Hutton not Blair's Watergate - Bernstein

Carl Bernstein said Hutton had not fatally damaged Tony Blair

The inquiry into the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly has been branded "Blair's Watergate" by at least one Labour MP.

But legendary journalist Carl Bernstein, who uncovered the scandal that toppled US president Richard Nixon in 1974, told the BBC there were big differences between the two cases.

"This I think is perhaps about the diminution of Tony Blair, but it's not about a criminal prime minister," he told BBC Breakfast.

"Nixon was a criminal president who ordered break-ins and fire-bombings, undermined the American electoral process, and presided over a cover-up in which burglars were paid for their silence.

"This is about policy, and perhaps altering some intelligence findings, perhaps to suit policy goals, and that's quite different."

Wide-ranging

The Hutton Inquiry was set up on the orders of Mr Blair, following Dr Kelly's apparent suicide after he was named as the source behind a BBC report that intelligence on Iraq was "sexed up" to make a case for war.

This is about whether or not intelligence was manipulated... there is some real indication that it was Carl Bernstein

Mr Bernstein said the inquiry, although having an apparently quite limited remit to investigate events leading up to Dr Kelly's death, had in fact proved wide-ranging.

"This is really about policy. This is about how did we go to war in Iraq."

It was also, he said, about whether or not intelligence was manipulated, both in the United States and in the UK.

"There are some real indications that it was, on both sides of the Atlantic. The degree to which is debatable.

"Obviously this war's not turned out exactly as its planners had hoped, and that makes it more difficult for both George Bush and Tony Blair."

Bush under fire

Similar questions were being asked in the US of Mr Bush, he said, where there was a "lot of concern" about why the war began, and the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction.

The claim that Saddam Hussein had had weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent danger had "closed the sale" for war with the US public, he said.

Is the president having problems because of [Iraq]? Yes Carl Bernstein

And the fact that none had so far been found had "weakened the position" of both leaders.

"At the same time, as somebody who was expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein just before the last Gulf War for what I reported, it's a complicated situation.

"There was also considerable intelligence about the dangers that he posed, so it's not an easy call by any means."

Mr Bernstein said it was up to the public to debate whether or not intelligence was manipulated.

'Glossing over'

"In the US I think it's quite evident that intelligence was manipulated, that it was miscast to some extent.

"Prime Minister Blair insisted that it wasn't.

"There certainly seems to have been some glossing-over, and some rearrangement, of what those intelligence findings were.

"The degree to it and the intent of it is something for people to debate."

Mr Bernstein said no US president would have dared to initiate such an inquiry, "because of the danger of it spinning out of control once another individual is able to preside over this event".

WATERGATE IN BRIEF Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein revealed that president Nixon authorised a 1972 break-in at the Watergate Hotel, the rival Democrat's HQ Their information came from a single source, called Deep Throat, who remains unidentified It caused a huge scandal which led to Nixon's resignation in 1974 Nixon 'personally ordered break-in'

"That's exactly what seems to be happening here," Mr Bernstein said.

"Mr Blair does not control this event, as we've seen by this week's testimony. And I think the testimony has been somewhat damaging."

Mr Bernstein said Mr Blair had not entirely managed to establish his integrity at his appearance at the inquiry on Thursday.

"From what I know, and I don't live here, he's got a way to go," he said.

"The one similarity between Watergate is that Nixon made the conduct of the press the issue, rather than the conduct of himself and his men.

"I think the prime minister has done something of the same here, making the conduct of the BBC the issue, rather than the conduct of the Blair government.

"That's always a mistake... people see past that and they want to know about policy, not about the press."