All news on this page courtesy of the The Times & Sunday Times Newspapers, London, UK

BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT, AND VALERIE ELLIOTT

NICHOLAS SOAMES, the Armed Forces Minister, rejected Labour calls for his resignation yesterday after a damning Ministry of Defence report disclosed how his officials had caused him to mislead Parliament about the use of toxic pesticides during the Gulf W

For more than two years, Parliament was informed that organophosphates were not used to kill disease-carrying pests in Saudi Arabia, although it later emerged that they were sprayed extensively over British military tents. More than 1,100 veterans of the

Mr Soames had already apologised for unwittingly misleading the Commons and he repeated his apology yesterday to the Commons Defence Select Committee. But David Clark, Shadow Defence Secretary, accused the minister of a "catalogue of complacency" and said

Downing Street sources said that the Prime Minister had every confidence in Mr Soames and dismissed Labour's calls for him to resign. Mr Soames privately said he had no intention of resigning.

The report into how he was misled by his officials over the use of organophosphates in the Gulf was compiled by Richard Mottram, Permanent Secretary at the MoD. The report, presented to the select committee yesterday, disclosed that a number of unnamed Fo

Action against some individuals was "certain", Mr Mottram told the all-party committee. The military personnel could face courts martial. Civil servants could face a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Defence as early as next week. Three senior civil

Mr Mottram said the "lead department" being investigated was that of the Surgeon-General, and the most senior person responsible for passing incorrect information to the minister's private office was a Service officer of one-star rank, which is a brigadie

The Surgeon-General at the time of the inquiry, Vice-Admiral Anthony Revell, retired last week and has been replaced by Air Vice-Marshal John Baird. Another senior official from the department, a civil servant, is also understood to have retired recently.

Mr Soames reacted angrily when Bruce George, Labour MP for Walsall South, asked if the Surgeon-General was "being fitted up" and made into a scapegoat. "The suggestion is outrageous and I resent it," the minister said.

The MPs on the committee, which has been examining the MoD's actions in dealing with allegations of Gulf War syndrome, asked why Mr Soames had not taken personal steps to investigate the possibility that organophosphates had been used in the Gulf after co

Mr Soames said he usually had a good "nose" for trouble but he had had a huge workload and other pressing things on his mind, including Bosnia and Northern Ireland.

There had been "no cover-up", he said, but for some reason the officials had not made proper inquiries about use of organophosphates.

Mr Mottram said that during his 28-year Civil Service career, he could not remember such a serious failure in the system.

The report said that during 1995, certain military and civilian staff knew that troops might have bought pesticides locally, including organophosphates, but no further investigations were made. By early June 1996, military and civilian officials knew that