Alastair Campbell says Chilcot is fourth inquiry to clear him of 'sexing up' Iraq War dossier

Mr Campbell said the report's core findings had 'laid to rest' a string of allegations made by Mr Blair's critics

The 'sexing up' allegation had first been raised on the Today programme in May 2003 (Getty Images)

Alastair Campbell, the former pugnacious director of communications during Tony Blair’s premiership, has said the Chilcot report is the fourth inquiry to clear him of ‘sexing up’ an intelligence dossier that was presented to Parliament before the Iraq war in 2003.

While acknowledging that the report had uncovered “many mistakes” in the preparation for war, Mr Campbell said its core findings had “laid to rest” a string of allegations made by Mr Blair's critics, including the claim that the former PM secretly pledged to join the US in military action at a 2002 meeting with president George Bush in Texas.

The ‘sexing up’ of the dossier was the single most serious accusation levelled against Mr Campbell during his nine years as Mr Blair’s chief spin doctor, and one which he vehemently denied.

“There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No 10 improperly influenced the text,” the report concludes.

“That is four inquiries now which have cleared me of wrongdoing with regard to the WMD dossier presented to Parliament in 2002, and I hope that the allegations we have faced for years – of lying and deceit to persuade a reluctant Parliament and country to go to war, or of having an underhand strategy regarding the respected weapons expert David Kelly – are laid to rest,” Mr Campbell wrote on his personal website following the publication of the report.

In a staunch defence of his former boss, Mr Campbell rejected claims that Mr Blair was "cavalier" about military action, insisting that he did everything he could to prevent war and agonised ceaselessly about its possible consequences.

He continued: “I hope too that one of the main conspiracy theories peddled in the main by former US Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer, that Tony Blair did a secret deal with George Bush at Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, is also laid to rest. There was no secret deal, there was no lying, there was no deceit, there was no ‘sexing up’ of the intelligence. What there was a decision, a set of decisions, which ultimately had to be made by the Prime Minister.”

Defending his former employee, Mr Campbell added: “We elect leaders to make the toughest calls. Amid all the talk of learning lessons I fear we have already learned some wrong ones. Leaders in democracies have learned that if you do the really difficult, unpopular thing, it can be hung around your neck forever.”

“So I saw the care he took over the decisions. I have seen the agonies it has caused him many times since and will do till his dying day. The deaths of soldiers weigh heavily on him, as do the deaths of Iraqi civilians.

“He knows there are things he should apologise for. But one thing he will never apologise for is standing up to one of the worst, most fascist dictators the world has ever known. Nor should he. For all the faults in Iraq today, a world without Saddam and his sons in charge of Iraq is a better and safer world, and those who gave their lives to make it happen did not, in my view, die in vain.”