He said the company considered the deal “genuine business” at the time but that, with the “benefit of hindsight”, the firm would not have taken part in the deal. A spokesman for the MoD's International Military Services said he could not comment as no staff from 1991 were on the payroll and no documents from then existed.

Mick Napier of the Stop The War Coalition said: “How can we support a government which says it's against mass murder when its record is one of supporting and supplying Iraq? This government depends on public mass amnesia.”

Tommy Sheridan, leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, said: “The evidence of British armament companies, with central government support, arming the ‘Butcher of Baghdad’ lays to rest the moral garbage spewed from the British government. It exposes the fact that Britain, along with America, France and Russia, armed Saddam to the teeth while he was butchering his own people."

Labour MP Tam Dalyell said: “What the Sunday Herald has printed is of huge significance. It exposes the hypocrisy of Blair and Bush. The chickenhawks who want war were up to their necks in arms deals. This drives a coach and horses through the moral case for war.”