The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has ruled out resignation over accusations that his government hounded a former UN weapons inspector to death in a vicious row over the case for war in Iraq.
"You've got to have broad shoulders in this job. I've got them," Mr Blair said yesterday on a tour of Asia overshadowed by the crisis over the suicide of Dr David Kelly, a microbiologist and expert on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme who was employed by Britain's Ministry of Defence.
Speaking to Sky News television, a defensive Mr Blair also rejected suggestions that he should rush home or recall parliament from its summer break to debate what drove Dr Kelly (59) to slit his wrist in woodland near his Oxfordshire home on Thursday. Two days earlier Dr Kelly had faced a grilling in parliament over his possible role as a Ministry of Defence "mole" who gave the BBC a story that Mr Blair's communications chief, Mr Alastair Campbell, had "sexed up" a September dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons.
The BBC allegation that Mr Campbell exaggerated intelligence to indicate Saddam could mobilise weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes is at the centre of claims that Mr Blair misled the British public and parliament over the case for war.
Dr Kelly's death has left Mr Blair (50) facing the biggest political crisis of his six-year rule and turned his foreign trip into a nightmare.
After a rapturous reception in the United States for his support on Iraq, the PM heard the news about Dr Kelly on the flight to Japan. Ignoring calls from radical members of his own party to resign, Mr Blair urged people to wait for the results of a judicial inquiry and said he would accept responsibility if there was any wrongdoing by members of his administration.
"In the end, the government is my responsibility," he said.
In an unseemly blame game over Dr Kelly's death, critics of the government say it put him under intolerable pressure by making him face the limelight in an effort to discredit the BBC report and therefore clear Mr Campbell and Mr Blair.
But there was criticism of the BBC, too, which refused to confirm whether or not Dr Kelly was the "mole", thus heightening the media frenzy around him.
"If any good comes of what happened to Dr Kelly - a man of fantastic public-spiritedness - it should lie in some timely reflection on the way people are treated when they wittingly or unwittingly stray into the public glare," said Mr Peter Mandelson, Mr Blair's former media adviser and a former Northern Ireland secretary.
"But we also need to make this tragedy into a point of change in the poisonous and destructive relationship that has developed between politicians and the media."
Dr Kelly's family issued a statement echoing sentiment among many Britons that the whole "Westminster Village" world of London politics and media should examine its conscience.
"Events over recent weeks have made David's life intolerable and all of those involved should reflect long and hard over that fact," the relatives said.
Many British media were asking the same question yesterday as a reporter at a news conference in Japan on Saturday: "Have you got blood on your hands, Mr Prime Minister?"
At the parliamentary hearing where he was branded a "fall guy" by some interrogators, Dr Kelly acknowledged speaking to a BBC reporter, but denied making the most damaging 45-minute claim.
On Sunday a correspondent for the Sunday Times who described himself as a friend of Dr Kelly's said the scientist told him he believed he was in fact the source for the report. If Dr Kelly was the source but denied the 45-minute claim, it would strengthen the Blair government's counter-accusation that BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan had maliciously exaggerated his report.
But the Sunday Times correspondent also said Dr Kelly told him he felt betrayed by the Ministry of Defence for failing to keep his identity secret. Adding to the intrigue, The New York Times said Dr Kelly had e-mailed a reporter, describing "many dark actors playing games". - (Reuters)