So what happens now if someone provides proof Blair embellished the Iraq dossier?
From the NY Times
Blair Says He Would Have Quit if BBC Iraq Report Had Been True
By WARREN HOGE
LONDON, Aug. 28 ? Prime Minister Tony Blair said today that he would have resigned had there been any truth to a BBC report that his government had embellished an intelligence dossier on Iraq with dubious information.
Giving evidence to the judicial inquiry into the death of the weapons expert identified as the BBC's source, Mr. Blair said he viewed the report, broadcast on May 29, as "an absolutely fundamental charge" that went beyond the area of permissible dissent to attack his integrity.
"It is one thing to say we disagree with the government, we should not have gone to war," Mr. Blair said. "People can have a disagreement about that. But if the allegation had been true, it would have merited my resignation."
The report said Mr. Blair's aides had "sexed up" the dossier on Iraqi arms by inserting the claim that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons that could be deployed within 45 minutes of an order being given. The BBC report further said that the aides had known the claim to be false and forced it into the document over the objections of intelligence chiefs.
The BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, followed up the broadcast with a column in a Sunday tabloid identifying Mr. Blair's closest aide, the director of communications and security, Alastair Campbell, as the person who had ordered the insertion of the 45-minute claim.
On Tuesday, John Scarlett, the senior intelligence figure who wrote the dossier, said the BBC story was "completely untrue." The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee last month absolved Mr. Campbell of the report's central charges after taking testimony from him and Mr. Gilligan.
Mr. Blair said that the government had repeatedly sought to obtain a retraction of the story, but that the BBC had refused to admit error.
Gavyn Davies, the BBC chairman, who followed Mr. Blair to the witness chair today, said the network believed that it had been right to put the source's comments into the public arena even if his charges were not "intrinsically true."
The BBC report in May and the column added fuel to Britain's already bitter debate over the failure to find any unconventional weapons in Iraq and the possibility that the government had exaggerated the threat of Saddam Hussein's arsenal to justify going to war. The controversy sent Mr. Blair's popularity plummeting to the lowest points since he came to power six years ago. Polls indicate that the public no longer trusts him to tell the truth.
The argument came to a boil last month when David Kelly, a former United Nations weapons inspector and adviser to Britain's Defense Ministry, was identified as the probable source of the BBC report. He was subjected to harsh questioning before a parliamentary committee and, three days later, found dead with his wrist slashed, apparently a suicide, on a path near his home.
Within hours Mr. Blair set up an independent inquiry, headed by a senior judge, Lord Hutton, and said he would appear as a witness if called. The hearings have ranged beyond examining what role the government played in the circumstances leading to Dr. Kelly's death to embrace the question of whether the government misled the public as its tried to overcome popular opposition to military action in Iraq.
Mr. Blair said today that his government felt it had an obligation to make public as much of its worries over Iraq's weapons as it could in answer to "an enormous clamor" for information. He said that his office's involvement in the preparation of the 50-page dossier concerned only its presentation, and that he had directed that the content had to be fully based on intelligence and approved by Mr. Scarlett.
He disputed the view that publishing the intelligence had been aimed at justifying war. "At that stage the strategy was not to use the dossier as the immediate reason to go to conflict," he said, "but as the reason why we had to return to the issue of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction."
He denied that there had been any exaggeration. "I think we described the intelligence in a way that was perfectly justified," he said.
Mr. Blair was also asked about his role in making public the name of Dr. Kelly after the weapons scientist had told officials at the Defense Ministry that he had had a conversation with Mr. Gilligan, the BBC reporter, a week before the damning report was broadcast, and that he believed that Mr. Gilligan had misstated the information.
Mr. Gilligan also called his source a ranking intelligence person involved in producing the dossier, an inflation of Dr. Kelly's position and role.
The ministry, seeing a way of discrediting the report, disclosed Dr. Kelly's name to reporters and sent him before the Foreign Affairs Committee to answer questions in a televised grilling during which he appeared uncomfortable and overwhelmed.
Mr. Blair made no apologies for the way the government had handled Dr. Kelly, saying it had proceeded "by the book" to avoid any appearance of covering up.
