Blair takes the hot seat in Britain's Iraq-war affair

British Prime Minister Tony Blair confronts perhaps the most awkward moment in his tenure Thursday when he faces a public inquiry set up to investigate the death of a British scientist at the center of allegations that the government exaggerated the case for war against Iraq.

Mr. Blair can expect to be grilled on his role in theaffair, which started in May with a British Broadcasting Corporation report accusing his government of overstating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's arsenal, and ended two months later with a civil servant committing suicide.

Blair is the highest-profile figure yet to testify in an extraordinary saga that goes to the heart of his motives for war and that has reflected poorly on just about everyone involved - from BBC journalists to government spin doctors, defense-ministry mandarins, and at least one cabinet minister.

For Blair, Britain's longest-serving Labour prime minister with almost 6-1/2 years of service, the appearance marks the start of what many expect to be a difficult new political season. While experts expect Blair to pull through the inquiry relatively unscathed, his domestic agenda is in danger of being totally eclipsed by the affair.

Public opinion has turned on Blair, particularly as no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq since the war ended. A recent poll found 61 percent of people believed the BBC claims that the case for war was hyped up.

"Public opinion doesn't trust Blair," says David Baker, a lecturer in politics at Warwick University, adding that the affair has undermined his efforts to move ahead with other controversial policies, such as holding a referendum on adopting the euro. Momentum on a euro vote has stalled, he adds, because "no one trusts anyone [in government] any more."

The inquiry was set up by Blair himself and run by leading judge, Lord Hutton, to get to the bottom of the July 17 death of Dr. David Kelly, an expert in Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.

Dr. Kelly committed suicide just a week after he was exposed by government officials as the source behind an inflammatory BBC report that alleged that Blair's staff had "sexed up" intelligence in a key dossier produced last fall, in order to beef up the case for war against Iraq.

The chief question in the inquiry is whether the government acted honorably and properly in allowing Kelly's name to dribble out to the press, exposing him to the full force of public scrutiny.

Following his exposure he was subjected to a humiliating parliamentary grilling, and days after that he was dead, incapable, his family says, of dealing with the pressure.

The government official suspected of offering the scientist up as sacrificial lamb, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, told the inquiry Wednesday that Kelly had been "outed" to avoid charges of a coverup and to set the record straight.

But Lord Hutton will also want to know about Blair's role in Kelly's "outing."

Page: 1 | 2