I will resign if found lying: Tony Blair

London, January 11: British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday that he would resign if an imminent report into the suicide of a government expert on Iraq finds that he lied about the incident.

Senior Judge Lord Hutton is due to publish his report into the death of weapons expert David Kelly in coming weeks and is likely to apportion some blame to the government for Kelly's death, which rocked Blair's premiership last year.

Kelly killed himself in July after the government outed him as the source of a BBC report that claimed Blair had inflated the threat from Iraq's armament to justify the conflict.

His death and the Hutton inquiry unleashed months of speculation about Blair's role in driving Kelly to kill himself and about the primary reason given for the US-led Iraq war — its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The rest of the story -

Asked if he stood by the principle that a minister should resign if found lying, Blair told the BBC Television, "Of course."

"These are very serious allegations that the Conservative Party and parts of the media are making against the prime minister," Blair said in an interview.

He added that he was "enthusiastic" about the chance to confront his opponents over the Hutton report. Blair's critics accuse him of lying over the Kelly affair.

Ministry of Defence official Sir Kevin Tebbit told the Hutton inquiry that Blair had chaired a meeting where it was decided to make a statement clarifying the government's position — a move that led to Kelly's exposure.

Days after Kelly's death, Blair emphatically denied authorising the leaking of the scientist's name to the media. The Iraq war and Kelly's suicide last year plunged Blair into the worst period of his premiership as his critics took him to task over the failure to find any banned weapons in Iraq.

Blair's popularity and public trust ratings sank. Blair said that Hutton's findings will be final and pledged that he would not "hide away" from a debate with his opponents on the report.

"What the judge finds will be of huge persuasive importance for the public, for parliament and I hope for the media," Blair said. "It's final.

I think speculation comes to an end with the report."

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Blair's role in driving Kelly to kill himself

It's amazing to me how the Left twists logic so SUVs kill their occupants, guns kill everything and now a Prime Minister drove another person to suicide.

But then Clinton could never have driven Foster to suicide, much less to the park, could he?

It's amazing to me how the Left twists logic so SUVs kill their occupants, guns kill everything and now a Prime Minister drove another person to suicide.

Exactly. It was Kelly who tried, and evidently succeeded though not lethally---yet, to stab Blair in the back, not the other way around. Kelly killed himself when his skullduggery was found out. Certainly not because he righteously exposed a lie.

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