From the NY Times
Blair Says He Would Have Quit if BBC Iraq Report Had Been True
By WARREN HOGE
LONDON, Aug. 28 ? Prime Minister Tony Blair said today that he would have resigned had there been any truth to a BBC report that his government had embellished an intelligence dossier on Iraq with dubious information.
Giving evidence to the judicial inquiry into the death of the weapons expert identified as the BBC's source, Mr. Blair said he viewed the report, broadcast on May 29, as "an absolutely fundamental charge" that went beyond the area of permissible dissent to attack his integrity.
"It is one thing to say we disagree with the government, we should not have gone to war," Mr. Blair said. "People can have a disagreement about that. But if the allegation had been true, it would have merited my resignation."
The report said Mr. Blair's aides had "sexed up" the dossier on Iraqi arms by inserting the claim that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons that could be deployed within 45 minutes of an order being given. The BBC report further said that the aides had known the claim to be false and forced it into the document over the objections of intelligence chiefs.
The BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, followed up the broadcast with a column in a Sunday tabloid identifying Mr. Blair's closest aide, the director of communications and security, Alastair Campbell, as the person who had ordered the insertion of the 45-minute claim.
On Tuesday, John Scarlett, the senior intelligence figure who wrote the dossier, said the BBC story was "completely untrue." The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee last month absolved Mr. Campbell of the report's central charges after taking testimony from him and Mr. Gilligan.
Mr. Blair said that the government had repeatedly sought to obtain a retraction of the story, but that the BBC had refused to admit error.
Gavyn Davies, the BBC chairman, who followed Mr. Blair to the witness chair today, said the network believed that it had been right to put the source's comments into the public arena even if his charges were not "intrinsically true."
The BBC report in May and the column added fuel to Britain's already bitter debate over the failure to find any unconventional weapons in Iraq and the possibility that the government had exaggerated the threat of Saddam Hussein's arsenal to justify going to war. The controversy sent Mr. Blair's popularity plummeting to the lowest points since he came to power six years ago. Polls indicate that the public no longer trusts him to tell the truth.
The argument came to a boil last month when David Kelly, a former United Nations weapons inspector and adviser to Britain's Defense Ministry, was identified as the probable source of the BBC report. He was subjected to harsh questioning before a parliamentary committee and, three days later, found dead with his wrist slashed, apparently a suicide, on a path near his home.
Within hours Mr. Blair set up an independent inquiry, headed by a senior judge, Lord Hutton, and said he would appear as a witness if called. The hearings have ranged beyond examining what role the government played in the circumstances leading to Dr. Kelly's death to embrace the question of whether the government misled the public as its tried to overcome popular opposition to military action in Iraq.
Mr. Blair said today that his government felt it had an obligation to make public as much of its worries over Iraq's weapons as it could in answer to "an enormous clamor" for information. He said that his office's involvement in the preparation of the 50-page dossier concerned only its presentation, and that he had directed that the content had to be fully based on intelligence and approved by Mr. Scarlett.
He disputed the view that publishing the intelligence had been aimed at justifying war. "At that stage the strategy was not to use the dossier as the immediate reason to go to conflict," he said, "but as the reason why we had to return to the issue of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction."
He denied that there had been any exaggeration. "I think we described the intelligence in a way that was perfectly justified," he said.
Mr. Blair was also asked about his role in making public the name of Dr. Kelly after the weapons scientist had told officials at the Defense Ministry that he had had a conversation with Mr. Gilligan, the BBC reporter, a week before the damning report was broadcast, and that he believed that Mr. Gilligan had misstated the information.
Mr. Gilligan also called his source a ranking intelligence person involved in producing the dossier, an inflation of Dr. Kelly's position and role.
The ministry, seeing a way of discrediting the report, disclosed Dr. Kelly's name to reporters and sent him before the Foreign Affairs Committee to answer questions in a televised grilling during which he appeared uncomfortable and overwhelmed.
Mr. Blair made no apologies for the way the government had handled Dr. Kelly, saying it had proceeded "by the book" to avoid any appearance of covering up.
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