The only poodle I like withstood scrutiny again.
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Today's NY Times:
January 28, 2004
Judge Clears Blair of Wrongdoing in Scientist's Suicide
By TERENCE NEILAN
A senior British judge today cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government of any involvement in the suicide of a scientist who revealed information about Iraqi weapons to the BBC, saying no one could have foreseen he would take his own life.
The judge also castigated the BBC for a report saying that the government had exaggerated, or "sexed up," an intelligence dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in order to bolster support for the Iraqi war. The BBC claim, which the judge said was unfounded, had called Mr. Blair's integrity into question and presented him with a political crisis.
Soon after the report by the judge was made public today, BBC News 24 reported that the chairman of the publicly funded British news organization, Gavyn Davies, had resigned. The BBC also apologized for some of its reporting in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq.
Mr. Blair, who appointed the judge, Lord Hutton, to investigate the suicide of the scientist, David Kelly, later said in Parliament that he accepted the report in full.
Referring to weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Blair said, "The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on W.M.D. is itself the real lie."
Dr. Kelly, an expert on Iraqi weapons, slit his wrists after being identified as the anonymous source of the information in a report by a BBC correspondent, Andrew Gilligan.
Lord Hutton, reading from a 328-page decision in a hushed courtroom scene that was carried live on national television, said: "I am satisfied that none of the persons whose decisions and actions I later describe ever contemplated that Dr. Kelly might take his own life. I'm further satisfied that none of those persons was at fault in not contemplating that Dr. Kelly might take his own life."
He added: "Whatever pressures and strains Dr. Kelly was subjected to by the decisions and actions taken in the weeks before his death, I am satisfied that no one realized or should have realized that those pressures and strains might lead him to take his own life."
Lord Hutton also said Dr. Kelly had acted improperly by meeting with Mr. Gilligan, breaching rules regarding government employees' contracts and failing to get permission for the meeting from his superiors.
In criticizing the BBC report, the judge said it had been "shown to be unreliable."
He added that "the allegations reported by Mr. Gilligan on 29 May 2003, that the government probably knew that the 45-minutes claim was wrong before the government decided to put it in the dossier, was an allegation that was unfounded."
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