saddam ' s government was seeking uranium in Africa appeared credible : The Butler Review also made a specific conclusion on President Bush ' s 16 words : " By extension , we conclude also that the statement in President Bush ' s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that : ' The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa . ' was well - founded . " The 45 minute claim . The 45 minute claim lies at the centre of a row between Downing Street and the BBC . On 29 May 2003 , BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan filed a report for BBC Radio 4 ' s " Today " programme in which he stated that an unnamed source - a senior British official - had told him that the September Dossier had been " sexed up " , and that the intelligence agencies were concerned about some " dubious " information contained within it - specifically the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to use them . On 1 June , Gilligan expanded upon that claim in " The Mail on Sunday " newspaper , stating that the government ' s director of communications , Alastair Campbell , had been responsible for the insertion of the 45 minute claim , against the wishes of the intelligence agencies . Gilligan subsequently gave evidence before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee , as did Campbell , who denied ordering the inclusion of the claim , and demanded an apology from the BBC . He subsequently backed this demand in writing . The BBC refused to apologise , and stood by Gilligan ' s story . Campbell responded angrily , with an appearance on " Channel 4 News " . On 7 July , the Select Committee published a report which cleared Campbell , albeit on the casting vote of the chairman . In the report , the committee stated that the 45 minute claim had been given " undue prominence " . On 15 September , MI6 head Richard Dearlove told the Hutton Inquiry that the claim related to battlefield WMD rather than weapons of mass destruction of a larger range than just battlefield . On the same day , Tony Cragg , the retired deputy chief of defence intelligence , admitted there were memos from two members of DIS objecting that parts of the dossier , including the 45 - minute claim , was " far too strong " or " over - egged " . On 28 January 2004 , the Hutton Inquiry released its report , which among other things concluded that : Information surfacing in late 2009 initially appeared to suggest that the source of the 45 minute claim was in fact a taxi driver " on the Iraqi - Jordanian border , who had remembered an overheard conversation in the back of his cab a full two years earlier " . Whether or not the taxi driver was the source of the 45 minute claim or instead " something about missiles " remains an open question . It is also claimed by Adam Holloway MP that " When the information was acquired by MI6 , a footnote was written on the page of an intelligence report sent to No 10 stating that the claim was ' verifiably inaccurate ' . " Role in the death of David Kelly . The following day , 30 May 2003 , the Ministry of Defence claimed that one of its officials ( later named as Dr . David Kelly ) had come forward , admitting to having discussed the matter of Iraq ' s weapons with Gilligan on 22 May . The BBC responded by saying that Kelly differed from Gilligan ' s key source in " important ways " . Kelly was subsequently called before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee whose conclusion was that Kelly was being used as a scapegoat and that he had not been Gilligan ' s key mole . On 17 July , Gilligan gave evidence to a private session of the Select Committee , and was subsequently criticised for not naming his source , and for changing his story . The BBC continued to stand by him . On the same day , Kelly left his home for an area of woodland and was later found dead with his left wrist slit , apparently having committed suicide . On 20 July , Richard Sambrook , director of news at the BBC , revealed that Kelly was indeed the key source for Gilligan ' s report , and that the BBC had not said so before so as to protect Kelly . The BBC stressed that Gilligan ' s reporting accurately reflected Kelly ' s comments , implying that Kelly had not been entirely truthful with the Select Committee . An inquest into the cause of the death was begun , but was suspended by Lord Falconer . The BBC committed to assisting fully with the then forthcoming Hutton Inquiry into Kelly ' s death . On 28 January 2004 , the Hutton Inquiry published its report . With regard to the death of Dr . Kelly : Dissatisfied with the results of the Hutton Inquiry , in 2010 experts called for the suspended inquest to be reopened .