Denmark to publish intelligence on WMD in Iraq

15 Apr 2004 17:49:19 GMT

COPENHAGEN, April 15 (Reuters) - Denmark said on Thursday it would publish defence intelligence on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led war, after a sacked intelligence officer accused the prime minister of lying.

"A rather extraordinary situation has emerged in which there has been thrown doubt on the government's credibility," Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement.

The centre-right government plans to publish on Monday the Defence Intelligence Agency's assessment of whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) prior to the U.S.-led invasion.

Denmark contributed a submarine and a corvette to the war and now has around 500 troops in Iraq. Former military intelligence officer Frank Soholm Grevil was fired in February after leaking to a newspaper contents of a secret report suggesting there was no evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

On Wednesday he went public and accused Rasmussen of misusing intelligence when he sought support for the war.

"We have a prime minister who has been lying," Grevil told the left-leaning newspaper Information. "A minister who said something that is not in agreement with the truth. And he did it repeatedly."

Rasmussen has said several times Denmark backed the invasion of Iraq because Saddam Hussein refused to cooperate with the U.N. and not because of weapons of mass destruction. Copenhagen police have charged Grevil and two journalists with leaking and dissemination of confidential information concerning state security. The Defence Intelligence Agency has distanced itself from Grevil's comments, saying the government did not mislead parliament about the threat assessment presented by the agency.

"The government stated in parliament that Iraq probably possessed biological and chemical weapons and this happened with the full agreement of the service," it said in a statement.