Blair aide used Iraq expert in bid to defeat BBC

Explicit diary notes of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's media chief showed yesterday he had hoped to use a weapons expert to win a furious row with the BBC over claims the government hyped the case for war on Iraq.

The expert, David Kelly, killed himself in July shortly after he was named as the source of the BBC report. His suicide and the inquiry into his death have plunged Mr Blair's government into the worst crisis of Mr Blair's six-year rule.

Mr Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's outgoing communications director, wrote in his diary that he and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon wanted to exploit Dr Kelly's admission that he spoke to BBC radio journalist Mr Andrew Gilligan to undermine his report.

Although he was a respected bio-warfare expert, Dr Kelly was not the senior member of Britain's intelligence services who the BBC claimed as the source for its report that the government had "sexed up" a September dossier on Iraq's weapons.

Officials hoped identifying Dr Kelly would help the government. "In government circles it was recognised that it would assist them to have Dr Kelly's name out?" asked James Dingemans, counsel for the inquiry.

"That was my view," Mr Campbell responded, on his second appearance before the inquiry, which ends on Thursday.

He added that he was "very angry and frustrated" at the BBC's failure to retract its allegation and he was aware the claims, being repeated in the world press, would damage Mr Blair.

The diary entries appeared to contradict repeated insistence by Mr Hoon and other government officials that they had tried to shield the softly-spoken scientist from the spotlight.

Mr Hoon, also under cross-examination, admitted he had approved a decision to confirm Dr Kelly's identity to any journalist who put the correct name to his ministry's press office.

But he was also adamant that the Ministry of Defence had protected Dr Kelly's anonymity.

Hoon is seen as the government's most likely "fall guy" for the Iraq debacle but he came out fighting yesterday, even accusing counsel for Dr Kelly's family of misleading witnesses.