MoD disowns PM’s ‘dodgy dossier’ claiming 70,000 Anti-ISIS troops ready to fight

Comparisons made with Tony Blair’s discredited weapons of mass destruction document.

Into battle ... RAF Tonrnado

SENIOR MoD figures warned against David Cameron claiming there are 70,000 moderate Syrian troops ready to fight IS, The Sun can reveal. 

They wanted the phrase to be pulled from the PM’s first statement to Parliament on air strikes.

The claim was last night compared to Tony Blair’s “dodgy dossier” which was used before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and maintained the country could deploy biological weapons within 45 minutes.

A Whitehall source said senior defence staff argued the 70,000 figure was “misleading”, based on intelligence reports.

MoD officials said that number of anti-Assad regime fighters included groups with extremist links and factions who fight each other.

But the objections were over-ruled by the Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.

Providing ground troops to take IS territory was a key concern among MPs, so the vacuum from bombing is not filled by the Assad regime or worse.