The Hindu : Blair admits his job is at `risk'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 26, 2004

International

International

Blair admits his job is at `risk'

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, JAN. 25. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has admitted that his job will be on the line if the Hutton inquiry report, to be published on Wednesday, finds that he `lied' over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction but he insisted that the intelligence he had at that time was `genuine'.Mr. Blair's remarks came amid growing pressure on him to reconcile his intelligence claims with the disclosure by the U.S. official, David Kay, who quit as head of the Iraq Survey Group at the weekend saying that Iraq did not have stockpiles of WMDs . The former Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, who resigned from the Cabinet over his opposition to the Iraq war, asked Mr. Blair to stop fudging and admit that he got it wrong. "It is becoming rather undignified for the Prime Minister to continue to insist he was right all along when everybody can now see he was wrong,'' he said.

As the political atmosphere hotted up, the Opposition renewed its demand for an independent judicial inquiry into allegations that Mr. Blair exaggerated the threat from the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, to make the case for war. An opinion poll showed that nearly 60 per cent of people believed that Mr. Blair should resign if he or his staff were criticised in the Hutton report.

The report will deal with the circumstances leading to the death of the weapons expert, David Kelly, who committed suicide after being named as the source of a controversial BBC report accusing Downing Street of "sexing up'' intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. The Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, and Mr. Blair's former communications chief, Alastair Campbell, are reported to have been sent letters by Lord Hutton warning them that they are likely to be criticised in the report. The fact that Mr. Blair has not received such a letter is seen as good news in loyal circles, but in an interview with The Observer he acknowledged that his job was at `risk'.

,,,,,,,,,,Asked if it was a matter of integrity, he said: "Of course. The Conservative leader in particular has accused me lying over weapons of mass destruction, as far as the report touches on these issues it will be important,'' he said. About his Government's intelligence claims over Iraq's WMDs, Mr. Blair said: "I can only tell you I believed the intelligence we had at the time...I have absolutely no doubt at all in my mind that the intelligence was genuine.'' But he was uncertain whether any weapons would ever be found.

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