Blair: I accept responsibility

The Guardian UK 4.30pm update
Blair: I accept responsibility
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Thursday August 28, 2003

Tony Blair today accepted overall "responsibility" for the decision to announce that a government official had admitted talking to the BBC's Andrew Gilligan - sparking the media chase that unmasked David Kelly.
However, Mr Blair said after that point the matter was handed over to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). He also said he would have resigned if Gilligan's claim that No 10 had "sexed up" the September dossier on Iraq had been true.

Seemingly passing the buck back to Geoff Hoon, the beleaguered defence secretary who gave evidence yesterday, the prime minister said that after agreeing to put out an MoD statement he moved on to other matters, and it then became a "personnel matter" for the MoD.

Giving evidence to the Hutton inquiry, Mr Blair said: "I was really not sure what the right way to handle this issue was, but I knew that we should not be in a situation where we could be accused of misleading the foreign affairs select committee [FAC]."

Mr Blair added that he was not trying to shirk his responsibility as prime minister and insisted: "The responsibility is mine, at the end of the day. I take the decision as prime minister but I wanted to be able to say that we had played it by the book."

He added that if the BBC's allegations had been true, "it would have merited my resignation".

But Mr Blair could not answer why one of his own lobby spokesmen said MoD procedures had been followed - when in fact no procedures to cover such "an unusual set of circumstances" existed.

On day 11 of the Hutton inquiry - with hundreds of anti-war protesters, journalists and armed police alike bringing the Strand to a virtual standstill - Mr Blair said he was in a "quandary" after Dr Kelly came forward to his MoD bosses.

He was faced with possible accusations of impropriety if he did not pass the name on to the two committees investigating the government's case for the Iraq war, but did not have enough information to be sure Dr Kelly was indeed Gilligan's source.

In the end a decision was taken to release the press statement through the MoD, Mr Blair assuming that this would prompt the FAC and the intelligence and security committee (ISC) to call Dr Kelly. After that, he said, he was "content that it should carry on being handled by the Ministry of Defence, which they did".

On the repercussions for Dr Kelly, the prime minister told the inquiry that he understood there was a "certain robustness" about the government scientist, but agreed that his sudden appearance in the media spotlight was "very unpleasant".

He denied point blank that he knew of any unhappiness in the intelligence community with the contents of the government's September dossier, but revealed that he and Jack Straw did not publish it earlier for fear it would "inflame the situation".

MoD statement

The prime minister said he did not know if it was unprecedented for a government department to put out a press statement like the one from the MoD announcing that an unnamed official had come forward.

"I would certainly say it was an extremely difficult and unusual set of circumstances and hugely complicated by the timing of the information about the source," he said.

Mr Blair said it had come as the FAC was preparing to publish its report and that it was certain that they would be suspicious about the timing.

He said the question then was "how do we then proceed. You cannot conceal this information".

He said there was a discussion and the consensus was that Sir David Omand, the government's security coordinator, should inform the committees before "making public the fact that the source had come forward".

Asked why it was thought necessary to make this public, Mr Blair said there had been some surprise that it had not already come out "and we thought it was likely to come out".

He said it was felt that once the information was copied to the FAC, the committee would want to interview Dr Kelly.

Mr Blair said his concern was that this information should not be concealed but that it was "out there so no one could say afterwards 'well, this was something you people were trying to cover up or conceal from a House of Commons committee'."

He agreed that it would have been "improper" to withhold the information from the FAC.

Mr Blair also said that he had not been involved in any further meetings relating to Dr Kelly after July 8.

"As far as I was concerned, the issues that I was really concerned about would be dealt with."

At that stage he was also "immensely busy with things coming up", including a "whole series of foreign leaders coming here", and his forthcoming speech to the US Congress.

Calm and straightforward

But, in a calm and straightforward testimony - in stark contrast to Mr Hoon's evasive and opaque performance yesterday - Mr Blair did face a sticky moment at the end of his 2 hours and 20 minutes of evidence.

On July 21, three days after Dr Kelly's body was found, Mr Blair's official spokesman briefed the lobby that Dr Kelly's case had been dealt with in accordance with "Ministry of Defence procedures".

