London ? Prime Minister Tony Blair escaped harsh criticism in an official inquiry into prewar intelligence on Iraq, which faulted him Wednesday for informal decision-making and pushing available intelligence to the limit, but found no deliberate distortions.

Blair said he took full, personal responsibility. But he told parliament, “No one lied, no one made up the intelligence” after the much-awaited report was released.

The commission — headed by Lord Butler, a retired civil service chief — found prewar Iraq had no usable stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and that British intelligence was flawed, unreliable and incomplete. The five-member commission interviewed Blair, senior Cabinet figures and key intelligence officials.

But while criticizing Blair’s “informal” governing style, it absolved him of misleading the public over Iraq, a charge that has dogged the prime minister since he took Britain into the U.S.-led war.

Butler’s judgment vindicates the British government of some of the harshest charges against it.