An exhaustive two year and $1 billion inquiry concluded last night that Saddam Hussein had no actual weapons of mass destruction at the time of the war in Iraq.

The Iraq Survey Group's report to the US Senate was an expected blow to the case for the conflict made by Tony Blair and George W Bush.

But both leaders defended their actions yesterday, pointing to findings that the former dictator did have the intent and some of the capacity to develop deadly chemical and biological weapons.

"Just as I accept that the evidence now is that there were no stockpiles of actual weapons ready to be deployed, I hope others can be honest and accept that the report also shows that sanctions were not working, that on the contrary Saddam Hussein was doing his best to get around those sanctions with every intention of redeveloping those programmes," the prime minister said.

However there was clear evidence that Saddam ended his nuclear programme in 1991 and that Iraq was not the imminent threat to the Middle East it was made out to be last year.

Former foreign secretary Robin Cook said: "The international community had always known Saddam Hussein had ambitions to have such weapons. This was why there was a policy of containment which was very successful because he did not have a single weapon of mass destruction."

And Tory leader Michael Howard said Blair "did not tell the truth about the intelligence he received".

The Sun leads on the fact that rebel Labour MP George Galloway was mentioned five times in the report.

His name was among hundreds of firms and individuals who received vouchers for services to Saddam Hussein’s regime.