Shanghai — British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday that he did not authorize the identification of a weapons inspector as the source for a British Broadcasting Corp. report questioning the honesty of a government dossier on Iraqi weapons.
The inspector, David Kelly, killed himself last week following his interview by a parliamentary committee and after being identified by the British Ministry of Defence as a possible source. The BBC subsequently confirmed that Dr. Kelly had been its source for the report.
"I did not authorize the leaking of the name of David Kelly," Mr. Blair told reporters on a flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong.
The Ministry of Defence would not reveal who authorized Dr. Kelly's identification, saying it preferred to wait for the judicial inquiry into his suicide.
"We are not speculating about that at all," the ministry said, adding that it would "co-operate fully" with the inquiry.
Journalists have said that the ministry offered to confirm or deny to journalists whether they had guessed the correct name, and Dr. Kelly's name quickly became public.
The BBC had infuriated the government with a report in May quoting an unidentified source as questioning the statement in the September dossier that Iraq was poised to deploy some chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes.
The BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, subsequently said his source had accused Mr. Blair's communications director, Alastair Campbell, of insisting on including the claim despite the skepticism of some intelligence officials.
Mr. Blair, who based his case for military action in Iraq on the threat of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, has been under increasing pressure as weeks have passed with no weapons being found.
"In terms of the security of the world and the suffering of the Iraqi people, it is better to be rid of Saddam Hussein," Mr. Blair told students earlier Tuesday at elite Tsinghua University in Bejing.
He said coalition inspectors in Iraq were still looking for evidence of programs to make weapons of mass destruction, but added, "I have no doubts that Iraq was trying to develop these weapons."
