Blair Cleared in Death of Weapons Expert

28/01/2004| IslamWeb

Britain's Tony Blair cleared the second hurdle of his toughest week in power Wednesday when a senior judge said the prime minister's office bore no blame for the suicide of a top Iraq weapons expert. Summarizing the conclusions of his lengthy inquiry, Lord Hutton told a hushed courtroom he was satisfied "there was no underhand strategy" by Blair's officials to expose scientist David Kelly's name. The leaking of Kelly's name was one of the factors believed to have driven him to commit suicide last year, and the area where Blair was most at risk of censure from Hutton. "I do not consider there was any plan or strategy for the Prime Minister and the officials at 10 Downing Street to bring this about," the judge added. Hutton's all-clear came hours after the 50-year-old premier narrowly averted defeat at the hands of his restive Labor Party over a key plank of domestic policy. Blair, who won office in 1997 promising "things can only get better," can now claim to have survived his worst challenge in six years -- albeit with a steep cost to his authority. In further good news for Blair, Hutton said a BBC broadcast allegation that the government had exaggerated intelligence on Iraq's illegal weapons in a dossier last September had no basis. "I considered the allegation was unfounded as it would be understood by those who heard the broadcast to mean that the dossier had been embellished with intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable, which had not been the case." BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan reported last year that Blair's government inserted a claim Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes, knowing it to be wrong. But less happily for Blair, Hutton said the Ministry of Defense was "at fault" for not telling Kelly it would confirm his name to journalists. And the judge added that Kelly himself was not an easy man to help or advise. Kelly's death put a human face on a war policy that pitted Blair against most voters and helped undermine public trust in his once-commanding leadership. **BLAIR'S TROUBLES NOT OVER*** Sterling -- which has wobbled along with Blair's authority -- pushed broadly higher as news of the government's reprieve from Hutton emerged. But Blair's troubles are far from over. The centrist elected by a landslide in 1997 has seen his authority diminished and trust ratings plunge. Facing disquiet in his party and country at large, Blair must mount an aggressive comeback before the next election, expected in 2005, if he is to regain his Midas touch at the polls. Most Britons remain skeptical over Blair's decision to wage war in Iraq and the persistent failure of inspectors to find the banned weapons that he used to justify the U.S.-led invasion. Nor are his own team fully on side. Rebels in the center-left Labor party, which Blair rescued from electoral wilderness with his 1997 landslide, are determined to keep up the pressure. "He's won the battle, but the war's not over," politics professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, told Reuters. Tuesday, Blair only narrowly survived a 316-311 vote on education in the most serious revolt he has faced to a core domestic policy. The result was a deep embarrassment to a leader with a 161-seat majority in the House of Commons, and emboldened rebels are vowing renewed assaults over everything from asylum policy to parliamentary reform. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair leaves Downing Street for the House of Commons in London, January 28, 2004. (Peter Macdiarmid/Reuters)