July 7, 2003	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 6,1424

LONDON, July 6: British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a Sunday newspaper interview, accused the BBC of having committed “an attack on my integrity” by reporting that he and his staff embellished a report on the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to war.

Speaking to the Observer on the eve of a House of Commons foreign affairs committee report on the way the government took Britain to war, Blair held back from demanding an apology from the public broadcaster.

But he said: “If people make a claim and it turns out to be wrong, they should accept it is wrong.”

“Look, as far as I am concerned, the issue of what the BBC has done, I take it as about as serious an attack on my integrity as there could possibly be. The charge is untrue and I hope that they will accept that,” he said.

“I think they should accept it. That is all I am going to say.”

BBC radio reported in late May, as Blair was visiting British troops in Iraq, that a September dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction was “sexed up” despite reservations among intelligence chiefs.—AFP