Britain's Tony Blair cleared the second hurdle of his toughest week in power on Wednesday when a judge said the Prime Minister bore no blame for the suicide of a top Iraq weapons expert. Blair seized on his all-clear, which came hours after a damaging revolt in Parliament, but with his party restive, Iraq policy under fire and voters losing faith, Blair can ill afford to gloat ahead of an expected 2005 election. ‘‘It’s only a limited victory,’’ Blair biographer Anthony Seldon said. ‘‘Everything is now to play for.’’ Summing up an inquiry that has dominated British politics for months, senior judge Lord Hutton said he was satisfied ‘‘there was no underhand strategy’’ by Blair’s officials in the outing of scientist David Kelly. Kelly was the source of a BBC report that Blair had ‘‘sexed up’’ the case for war in Iraq: a fundamental charge that helped undermine Blair’s standing with the public. Hutton branded the thrust of the BBC allegation over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as ‘‘unfounded’’, prompting a bullish Blair to demand that his detractors apologise. ‘‘The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on WMD is itself the real lie,’’ Blair told Parliament. Kelly’s suicide put a human face on a war policy that pitted Blair against most voters. His death last year in a deserted field was an act that Hutton said nobody could have predicted. ‘‘I do not consider there was any plan or strategy for the Prime Minister and the officials at 10 Downing Street to bring this (leak of his name) about,’’ the judge said. ‘‘There was not a dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous strategy on the part of the Prime Minister.’’ On Tuesday, the premier narrowly averted defeat at the hands of his restive Labour Party over a key plank of domestic policy. Blair, who won office in 1997 promising ‘‘things can only get better’’, can now claim to have survived his worst challenge in six years — albeit at a steep cost. ‘‘Blair clearly has been exonerated. But the question of WMD is still with him,’’ Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University said. ‘‘The debate about the Iraq war is still going to be with him. The argument inside the Labour Party about the reform of public services is still going to be with him, the rebellious nature of his MPs is still going to be with him. ‘‘And the government is less popular than it was.’’ Since the centrist 50-year-old was elected by a landslide, he has seen his authority diminished and ratings plunge. Facing disquiet in his party and country at large, Blair must mount an aggressive comeback before the next election, expected in 2005, to regain his Midas touch at the polls. Most Britons remain sceptical over his decision to wage war in Iraq and the persistent failure of inspectors to find the banned weapons that he used to justify the US-led invasion. Nor are his own team all on side. Rebels in the Centre-Left Labour party are determined to keep up the pressure after Blair only narrowly survived Tuesday’s 316-311 vote on education. The win may prove pyrrhic for a man with a 161-seat majority, as emboldened rebels are now vowing renewed assaults over everything from asylum policy to parliamentary reform. Along with clearing Blair, Hutton took aim at the British Broadcasting Corporation. He rubbished as unfounded a BBC broadcast alleging the government ‘‘sexed up’’ intelligence on Iraq’s illegal weapons to justify its unpopular war stance. He labelled the public broadcaster’s editorial system ‘‘defective’’. Director General Greg Dyke said the BBC accepted it had made false allegations in some of its broadcasts and apologised. Hutton said the Ministry of Defence, where Kelly worked, was ‘‘at fault’’ over aspects of his naming, while an aide to the premier was castigated as ‘‘wholly improper’’ for comparing the dead scientist to fictional fabulist Walter Mitty. — (Reuters) •BBC apologises, chairman Davies puts in papers •Sexing up: Blair gets off, BBC gets it left and right • Hutton’s who’s who
