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Was Iraqi cabbie the source of the dodgy dossier?
The Iraq inquiry will probe in secret claims that an Iraqi taxi driver who peddled false gossip was one of Britain's top spies before the war.
Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot said the Daily Mail's revelation yesterday that the cabbie may have been the source of claims that Saddam Hussein could fire chemical weapons at British targets in 45 minutes was 'relevant to' his work.
But he refused to quiz Sir John Scarlett about the claims, made in a report by Tory MP Adam Holloway, on grounds of national security.
Instead the Chilcot Inquiry will hold further hearings on the issue in private in the new year.
The revelation comes as the death toll of British troops in Afghanistan reaches 100 this year alone following the shooting of a member of 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment in a gun battle with the Taliban.
Senior intelligence officials have told the MP that the cabbie falsely claimed Saddam Hussein had acquired long-range missiles after listening to Iraqi commanders chatting in his taxi two years before the invasion.