LONDON — A senior judge Wednesday exonerated Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government of charges that they knowingly used false intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq. But the judge castigated another British institution, the BBC, for airing an "unfounded" allegation that the Blair government had "sexed up" its case for war.
The chairman of the BBC, Gavyn Davies, resigned within hours of Lord Brian Hutton's report. Davies' head may be only the first to roll in a cathartic moment for the publicly chartered but fiercely independent news organization that permeates British life.
The 328-page report by Hutton, who was appointed by Blair, came after a series of public hearings following the July 17 suicide of government biological weapons scientist David Kelly.
Kelly, a former United Nations arms inspector in Iraq, slashed his left wrist and bled to death after government officials released his name as the source of reports by a BBC journalist that accused the Blair government of exaggerating evidence about Iraq's weapons. Kelly's family and friends said the respected scientist had become despondent after the disclosure.
The bottom line of Hutton's report was that the Blair government had acted honorably, had been falsely accused, and the BBC was the most to blame in the events before Kelly's death.
Hutton stopped short of directly blaming any party for Kelly's suicide, saying no one involved could have reasonably anticipated it. Moreover, Hutton did not attempt to answer the larger issue of whether the government's intelligence for going to war was faulty.
The long-awaited report had been expected to deal at least a minor blow to the sagging political fortunes of the prime minister, who has been accused by critics of overselling the Iraq war and -- because no weapons of mass destruction have been found -- needlessly engaging Britain in a conflict from which there is no easy exit.
While the deeply unpopular war was expected to continue to exact a political cost for Blair, the report marked the second time in two days in which the prime minister avoided a major setback. On Tuesday, he won a 316-311 vote in Parliament on a bill to increase university tuition, fending off a revolt within his own Labor Party.
Blair and his former communications director, Alastair Campbell, were on the offensive Wednesday following the report's release, saying that the government had been totally vindicated and calling for public apologies from their accusers.
"The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this house or deliberately misled the country ... is itself the real lie," Blair said in Parliament. "I simply ask that those who have made it and those who have repeated it over all these months now withdraw it, fully, openly, and clearly."
It was not clear whether he was speaking of his political opponents in the Conservative Party or the BBC. Conservative leader Michael Howard continued to suggest in the House of Commons that Blair may have unduly massaged intelligence findings, and issued no retraction of past criticisms.
Greg Dyke, director-general of the BBC, issued a statement acknowledging that parts of its reporting about a September 2002 government dossier had been incorrect.
"The BBC does accept certain key allegations reported by Andrew Gilligan on the 'Today' program on May 29 last year were wrong and we apologize for them," Dyke said.
"However we would point out again that at no stage in the last eight months have we accused the prime minister of lying, and we have said this publicly on several occasions."
The censure of the BBC could affect more than just its personnel. Blair mentioned in Parliament that the corporation's special charter, dating from 1922, comes up for renewal in 2006. Some took that as a veiled threat that the BBC's special legal status could be altered and it might have to submit to independent regulation as do other media outlets, rather than be controlled by its board of governors.
In his news reports, Gilligan, a defense correspondent who had met with Kelly on May 22 at a London hotel and used him as a principal source, said the government had "sexed up" its dossier to the public to make the case that Saddam Hussein's regime posed an imminent threat.
Gilligan's most damning accusation was that the government had put a claim in the dossier that its intelligence experts knew was probably untrue: that Hussein's regime could deploy weapons of mass destruction in just 45 minutes.
Hutton said Gilligan's notes from his meeting with Kelly, written into his palm computer, did not back up the accusation.
