According to reports out of the United Kingdom, that’s what the British and American governments wound up doing when the claim that Saddam Hussein could strike the Western world with chemical or biological weapons in just 45 minutes came from a cab driver in the Middle East. British intelligence (MI6) mentioned the taxi source while compiling its dossier for attacking Iraq, and the Bush administration picked up the 45-minute warning as well in its campaign to convince Americans that Hussein needed to be removed from power. The cabbie, who operated near Iraq’s border with Jordan, based his tip on a conversation he overheard in the back of his taxi two years earlier.

 

Although a footnote to the original MI6 report discounted the credibility of the source, this did not stop Prime Minister Tony Blair from telling the House of Commons on September 24, 2002, that Saddam Hussein had “existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population.” Four days later, President George W. Bush repeated the claim in his weekly radio address. “According to the British government,” he said, the Iraqi regime “could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

The Failure of British Political and Military Leadership in Iraq (FirstDefence.org)

Was Iraqi Cabbie the Source of the Dodgy Dossier? MP's Report Claims 'Intelligence' on Saddam's Wmds Came from Back of a Taxi (by Tim Shipman, Daily Mail)

Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Tony Blair's Statement to the House of Commons (AustralianPolitics.com)

Presidential Radio Address - 28 September 2002 (Wikisource)