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CNN Live At Daybreak

Tony Blair on Hot Seat

Aired August 28, 2003 - 06:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Weapons of mass destruction. They are forcing the British prime minister into the hot seat. Tony Blair is now testifying before the British version of a congressional committee on the death of a British scientist and if it had anything to do with sexed-up claims of weaponry.
Live to London now and Robin Oakley.

Has the prime minister begun testifying yet?

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Carol. Tony Blair arrived about half an hour ago here at the Royal Courts of Justice. Plenty of protesters out to greet him, and plenty of members of the public, too, who have been queuing overnight, sleeping in sleeping bags, in order to get a place in the court to see this political drama unfolding.

And so far in the first half hour of questioning, Tony Blair has been taken fairly gently, it has to be said, through the compilation of that controversial dossier last September making the case for the weapons that Saddam Hussein had. And that, of course, impinges on the death of Dr. David Kelly, because the weapons scientist was the source of BBC stories saying the government had sexed-up that dossier, particularly with the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of biological and chemical weapons that he could deploy at 45-minutes' notice.

So far, Tony Blair has said that he was aware of the efforts by his communications director, Alastair Campbell, to strengthen the language in that dossier, and Tony Blair has said that was a perfectly legitimate process. He didn't know the precise detail of it, but it was a legitimate process, so long as the intelligence community, the chairman of the joint intelligence community, as he put it, retained ownership of that document.

So, Tony Blair is saying the British government hasn't done anything wrong in the compilation of that dossier. He has been supported in that by the chief intelligence man in Downing Street already in evidence to the inquiry. He's saying there was no illegitimate use of intelligence information in the compilation of that dossier.

And so far, he's come through it fairly comfortably, but there's a lot of questioning to come about his potential role in the circumstances leading to the death of Dr. David Kelly, how much was Downing Street and Tony Blair involved in the naming of Dr. Kelly and pushing him out for a public grilling by a Commons investigative committee, putting him under a strain, which apparently led to his death -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Robin Oakley reporting live from London this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired August 28, 2003 - 06:07   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Weapons of mass destruction. They are forcing the British prime minister into the hot seat. Tony Blair is now testifying before the British version of a congressional committee on the death of a British scientist and if it had anything to do with sexed-up claims of weaponry.
Live to London now and Robin Oakley.

Has the prime minister begun testifying yet?

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Carol. Tony Blair arrived about half an hour ago here at the Royal Courts of Justice. Plenty of protesters out to greet him, and plenty of members of the public, too, who have been queuing overnight, sleeping in sleeping bags, in order to get a place in the court to see this political drama unfolding.

And so far in the first half hour of questioning, Tony Blair has been taken fairly gently, it has to be said, through the compilation of that controversial dossier last September making the case for the weapons that Saddam Hussein had. And that, of course, impinges on the death of Dr. David Kelly, because the weapons scientist was the source of BBC stories saying the government had sexed-up that dossier, particularly with the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of biological and chemical weapons that he could deploy at 45-minutes' notice.

So far, Tony Blair has said that he was aware of the efforts by his communications director, Alastair Campbell, to strengthen the language in that dossier, and Tony Blair has said that was a perfectly legitimate process. He didn't know the precise detail of it, but it was a legitimate process, so long as the intelligence community, the chairman of the joint intelligence community, as he put it, retained ownership of that document.

So, Tony Blair is saying the British government hasn't done anything wrong in the compilation of that dossier. He has been supported in that by the chief intelligence man in Downing Street already in evidence to the inquiry. He's saying there was no illegitimate use of intelligence information in the compilation of that dossier.

And so far, he's come through it fairly comfortably, but there's a lot of questioning to come about his potential role in the circumstances leading to the death of Dr. David Kelly, how much was Downing Street and Tony Blair involved in the naming of Dr. Kelly and pushing him out for a public grilling by a Commons investigative committee, putting him under a strain, which apparently led to his death -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Robin Oakley reporting live from London this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.