Today, the inquiry heard evidence from Sir John Scarlett, former MI6 chief, and chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee in September 2002 when it produced the controversial dossier making the case for the invasion of Iraq.
The questioning focused around the pre-war intelligence, and included questions on the 2002 dossier which claimed that Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed "within 45 minutes."
Sir John told the inquiry that he was not pressurised into firming up the dossier, but considered that it would have been better for the document to have stated that the 45 minute claim referred to battlefield munitions, not long-range missiles, to avoid the information being "lost in translation."
"There was absolutely no conscious intention to manipulate the language or to obfuscate or to create any misunderstanding on what this might refer to," he said.
The controversial 45 minute claim was at the centre of the dispute between the BBC and the government which lead to the death of Dr David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence weapons expert.
Sir John described the foreword to the dossier, written by Tony Blair, as "overtly political." He also helped with the foreword, which stated that Saddam Hussein's continued production of chemical and biological weapons was "beyond doubt."
According to Scarlett, the Joint Intelligence Committee discussed the day before the invasion intelligence that suggested that Iraq had disassembled its chemical weapons capability.
He said of the reliability of intelligence that the nature of Iraqi society made it hard to produce intelligence, especially about secretive weapons programmes. He described the society as one where policy revolved around the "whims and personality" of Saddam Hussein. All sources, he said, and particularly those from opposition and exile groups, were treated with caution.
Also giving evidence today was the ex-Department for International Development permanent secretary, Sir Suma Chakrabarti. Speaking about post-war planning, Sir Suma explained that on-the-ground detail of the country was not readily available to aid officials charged with planning post-war reconstruction because of the lack of diplomatic relations with the country in the preceding 12 years.
In addition, he said that his department was banned from making contact with UN staff and NGO's in Iraq prior to the invasion to avoid revealing the possibility of military operations.
As a result, knowledge of the situation in Iraq was "rather scanty", he said. "Most of the analysis was desktop analysis, based on United Nations information."
Other witnesses to the inquiry have criticised DfID's involvement in the build-up to the war. Last week, Admiral Lord Boyce, former chief of the defence staff, accused Clare Short, the International Development Secretary at the time, of making sure her staff were uncooperative.
He said: "You had people on the ground who were excellent operators from DfID who were told to sit in a tent and not to do anything because that was the instruction they received."
Sir Suma responded that although there had been "personality tensions... There was absolutely no instruction... to sit in tents."
Responding to further criticisms from Sir Kevin Tebbit, the former top official at the Ministry of Defence, of DfID's role in providing humanitarian and developmental aid to Iraq, Sir Suma went on to say, "We prioritised Iraq heavily at the Department for International Development in terms of resourcing," and added that Iraq had been "the biggest recipient of British aid" in the year before the invasion.
