A senior British judge said yesterday that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government did not act in a "dishonorable, underhand or duplicitous" way in its handling of a British expert on Iraqi weapons who committed suicide.
Appeals judge Lord Hutton strongly criticized the BBC for inaccurately reporting that Blair's government had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's weapons before the war with intelligence information it knew to be exaggerated or unreliable. The judge said the BBC report was unfounded, and he criticized BBC editors and officials for failing to fully investigate after the government had complained about it.
The nationally televised decision by Hutton after gathering months of evidence regarding the death of weapons expert David Kelly appeared to exonerate Blair after the biggest crisis of his seven years in office. The BBC report had challenged his integrity and the case he had made for British forces joining the war against Iraq.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Hutton sharply criticized the publicly funded BBC's "defective" handling of BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan's story, saying the network's editors had failed to properly check his allegations and did not properly investigate the government's complaints about his report.
Hutton criticized the governors of the BBC for failing to make their own detailed investigation to discover whether Gilligan's notes supported his report.
"If they'd had done this, they would probably have discovered that the notes did not support the allegation that the government probably knew that the 45-minutes claim was probably wrong," Hutton said.
Hutton criticized the board "for failing to give proper and adequate consideration to whether the BBC should publicly acknowledge that this very grave allegation should not have been broadcast."
The BBC report had claimed that a government statement that Iraqi forces could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was based on false intelligence that officials knew was unreliable. The report suggested the government "sexed up" or exaggerated its claims about Iraqi weapons to boost the case for war at a time when many people in Britain opposed going to war.
Blair's government denounced the report and demanded a retraction, setting off a huge public dispute with the nation's largest broadcaster.
Critics had accused the government and Blair personally of cynically exposing Kelly to massive media scrutiny, thereby contributing to his death. Kelly's body was found near his home in a rural area in July, his left wrist slashed.
Hutton said the government acted "reasonably" in confirming Kelly's identity after he told his superiors he was probably the source of Gilligan's story. Kelly, however, denied telling Gilligan that the 45-minute claim was false.
The judge said the government would have been guilty of a cover up if it had tried to conceal Kelly's identity.
"The issuing of the statement was not part of a dishonorable or underhand or duplicitous strategy to leak Dr. Kelly's name covertly in order to assist the government in its battle with the BBC," Hutton said.
While largely exonerating the government's handling of the matter, Hutton said Ministry of Defense officials could have given Kelly more help when they confirmed his identity to the media. But Hutton said Kelly was an intensely private man and "not easy to help."
The judge agreed with an expert witness at the inquiry that a loss of self esteem and feelings of hopelessness and despair might have contributed to Kelly's suicide.
Hutton said he was satisfied that nobody involved in the matter could have foreseen that Kelly would take his own life after he was named as the anonymous source of the controversial BBC report.
"I am satisfied that none of the persons whose decisions and actions I later describe ever contemplated that Dr. Kelly might take his own life. I'm further satisfied that none of those persons was at fault in not contemplating that Dr. Kelly might take his own life," Hutton said.
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