James Dingemans QC asked Mr Blair if there were in fact any procedures to deal with such situations. Mr Blair said: "No, obviously not. But you know this was a very unusual set of circumstances."

'A certain robustness'

Asked by Lord Hutton why David Kelly could not simply have been named by the government, Mr Blair replied that his brought up other dangers, such as the media naming the wrong person as Mr Gilligan's source.

Mr Blair added: "But in my view there was no way of avoiding the fact we could not keep this information private."

He added: "Therefore there was some discussion of how Dr Kelly was and how he would be.

"Obviously, one looks back on this with a different perception but the best I can say is there was nothing that struck me that 'there is a problem here'."

He said his understanding was that there was "a certain robustness" to Dr Kelly.

Frantic

The prime minister said that he could not recall when he first was made aware of Dr Kelly's name - whether on the Thursday July 3 or the next day.

Recalling a frantic weekend of phone calls and faxes at his Chequers country home, Mr Blair revealed that his first impression on learning that the MoD had a potential source was to "keep this information to ourselves at that point".

Mr Blair said he was "in a quandary right from the beginning" because having been told of an MoD source, he was uncertain whether to pass that information on to the FAC - whose report was due out the following Monday.

Mr Blair said he had "not enough information to make a decision" and was awaiting further information from Sir Kevin Tebbit, the permanent secretary at the MoD.

However after a story in that Saturday's Times, which gave further clues to Dr Kelly's identity, he said that contingency plans - as yet unspecified - were made to be "ready to move if this news leaked".

Mr Blair said: "This thing was washing around the media. [It] could come out at any point."

By the Sunday, and with a second letter from Sir Kevin not having guaranteed Dr Kelly's identity as Gilligan's single source, Mr Blair told the inquiry he wanted to "proceed in a way Sir David Omand and Sir Kevin Tebbit were entirely content with".

He was quick to insist he was not passing responsibility, however.

Foreign affairs select committee

Mr Blair came under strong questioning from Lord Hutton as to why, in order to prove that the BBC story was wrong without involving Dr Kelly, he did not simply pass on earlier drafts of the September dossier which included the 45-minute claim to the FAC.

Mr Blair responded: "John Scarlett and the joint intelligence committee took the view that that was not the right thing to do.

"In their view there was a limit to what should be shown to the FAC."

In fact the prime minister revealed that he was against the idea of the FAC inquiry from the start.

He said: "I did not, right at the beginning, think the FAC were the right people to deal with it." Mr Blair also said he was "not keen" because the FAC might split down party lines and that he was "worried about the precedent about No 10 officials appearing".

'Complete ownership'

He repeated that Mr Scarlett and the joint intelligence committee (JIC) had complete ownership of the dossier as "it was vitally important when I stood up in parliament I could say absolutely clearly: 'Look, this was the work of the JIC'".

Although he admitted that he told Mr Campbell "what specific points should be in it" he said he was more worried about his statement to parliament, than his foreword to the dossier which included the 45-minute claim.

But he insisted to the inquiry that there was "not improper weight given to any aspect of that intelligence".

He said that at the time he had no knowledge of Dr Kelly's involvement in the construction of the September dossier and could not recall whether he was first told Dr Kelly's name on Thursday July 3 or Friday July 4.

Campbell v the BBC
He declared he was aware of Mr Campbell's ongoing war of correspondence with the BBC to get an apology, although not the "specific points" of his letters.

The prime minister also revealed for the first time that he had an "entirely private" conversation with the BBC chair of governors, Gavyn Davies, but the two men could not come to an agreement over any apology.

On the day of Gilligan's broadcast, May 29, Mr Blair said he had been in Basra but revealed he "may have" got a transcript of the story.

Intriguingly, Mr Blair twice incorrectly claimed that Gilligan's story said his source was "in charge of drawing up the document", an exaggeration of the original claim that he was "one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier".

Mr Blair defended Tom Kelly, the spokesman who likened the row with the BBC to a "game of chicken", but insisted of the controversial phrase: "I don't quite know what he means by what he is saying there."