British prime minister Mr Tony Blair should resign because of his failure to ask "basic questions" on claims made in his Iraq dossier, the Tory leader, Mr Michael Howard, said today.
Mr Howard was seizing on Mr Blair's admission that he did not know the claim Iraq could use weapons within 45 minutes referred to battlefield arms.
Defence Secretary Mr Geoff Hoon faced questioning by MPs today after sparking the new row over the British government's Iraq dossier.
Mr Hoon told MPs last night that he knew the 45-minute claim in the document published in September 2002 referred only to short-range battlefield weapons, hours after Mr Blair had admitted he had no knowledge at the time of what the claim referred to.
Mr Hoon sought to play down the controversy today in a round of broadcast interviews before his appearance in front of the Commons Defence Select Committee to be questioned on the war against Iraq.
But Tory leader Mr Howard today called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying Mr Blair had failed to ask fundamental questions about the intelligence.
Hhe said: "I am accepting what the Prime Minister told us at face value. He said he never knew, he never bothered to ask this question. If I were Prime Minister and I had failed to ask that basic question before committing our country to war I would be seriously considering my position."
Mr Hoon insisted today that the type of weapon the 45-minute claim referred to was "not a huge issue" at the time of the dossier's publication in September 2002. But it sparked headlines claiming British bases in Cyprus could be vulnerable to attack from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
Asked on Sky News who was to "blame" for not informing the Prime Minister that the 45-minute point referred only to battlefield weapons, Mr Hoon replied: "I don't believe there is a question of blame."
He added: "As far as I'm concerned, this was not a matter of great public concern at the time. The question of what kind of weapons system could deliver weapons of mass destruction was not something of any great debate publicly in September 2002."