Iraq inquiry panel member may have 'vested interest'

A central member of the official inquiry into the Iraq war is a consultant to one of the world's leading chemical and biological warfare decontamination companies that has military contracts in Iraq.

Lord Inge, the former head of the defence staff, who sits on the Butler inquiry set up by Tony Blair, is employed by OWR AG, a German-based firm which specialises in cleaning up deadly biological and chemical warfare agents. The disclosure has raised fresh questions about the Butler inquiry, which has already come under fire and is being boycotted by the Liberal Democrats.

Lord Inge is one of a five-strong inquiry team who have been charged with examining intelligence evidence about the existence of WMD in Iraq. OWR AG, which decontaminates "personnel, equipment, terrain, vehicles and clothing" has a contract with the US military's Special Operations command and its equipment is being used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is also hoping to clinch other contracts with European armies, including Britain's. The company said Lord Inge has been involved with the firm for about six months.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, the city investment manager and the frontbench Liberal Democrat peer, questioned whether Mr Blair knew of Lord Inge's interest. He said: "This raises the question of whether there could be a conflict of interest. Is Lord Inge well advised to be sitting on the Butler committee while he is a consultant to a leading supplier of decontamination systems for protections against chemical weapons?".

The Butler inquiry was prompted by the failure to find chemical and biological weapons in Iraq and will look at the intelligence received on WMD by the Government in the run up to a military strike.

Lord Inge's links to the firm were revealed this week in an update of the House of Lords' Register of Members' Interests, which showed he first informed the parliamentary authorities of his interest in the chemical and biological weapons decontamination firm in November 2003. Earlier this month, he also put on record that he is an adviser to the King of Bahrain.

There is no suggestion of any impropriety by Lord Inge, who was unavailable for comment yesterday. A spokesman for OWR AG confirmed yesterday that Lord Inge has been engaged by the firm.

He said the company provides diagnosis and decontamination systems for "all known chemical warfare agents", as well as a number of biological agents.

He said: "We provide all kinds of decontamination of personnel, of terrain and of equipment. We [deal with] both chemical and biological agents. Mustard gas is no problem. Our main contracts are in the field of the military but we have also some in civil defence."

The spokesman added: "We have supplied the American military Special Operations command and they are in use in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment. In the UK, there are no contracts at the moment."