Blair opts for delay on Iraq: U-turn on Saddam: No 10 postpones 'damning dossier' to avert a Labour backbench backlash

Tony Blair executed a last-minute U-turn on plans to publish a dossier of evidence against Saddam Hussein because he feared it would increase the frenzied speculation about an immediate war against Iraq, leading to an overwhelming backlash from his own MPs.
In a significant move which reveals the first softening of the line against the Iraqi dictator, Blair ordered that the report be pulled a few days before the Foreign Office was due to publish it.

He was also concerned that nervous Arab countries would see it as giving a green light to military action against Saddam, something they are set against.