Blair haunted by Iraq dossier
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Blair hopes two separate inquiries will satisfy his critics.
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Blair faces a parliamentary inquiry over pre-war intelligence reports.
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- The official spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote a letter to British intelligence services reassuring them the government would take "far greater care" using their material, following a row over a dossier on Iraq's weapons.
A Downing Street spokesman told CNN the document, published in January, had failed to clarify the source of some information that was used to back the case for war on Iraq.
The spokesman said Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of communications, wrote a letter to the intelligence services in February saying in future, the government would be mindful of the impact on their reputation.
The dossier -- titled "Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation" -- sparked outrage after it was discovered that parts of it were copied from a 12-year-old thesis by an American student.
The spokesman said there had been "an error of omission in the dossier, where we should have made the attribution clearer -- those elements which came from intelligence sources and those elements which came from publicly available sources.
"What did happen in the wake of the controversy surrounding the dossier was that Alastair Campbell spoke to those responsible for its production and demanded a tightening of procedures," he said.
The spokesman said Campbell's statement should not be regarded as a letter of apology, adding that the story had been "totally overblown."
Since the end of major combat in Iraq, Blair has come under increasing pressure to show evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that he said justified war.
Blair told the House of Commons Wednesday that claims the government doctored a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were "completely untrue." (Full story)
He hopes two separate inquiries into how intelligence was gathered and used will satisfy his critics, who include members of his own Labor Party.
